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A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

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Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#21

Post by guiambros »

woodruffw wrote: post #8

It's not 50k (more like $50), but I have a similar story with Stellar. I was one of the (thousands of?) people who Keybase/Stellar/mysterious parties decided to gift some of their tokens to. I tried to transfer them to a provider with my bank information, and immediately flushed them into /dev/null because I didn't understand the separate sequences of numbers that I was supposed to provide. I wasn't exactly upset, bu…

> It's not 50k (more like $50)

Uh? LINK is currently at $13.65 [1]. x 4,005 tokens = $54,668

EDIT: I misread; parent was speaking of their own loss of $50, not correcting the original article's accuracy.

[1] https://www.coinbase.com/price/chainlink

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#22

Post by tomcam »

birdperson77 wrote: post #16
dheera wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose I'll be downvoted for this but my unpopular opinion is that I feel like the voting problem is solvable with some combination of decentralized and cryptographic tech. It's just that the people who can solve it don't want to solve it.

I'm not sure it is solvable. Voting has to satisfy two requirements: 1) Votes must be private and anonymous (i.e. not linked to your identity) 2) Voting must be secure It's easy to satisfy either one of these requirements, but currently impossible to satisfy both.

Pieces of paper in big boxes work pretty well, especially when they are enclosed in a sealed envelope with return address information for verification in case of fraud accusations.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#23

Post by trickstra »

birdperson77 wrote: post #16
dheera wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose I'll be downvoted for this but my unpopular opinion is that I feel like the voting problem is solvable with some combination of decentralized and cryptographic tech. It's just that the people who can solve it don't want to solve it.

I'm not sure it is solvable. Voting has to satisfy two requirements: 1) Votes must be private and anonymous (i.e. not linked to your identity) 2) Voting must be secure It's easy to satisfy either one of these requirements, but currently impossible to satisfy both.

I would argue that the paper voting doesn't satisfy both conditions either. And while putting a paper in a box is vividly understandable to the average voter, whatever happens to the vote after that point isn't, as evident by the number of people believing that a Texas lawsuit may overturn Michigan election results.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#24

Post by ekam »

guiambros wrote: post #21
woodruffw wrote: post #8

It's not 50k (more like $50), but I have a similar story with Stellar. I was one of the (thousands of?) people who Keybase/Stellar/mysterious parties decided to gift some of their tokens to. I tried to transfer them to a provider with my bank information, and immediately flushed them into /dev/null because I didn't understand the separate sequences of numbers that I was supposed to provide. I wasn't exactly upset, bu…

> It's not 50k (more like $50) Uh? LINK is currently at $13.65 [1]. x 4,005 tokens = $54,668 EDIT: I misread; parent was speaking of their own loss of $50, not correcting the original article's accuracy. [1] https://www.coinbase.com/price/chainlink

The $50 refers to their own story not the one mentioned in the article

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#25

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

woodruffw wrote: post #8

It's not 50k (more like $50), but I have a similar story with Stellar. I was one of the (thousands of?) people who Keybase/Stellar/mysterious parties decided to gift some of their tokens to. I tried to transfer them to a provider with my bank information, and immediately flushed them into /dev/null because I didn't understand the separate sequences of numbers that I was supposed to provide. I wasn't exactly upset, bu…

That's a different situation. Those Stellar tokens didn't go into /dev/null. They went into the hands of Coinbase, they're just not crediting you. It's not that they can't do anything about it, they just aren't.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#26

Post by tdons »

birdperson77 wrote: post #16
dheera wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose I'll be downvoted for this but my unpopular opinion is that I feel like the voting problem is solvable with some combination of decentralized and cryptographic tech. It's just that the people who can solve it don't want to solve it.

I'm not sure it is solvable. Voting has to satisfy two requirements: 1) Votes must be private and anonymous (i.e. not linked to your identity) 2) Voting must be secure It's easy to satisfy either one of these requirements, but currently impossible to satisfy both.

Define 'secure'?

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#27

Post by iJohnDoe »

There is a portion of my brain that might never be able to comprehend digital currency with real money. It’s possible I’m not incapable of understanding it.

All I’ve ever heard are exchanges that are so grossly incompetent that I would never even think about engaging with. Months of waiting for verification that never happens. Waiting for transfers that never happen.

Uploading passports and drivers licenses to an exchange, and bank account information, to only think that 6 months from now there will be a breach and all my information is downloaded by criminals. It’s a full stop to not even consider proceeding.

I would love to know how someone can convert Bitcoin or other digital currency to millions of USD that are capable of hitting a bank account, that can be spent at the local grocery store.

I watched as Bitcoin became a thing and never even considered touching it because I didn’t even remotely wanted to be associated with criminals using it for drugs and other illegal stuff.

Anyways, digital currency is just so bizarre to me.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#28

Post by bawolff »

dheera wrote: post #13
captn3m0 wrote: post #9

I'm never trusting software for two things: 1. Voting 2. Irreversible transactions

I suppose I'll be downvoted for this but my unpopular opinion is that I feel like the voting problem is solvable with some combination of decentralized and cryptographic tech. It's just that the people who can solve it don't want to solve it.

Its an active research area, there are proposals like helios https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting which check some of the boxes but aren't perfect . I'm sure cryptographers would love to come up with a fully scalable, trustless, verifiable, anonomous, coercion resistant system. But that's a hard set of properties to satisfy especially if nothing is in the physical world.

If you allow physical voting places, then just make a machine that gives a paper recipt and do risk limiting audits. Problem solved.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#29

Post by h_anna_h »

tomcam wrote: post #22
birdperson77 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is solvable. Voting has to satisfy two requirements: 1) Votes must be private and anonymous (i.e. not linked to your identity) 2) Voting must be secure It's easy to satisfy either one of these requirements, but currently impossible to satisfy both.

Pieces of paper in big boxes work pretty well, especially when they are enclosed in a sealed envelope with return address information for verification in case of fraud accusations.

Having the return address information on voting envelopes is a simple way to destroy deniability. Now you can prove who voted X if you have access to the envelopes.

Re: A Crypto User Sent $50k to a Smart Contract. It's Gone Forever

#30

Post by captn3m0 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #14
woodruffw wrote: post #8

It's not 50k (more like $50), but I have a similar story with Stellar. I was one of the (thousands of?) people who Keybase/Stellar/mysterious parties decided to gift some of their tokens to. I tried to transfer them to a provider with my bank information, and immediately flushed them into /dev/null because I didn't understand the separate sequences of numbers that I was supposed to provide. I wasn't exactly upset, bu…

That's a pain. If you might still be willing to give the _entire_ entire space a try, it's getting easier to participate with services like Coinbase and e.g. XLM-USD trading, which is different from holding XLM. (Is that a cup with handle on the 1D?) Or trading crypto-related stocks, even.

That's just gambling with extra steps.
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