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Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

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Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#21

Post by abakker »

lallysingh wrote: post #13
CJefferson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine blockchains ever satisfying all legal requirements. At some point I expect some court to say "X shares were illegally transferred from person A, give them back". If we don't know where they went, it's impossible on block-chain to give them back, unless we assume the existence of someone who has the rights to make arbitrary changes, at which point there is no point having a blockchain.

Why can't you require that each wallet be signed by a party that identifies the person behind it? Then you find where the money went and you force them to give it back. But I think really the statement of interest is here: > ... at which point there is no point having a blockchain. Lots of people have different reasons for liking block chains. Their reasons may disagree with yours.

Financial transactions between real legal entities probably have no expectation that the transaction should be completely anonymous or trustless. Instead, they probably have expectations that the transaction mechanism can be trusted, and that they have legal recourse to make up the difference. Blockchains probably have very relevant uses, but using them to approximate our existing financial system doesn't seem to be that useful. All of our laws and the current system exist for a reason. I'd bet on supply chain as the corporate/real world workload that makes the most sense. the distribution of the chain actually provides a relevant service in those cases.

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#22

Post by abakker »

grandalf wrote: post #18
a_d wrote: post #2

"What else ticks me off about this, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with issuing stock in your company as tokens on a block chain instead of through brokers on a standard exchange. Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go to the SEC, or whoever the appropriate regulatory authority in your jurisdiction is, and get authorization to issue stock! Hire somebody to implement shareholder voting as block chain trans…

Compliance with what, the whim of officials in any nation?

Yeah, pretty much. You could also think of it as the decisions of the governments of people, who were chose to act in those people's best interests.

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#23

Post by baq »

grandalf wrote: post #18
a_d wrote: post #2

"What else ticks me off about this, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with issuing stock in your company as tokens on a block chain instead of through brokers on a standard exchange. Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go to the SEC, or whoever the appropriate regulatory authority in your jurisdiction is, and get authorization to issue stock! Hire somebody to implement shareholder voting as block chain trans…

Compliance with what, the whim of officials in any nation?

That's usually called the rule of law and it's a hallmark of Western democracies.

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#26

Post by ShabbosGoy »

abakker wrote: post #22
grandalf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compliance with what, the whim of officials in any nation?

Yeah, pretty much. You could also think of it as the decisions of the governments of people, who were chose to act in those people's best interests.

Like China?

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#27

Post by chrisco255 »

Theodores wrote: post #7

On a more day to day level, a few years ago a lot of e-commerce pay-by-bitcoin options existed. You would not put this on the checkout next to PayPal because nobody was doing bitcoin then. What I don't understand is why this never took off. People know bitcoin through the news, it is not new. In this time Apple Pay has come along nicely but not bitcoin. Bitcoin has gone off on a tulips tangent. This seems at odds wit…

I'll take a stab at guessing. I think in order for merchants to be paid in BTC or other crypto, it needs to be instantly converted to cash. Why? Because the value of BTC can swing wildly and retailers can't afford that risk when their margins are low. Also, BTC transactions can take 20 minutes to an hour to confirm sometimes, so that matters too at some level.

I think something like Tether, which pegs its value to the USD, might be a better approach for crypto-based e-commerce. BTC can more easily be converted to Tether, so it would probably work better for everyone involved.

It's just not as well-known yet.

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#28

Post by abrichr »

a_d wrote: post #2

"What else ticks me off about this, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with issuing stock in your company as tokens on a block chain instead of through brokers on a standard exchange. Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go to the SEC, or whoever the appropriate regulatory authority in your jurisdiction is, and get authorization to issue stock! Hire somebody to implement shareholder voting as block chain trans…

Apparently such a system has been developed by the Toronto Stock Exchange:

http://business.financialpost.com/g00/news/fp-street/tmx-dev...

> TMX’s new proxy voting system prototype still needs regulatory approval before it can be tested live, the company said.

Anyone have an idea of how long this might take?

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#29

Post by paulddraper »

a_d wrote: post #2

"What else ticks me off about this, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with issuing stock in your company as tokens on a block chain instead of through brokers on a standard exchange. Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go to the SEC, or whoever the appropriate regulatory authority in your jurisdiction is, and get authorization to issue stock! Hire somebody to implement shareholder voting as block chain trans…

> Ironically, the first "ICO" to do it with full compliance, useful tech and good business model, will be huge.

We're a long ways off on all counts.

Just look transaction rate:

BTC: 4 trans/sec Etherum: 20 trans/sec Visa: 2,000 trans/sec

I'm not saying it's impossible to improve by orders of magnititude, but I don't think it will happen next year or the year after that or the year after that.

Re: Ray Dillinger: If I'd Known What We Were Starting

#30

Post by wyldfire »

lallysingh wrote: post #13
CJefferson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine blockchains ever satisfying all legal requirements. At some point I expect some court to say "X shares were illegally transferred from person A, give them back". If we don't know where they went, it's impossible on block-chain to give them back, unless we assume the existence of someone who has the rights to make arbitrary changes, at which point there is no point having a blockchain.

Why can't you require that each wallet be signed by a party that identifies the person behind it? Then you find where the money went and you force them to give it back. But I think really the statement of interest is here: > ... at which point there is no point having a blockchain. Lots of people have different reasons for liking block chains. Their reasons may disagree with yours.

> Why can't you require that each wallet be signed by a party that identifies the person behind it? Then you find where the money went and you force them to give it back.

And what if they refuse [despite consequences]?

> Lots of people have different reasons for liking block chains. Their reasons may disagree with yours.

I'd say the common/paramount feature is "decentralized, trustless ledger w/distributed consensus." Dillinger talks at length here about how "...the Trustless nature of Bitcoin was the main thing that convinced me Satoshi wasn't scamming." Yes, lots of private things calling themselves a "blockchain" exist. But those all submit themselves to some sort of authority/trust system. And it's likely the case that they do that in order to avoid the problem described.

IMO it's anarchy [good connotation] vs rule-of-law. Crypto-coin/asset systems can be ruled by distributed consensus but this feature is mutually exclusive with state-managed systems. When they intersect or when they're forced to intersect, we end up with an imbalance/mismatch.

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