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Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

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Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#271

Post by mlcrypto »

Barrin92 wrote: post #213
xur17 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental problem of ownership still isn't (and won't be) solved by the existing banking system. Money that you actually own, that you can do whatever you want with (for better or worse).

this isn't a fundamental problem for anyone who isn't caught up in this weird ideologically libertarian crypto cult. Virtually nobody wants to 'actually own' money or do whatever they want with it, they want to buy groceries, pay rent, or put it in their bank account. If people wanted to actually own stuff they'd buy pinephones instead of samsung galaxies.

Well until a few centuries ago nobody wanted to have electricity sent into their houses. The masses don't care until it becomes part of life. It's always the quirky pioneers that care first.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#272

Post by rglullis »

sjy wrote: post #232
rglullis wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In two to three years, Ethereum 2.0 will be using a Proof-of-Stake system and environmental concerns will be no more. > the court can still order the thief to send back the money. What if the court can not find the thief? What if the thief is from another nation? What if the thief is another nation?

I’m sure I remember people saying the same thing about proof of stake 2 – 3 years ago. What’s the hold up?

I am not so sure that people were talking about having PoS already used in 2020. What has been planned was to have the first phase of a PoS on testnets, and this milestone has been hit.

In any case, Ethereum still has a lot of characteristics of a research project. If you follow closely, you start seeing that ideas are explored, some approaches are validated, some are proven impractical, etc. Some delays and hiccups are inevitable. As long as the Ethereum Foundation keeps its transparency and does not overpromise I am fine with it.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#273

Post by [deleted] »

lmeyerov wrote: post #216
Taek wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be that guy but you are vastly underestimating the challenge of formally verifying these software systems. Blockchains are highly adversarial, open source, and doing a lot of innovation. Innovation which means that nobody has ever tried to verify that type of system before. Model checkers can tell you thinks like 'there are no underflows' and 'these two pieces of code are identical', but if you want to know…

For background, I've built verifiers for harder languages, reviewed papers for crypto systems, seen the inside of crypto operations & crypto security startups, and help build software for adversarial, investigative, & high performance scenarios. I'm not an expert in blockchain stuff, but I'm also not unfamiliar with the software challenges. * I would agree that paying consultants to audit contracts is prohibitively e…

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#274

Post by [deleted] »

mlcrypto wrote: post #271
Barrin92 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this isn't a fundamental problem for anyone who isn't caught up in this weird ideologically libertarian crypto cult. Virtually nobody wants to 'actually own' money or do whatever they want with it, they want to buy groceries, pay rent, or put it in their bank account. If people wanted to actually own stuff they'd buy pinephones instead of samsung galaxies.

Well until a few centuries ago nobody wanted to have electricity sent into their houses. The masses don't care until it becomes part of life. It's always the quirky pioneers that care first.

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#275

Post by kinakomochidayo »

keymone wrote: post #13
atarian wrote: post #7

Does anyone else think that Solidity is far too low-level for the purpose it serves? I really don't think connecting to ports (as an example) should be something in a financial contract.

It’s far too everything . Too low level, too high level, bad abstractions, bad syntactic constructs, bad evaluation model. The more I see people burning themselves on “smart contracts” the more I realize how deeply thought through bitcoin’s design is. Creators have thought of so many things in advance, it’s outright creepy.

Well, Bitcoin design WAS well thought out, until Blockstream nerfed it, and pushed its own product, Lightning Network.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#276

Post by perl4ever »

chabad360 wrote: post #138
redahs wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traditional american school of thought on money is that 1) the optimal supply of money is externally determined by the needs of commerce for liquidity, 2) new money can be created to meet the needs of commerce through public loans secured by real property pledged as collateral without any fixed artificial limits on supply 3) money may be circulated with an expiration date to discourage long term hoarding, 4) gene…

I've never heard of 3, I love the idea, but it's literally the first time I've heard of it. Are there any sources that that is indeed a common opinion?

In effect, paper US currency does have an expiration date, because common denominations last 5-8 years. Or so I've read.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#277

Post by taneq »

Waterluvian wrote: post #225
ballenf wrote: post #102

Have a friend who lost more than $12k in the process of buying a house. Scammers sent the wiring instructions a few hours before the legit closing attorney sent the real instructions. The email looked exactly right except for a minor change to the domain name from address. After one hour, wire transfers sent in error are no more recoverable than crypto. How the thieves knew so much about the process and timing is sup…

I wanted it to be convenient and electronic transfer but my lawyer said I’m simply not allowed to. I had to get cheques from my banks and hand deliver them to the lawyer’s office. I’m not sure I fully understand, in retrospect, the desire to shave off inconvenient corners for large life events you do so rarely. I think there’s real wisdom in some of these things being so slow and old school.

> I’m not sure I fully understand, in retrospect, the desire to shave off inconvenient corners for large life events you do so rarely.

Same. I’ve seen people but one car over another just because it was available nearby instead of a half hour bus ride away. How many times in your life do you buy a car that an extra half hour is significant?

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#278

Post by lolinder »

chii wrote: post #260
dheera wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't this be avoided simply by making sure the property owner gives you wiring instructions in person?

or use public key cryptography, and have a verification signature that can only be signed by knowing a secret.

The scam here relies on someone having compromised the network of the company sending the instructions. In that situation, wouldn't you have to assume the intruder found the secret key?

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#279

Post by tenuousemphasis »

lmeyerov wrote: post #114

I can't imagine running (or investing) in a software-based company here without also having an automatic model checking layer for verifying all runs + 24/7 monitoring for disabling any live contract. If you're going to put $10M+, years of your life, and who knows how much customer money into this, why not spend $500K of it so you're running with the blockchain equiv of CI testing? You'd be able to deploy faster , wit…

You can validate your contract all you want, but if it matters in which order executions matter, you're still subject to the whims of the underlying blockchain.

Re: Ethereum Is a Dark Forest

#280

Post by [deleted] »

cryptica wrote: post #153
beervirus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also Facebook, as well as large swaths of Google. A generation of our best and brightest are using their talents to spy on users and get ads into their eyeballs.

And the value of those ads is totally speculative. We live in a 0-utility economy. No wonder Warren Buffet's 'intrinsic value' investment strategy doesn't work anymore. Since the 1970s, the true driver of the economy was the Fed and its reckless borrowers; not workers, not consumers. It took 50 years for rich investors and their descendants to lose touch with reality to the point that they can't tell the difference b…

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