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Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

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Re: Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

#81

Post by zekevermillion »

darawk wrote: post #74
zekevermillion wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I am speaking exactly of the scenario where a dao project curator/contractor is perpetrating a financial crime. In that case, most countries would in fact extradite. If that's even necessary. I mention US laws not b/c I'm in favor of US imperialism but b/c I am familiar with these laws. I'm sure that there are other relevant jurisdictions that would frown upon financial crimes regardless of new age window dressin…

I don't think it's clear that the DAO represents a 'financial crime'. Especially not on the part of the curators. It is an unregulated, unlicensed investment vehicle, but it's certainly not predatory, and especially not on the part of the curators (who are the only arrestable individuals).

The problem as I see it is that a curator could be affiliated with a contractor, and the same person could also hold a large stake of tokens. At some point the dao is not truly decentralized, and the parties with the power to influence voting decisions for their own benefit do not disclose this conflict.

Re: Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

#82

Post by darawk »

zekevermillion wrote: post #81
darawk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's clear that the DAO represents a 'financial crime'. Especially not on the part of the curators. It is an unregulated, unlicensed investment vehicle, but it's certainly not predatory, and especially not on the part of the curators (who are the only arrestable individuals).

The problem as I see it is that a curator could be affiliated with a contractor, and the same person could also hold a large stake of tokens. At some point the dao is not truly decentralized, and the parties with the power to influence voting decisions for their own benefit do not disclose this conflict.

Ya that's certainly a possibility. Of course, in such a situation, the curator could be fired. However, you face the same issue in any publicly traded corporation, but with even less recourse for the shareholders.

Don't get me wrong, even though i'm invested in the DAO a bit, I fully expect there will be serious disasters like this along the way. I'm not blind to how overwhelmingly likely it is that at least some people will run off with at least some of the money they get. But I do think these issues will get shaken out over time. And then we'll simply be left with: is it a good idea to let the wisdom of crowds make investment decisions? (also, likely the answer here is an emphatic: no, but it'll be interesting to find out).

Re: Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

#83

Post by tripzilch »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #39
schwabacher wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point - whether their motivation is purely profit, or altruistic, or whatever - if they do not want to fund a project, they have an incentive not to vote 'No' against it because as soon as they do they can no longer remove their money from the DAO, and have committed to funding the project if it passes.

Maybe you are missing the point? The author conflates an (presumably autonomous) individual's true preference with necessarily increasing the net worth of the DAO. There is no a priori reason to believe that. Edit: you could, like, you know, post a reason to believe the equivalency.

I think .. I believe the point of the featured article was the example:

(given the voter is mainly interested in profit, then) IF a voter thinks that the proposal will yield profits and increase the net worth of DAO: vote yes

but only if their interests align that way. if they don't, obviously their decision will be based on other factors.

the point being, it should be straightforward and obvious to vote yes or no, depending on whether the result of a majority-vote yes or no, would align with your particular interests yes or no.

while that statement seems almost tautological, it's a very desirable requirement for voting systems. I'm not 100% sure on the terminology (it's been a while since I studied it) but it might be called "monotonicity" or something.

the point of the article was that in some cases it would be advantageous to do something different instead of voting yes or no along with your particular interests. in this case that it would be better to split than to vote no, in many cases. that demonstrates the (mathematical/logical) assumption of monotonicity (if it was called that) is violated.

but you only need one example to demonstrate that. so it doesn't quite matter that this is not everybody's incentive, as long as it's a reasonable incentive that people may choose.

I admit the added bit about "increasing the net worth of DAO" raised my eyebrows as well. I just assumed many profit-interests would align with the net worth of DAO, and that it'd be healthy for the system or something (I don't know).

Re: Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

#84

Post by cplease »

gst wrote: post #78
zekevermillion wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I am speaking exactly of the scenario where a dao project curator/contractor is perpetrating a financial crime. In that case, most countries would in fact extradite. If that's even necessary. I mention US laws not b/c I'm in favor of US imperialism but b/c I am familiar with these laws. I'm sure that there are other relevant jurisdictions that would frown upon financial crimes regardless of new age window dressin…

I don't know about the law of other countries, but my home country (Austria) does not extradite its own citizens, no matter what the crime is. However, it is possible that you end up in front of an Austrian court, even if you commited the crime in another country. This will only happen in cases where the crime is actually a crime in Austria. Furthermore, the court will use Austrian law, so US law would be quite irrel…

Austrian citizens are subject to arrest and direct surrender to other EU states under execution of a European Arrest Warrant without extradition, since 2002. See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A3...

Austria did reserve the limited possibility of refusing enforcement of EAWs on its citizen for acts not punishable under Austrian law, but that's it; which is not much different from the optional non-execution provision available to all EU states.

It also has bilateral extradition treaties with other non-EU states including the USA, again, with some reservations for its own citizens. But to say Austria doesn't extradite its citizens is wrong. For most crimes, any other EU state can issue a warrant and have Austrian citizens arrested and summarily removed without any full-blown extradition proceeding.

Re: Ethereum’s $150M DAO Opens as Researchers Call for a Halt

#85

Post by gst »

cplease wrote: post #84
gst wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the law of other countries, but my home country (Austria) does not extradite its own citizens, no matter what the crime is. However, it is possible that you end up in front of an Austrian court, even if you commited the crime in another country. This will only happen in cases where the crime is actually a crime in Austria. Furthermore, the court will use Austrian law, so US law would be quite irrel…

Austrian citizens are subject to arrest and direct surrender to other EU states under execution of a European Arrest Warrant without extradition, since 2002. See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A3... Austria did reserve the limited possibility of refusing enforcement of EAWs on its citizen for acts not punishable under Austrian law, but that's it; which is not much different from the optiona…

That's why I mentioned that I'm not sure about extradition to other EU countries. Extradition of its own citizens to other non-EU countries is currently not possible.

The law for this is "§ 12 ARHG Verbot der Auslieferung österreichischer Staatsbürger" which is part of the Austrian constitution: http://www.jusline.at/12_Verbot_der_Auslieferung_%C3%B6sterr...

https://books.google.com/books?id=0H5XqvUu3B4C provides an English explanation of that law:

1173. Extradition of Austrian nationals is not admissible pursuant to Article 12, paragraph 1 of the ARHG. The authorities mentioned that this provision has the rank of a constitutional provision and, as such, requires a 2/3 majority of Parliament to be amended. Nevertheless, as of January 1, 2009, Austria will be in a position to extradite its own nationals to other EU-Member States in accordance with Section 5 EU-JZG.

1174. Where extradition for ML is denied on the sole ground of nationality, the Austrian courts are competent under Article 65, paragraph 1, no. 1 of the StGB (jurisdiction over acts committed by Austrians abroad) and must conduct the proceedings in the same way as for any other criminal offense under national law. The Austrian courts also have explicit jurisdiction over terrorist acts and terrorist financing when the perpetrator is Austrian (Article 64, paragraph 1, nos. 9 and 10 of the StGB).

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