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The collapse of the IRON stable coin

irony-97882.medium.com

201–210 of 502 posts

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can recommend checking out Reddit’s /r/cryptocurrency and branching out to smaller altcoint subreddits. Read the comments. There are thousands of people just looking for that one weird trick to get rich. As a sidenote, I almost always got out just before a crash by when I was playing with altcoins by waiting for people to get over the top enthusiastic in their subreddit and then selling everything. Might as well ha…

>There are thousands of people just looking for that one weird trick to get rich. Increasingly I think they're the smart ones. I'm sitting here working my butt off for a few thousand dollars a month, while these guys raised hundreds of millions of dollars without even being able to grammar check a sentence. Who's the real sucker?

Don't compare yourself to just the ones that got lucky, that's the big fallacy of trading.

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you both sign a legal contract to obey the outcome of the smart contract then no one owes anything, because the smart contract says that the $200M is gone. Obviously this doesn't allow you get around laws such as warranties but I don't see why it can't be used if everyone agrees to it.

In some cases, perhaps, but not all. Fraud, for example, isn't legal even if you have a cleverly crafted contract that uses wording tricks to technically be true. I would expect a court to take a dim view of a smart contract that has an obfuscated, non-obvious mechanism for someone to siphon off all the money in an undisclosed fashion. "Code is law", but so's "you can't defraud people".

Where’s the part where anybody defrauded anybody? This was clearly incompetence that benefited nobody (certainly the developers would rather not have TITAN implode and all of this USDC locked in a contract...). Embarrassing yes. Fraud? Pretty clearly no

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#203
This may be a stupid question but: is it actually possible to have a price less than zero?

TFA suggests that this line:

    require(_share_price > 0, “Invalid share price”);
...should be "greater than or equal." But if the share price can't be negative then you'd want to just use an unsigned int and not pay for a require statement, right?

Isn't everyone passing around uint256's these days?

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#204
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you didn't look at wikipedia which mentions "the con artist" and "the operator of the scheme" several times. If you're having to google the definition of the term maybe there's still a little more you need to learn about it.

I don't see either of those as at all synonymous with "central actor". I would consider all the founders and early investors who knowingly promote the ponzi scheme as con artists. I google the definition to charitably give your argument the benefit of the doubt. I don't see how you think phrases like the following make for effective communication or a strong argument: > If you're having to google the definition of th…

Why isn't "the operator of the scheme" synonymous with "the central actor?"

Either:

    1. I'm trying to dodge the label "Ponzi scheme" for a reason you haven't provided (maybe you think I have millions invested in this shitcoin?)
    2. This isn't a Ponzi scheme, and you don't know what a Ponzi scheme is
Which explanation is simpler?

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#205

Since the price is not an integer, this is not an “off-by-one” error. No? It was the common mistake of writing `>` when `>=` was intended.

What do you think would be a better name? I kind of agree with you, but then, since it would fit for integers, I can’t think of a better name and could live with some generalization of “off by one”. I’m not a mathematician but maybe something like “off by n; n -> lim 0”

It's a boundary condition error.

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#206
post #55

> Non-collateralized stablecoins require continual growth to be successful. In the event of a price crash, there is no collateral to liquidate the coin back into, and the holder’s money would be lost, as seen with many past projects trying to utilize such design [sic]. Isn’t that just a Ponzi scheme?

It sure sounds like it, new money needed to pay the old money.

A definition so broad it's meaningless. There was no Bernie Madoff here, no fraudulent scheme, just very poor design and outright mistakes.

What you're describing is what they tried (and failed) to avoid. How can you make it to the "I’m wondering if this can last mathematically?" part of this article and still think there's a mastermind behind all of this?

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#207
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bitcoin is a parody of itself completely unusable as a currency, even maximalists cant seriously tell people to use it as such. "cryptocurrency" at this point means less useful than any currency in any mmo

Bitcoin totally failed as a currency, but it's still something. I'm not necessarily arguing Bitcoin is useful or valuable period, but the issue you refer to is more with the "cryptocurrency" name and public conception that that's what all this technology is. The core idea is reliable, secure decentralization and the things it can enable. Coins that support smart contracts show that "cryptocurrency" isn't a great term…

Technically it's a way to keep governments in check but the point isn't that you use an emergency solution all the time.

Homeless people buy a tent as a fallback for a house. That doesn't mean they want to live in a tent for the rest of their lives.

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#208
post #203

This may be a stupid question but: is it actually possible to have a price less than zero? TFA suggests that this line: require(_share_price > 0, “Invalid share price”); ...should be "greater than or equal." But if the share price can't be negative then you'd want to just use an unsigned int and not pay for a require statement, right? Isn't everyone passing around uint256's these days?

unsigned integers cause more problems than the additional range is worth.

If you ever run into negative prices you want them to be negative, not positive in the trillions.

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases, perhaps, but not all. Fraud, for example, isn't legal even if you have a cleverly crafted contract that uses wording tricks to technically be true. I would expect a court to take a dim view of a smart contract that has an obfuscated, non-obvious mechanism for someone to siphon off all the money in an undisclosed fashion. "Code is law", but so's "you can't defraud people".

Where’s the part where anybody defrauded anybody? This was clearly incompetence that benefited nobody (certainly the developers would rather not have TITAN implode and all of this USDC locked in a contract...). Embarrassing yes. Fraud? Pretty clearly no

It's an example of a scenario where you can't sign certain rights away. Not specific to TITAN.

Re: The collapse of the IRON stable coin

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin totally failed as a currency, but it's still something. I'm not necessarily arguing Bitcoin is useful or valuable period, but the issue you refer to is more with the "cryptocurrency" name and public conception that that's what all this technology is. The core idea is reliable, secure decentralization and the things it can enable. Coins that support smart contracts show that "cryptocurrency" isn't a great term…

Technically it's a way to keep governments in check but the point isn't that you use an emergency solution all the time. Homeless people buy a tent as a fallback for a house. That doesn't mean they want to live in a tent for the rest of their lives.

Some people see it that way. And it probably does serve that purpose to some extent in areas with very unstable governments, like some developing countries. But I'm doubtful that by the year 2121 Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency will have kept the US government "in check" in any way. It's not impossible, but I'd heavily bet against it.

They may very well make/adopt some cryptocurrency as the new primary fiat by then, but I kind of see the idea of Bitcoin keeping the US government in check similarly to the idea of gun ownership keeping the US government in check.

Out of curiosity, can you describe an example of how it could potentially serve such a purpose, even in a hypothetical contrived scenario?

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