• DAO likely to become largest crowdfunded project in history ($100m USD+)
    82 replies, posted
So you're a "contractor" in this system and someone pays you in DAO's funbucks, what is their system for actually cashing out of this otherwise unused and useless cryptocurrency to be able to actually buy things? It's got no worth outside of DAO's system as far as I can see, you can't hire anyone with it, you can't rent office space or pay expenses, it's completely useless to the people who the system wants to pay.
[QUOTE=Anti Christ;50319372]i really, genuinely hope you dont actually expect this to work out.[/QUOTE] What other equivalent ideas do you think are worth considering then? I'd say we're sitting on the precipice of a huge advancement in technology and this is just one idea in the space. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what amazing projects are out there that are more worthy of time/attention. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Nerts;50319597]So you're a "contractor" in this system and someone pays you in DAO's funbucks, what is their system for actually cashing out of this otherwise unused and useless cryptocurrency to be able to actually buy things? It's got no worth outside of DAO's system as far as I can see, you can't hire anyone with it, you can't rent office space or pay expenses, it's completely useless to the people who the system wants to pay.[/QUOTE] [url]https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum/trading_exchanges[/url] The current daily volume for Ethereum is ~50,000 BTC which is about $22 million USD.
Read the site up and down, read the thread up and down, [I]what the fuck is this[/I] [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] how do I convert it to USD [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] this site has some useful graphs [t]http://i.imgur.com/SMWVSh7.png[/t]
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50319602[url]https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum/trading_exchanges[/url] The current daily volume for Ethereum is ~50,000 BTC which is about $22 million USD.[/QUOTE] So it's basically just another cryptocurrency, but with a mostly automatic escrow system? [QUOTE=OneFourth;50319646]Read the site up and down, read the thread up and down, [I]what the fuck is this[/I] [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] how do I convert it to USD [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] this site has some useful graphs [t]http://i.imgur.com/SMWVSh7.png[/t][/QUOTE] On a bitcoin exchange apparantly, so you kinda of have to either cash out immediately into something more stable or just hope that it stays stable unless you're betting on the value going up and not down. It inherits all the issues bitcoin's got because you have to go through the exact same processes to actually spend it on real world things that the small businesses it seems to be aimed at need.
[QUOTE=OneFourth;50319646]Read the site up and down, read the thread up and down, [I]what the fuck is this[/I] [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] how do I convert it to USD [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] this site has some useful graphs [t]http://i.imgur.com/SMWVSh7.png[/t][/QUOTE] 1.) Investor sends 100ETH to the DAO project 2.) Investor receives 100DAO tokens from DAO 3.) DAO now has control over 100ETH 1.) Entity/Individual submits a proposal asking for 26.3 ETH and it goes through a voting process of 2-8 weeks. 2.) A curator is assigned/voted on who will be the point of contact for the project. 3.) Once everything is agreed the contract is signed. Potentially project XYZ makes some profit; as part of the agreement they then reinvest some part of the profit back into DAO, benefitting the token holders. So if the next Uber gets created and starts making $10 million profit a month, they might reinvest $1 million USD back into DAO--thereby benefitting the people who invested in it. Also, the exchange rate I cited for DAO:ETH isn't accurate at all. If for some reason you do not want to be a part of DAO anymore, or wish to sell your tokens on the open market you can do so (either for bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, XMR or whatever you want). The daily exchange volume of bitcoin, including Chinese exchanges is somewhere in the region of 5-600 million USD a day. So whether you have bitcoin, ethereum, or DAO you can turn it into cash. For example I had some bills to pay today, so I sent them to a guy in my area on localbitcoins, and he deposited money into my bank account within 5 minutes of receiving my request. If I had DAO and needed to do the same, I'd sent it to an exchange (such as Poloniex) convert it into bitcoin and then change it into money. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] Here is a good write up posted about DAO from a very recently posted article: [quote]While it is actually the detail that is most interesting, I thought I’d devote one article to considering what such a radically different corporate, social, and political organisation might mean in the ongoing struggle for everything from effective global organisation to wealth disparity to net neutrality, privacy, and encryption.[/quote] [quote]This, to me, is the beautiful paradox about the world’s first organisation legitimately built entirely on a blockchain and nowhere else. While it is made of bits of autonomous code (and while Skynet is almost definitely behind it all) it has only been brought into existence as a potent entity by human beings who made a singular decision to take part, and it is these human beings who will benefit from its workings. Code has literally and directly created community, and that community has given the code which made it great power (as it stands $100 million worth of power). It is one of the most virtuous feedback loops I have ever seen. Norbert Wiener would be proud. If you make your way through the list of information above, you will see that not everyone agrees with me. In fact, a man I have great respect for — Stephen Palley — has posted a number of brilliant articles raising some serious legal concerns for organisations of this type. But I want to go further back than this, beyond details to meaning again. The mere fact that I can write ‘organisations of this type’ should indicate to you that what is really occurring here is a paradigm shift in how we think about creating, controlling, and distributing value.[/quote] [quote][b]After all the speculation and nay-saying, one thing is for sure. [u]The DAO exists. And it can never go away.[/u][/b][/quote] source: [url]https://medium.com/@cryptowanderer/watering-the-dao-ba7118bb7a2e#.en8q7qg50[/url]
I'd rather trust a government than a set of board members on a website that could be vulnerable to attack.
[QUOTE=Map in a box;50319920]I'd rather trust a government than a set of board members on a website that could be vulnerable to attack.[/QUOTE] It doesn't really work that way. The board members merely created the software--if the coding is correct and no weaknesses are discovered then it will go on to exist so long as someone on the internet hosts it. So control over the idea goes to the people who have invested $100,000,000 USD in it which has been spread over about 40k transactions. That means the "set of board members" will be something like 20-30,000 people depending on exactly how transactions were done. There will be insider information, scams, and 0 regulation. It also will never close at any time of the day, or close during a public holiday.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320022]It doesn't really work that way. The board members merely created the software--if the coding is correct and no weaknesses are discovered then it will go on to exist [B]so long as someone on the internet hosts it[/B]. So control over the idea goes to the people who have invested $100,000,000 USD in it which has been spread over about 40k transactions. That means the "set of board members" will be something like 20-30,000 people depending on exactly how transactions were done. There will be insider information, scams, and 0 regulation. It also will never close at any time of the day, or close during a public holiday.[/QUOTE] But [b]that's the point[/b]. Somebody hosts it. Somebody controls it. Somebody - not the government, who has a (debatably) vested interest in the public - will be holding millions upon millions of dollars in escrow. If they disappear - as has happened numerous times with bitcoins - the money is gone and nobody can find it again. Who hosts it? Why would they host it? Who are the "board members"? How can we ensure that there is no corruption? How can we ensure that the board members' votes are being fairly counted? We can't. It's technologically impossible. As someone who has studied a lot of securities regulation, there is a [i]reason[/i] that regulation exists, and there is a [i]reason[/i] that there will be more and more regulation until the end of time. If you work with the SEC, you will soon realize that we don't live in a free market world, and that's a good thing for investors. If the SEC disappeared overnight, so would everyone's IRAs, 401ks, and any other investments. The markets would drop into chaos. It would turn into the wild west. And basically, that's what this DAO thing is. It's basically a stock market that works exclusively with untraceable "currency", with a sprinkling of technobabble marketing bullshit on a flashy website. Maybe some hipster moron will build something cool with it. But the big players in today's global economy aren't just going to greet DAO with open arms and welcome this confusing lawless platform into their world. Won't happen. Period. So I don't see this pipe-dream nonsense getting anywhere, sorry.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320022]It doesn't really work that way. The board members merely created the software-[B]-if the coding is correct and no weaknesses are discovered[/B] then it will go on to exist so long as someone on the internet hosts it. So control over the idea goes to the people who have invested $100,000,000 USD in it which has been spread over about 40k transactions. That means the "set of board members" will be something like 20-30,000 people depending on exactly how transactions were done. There will be insider information, scams, and 0 regulation. It also will never close at any time of the day, or close during a public holiday.[/QUOTE] So basically it's a time bomb until someone figures out how to steal everyone's money and the whole thing goes under.
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50320099]Sounds like a scam, it probably is a scam. I guess we'll find out in like 2 years or so![/QUOTE] It's just a plain old investment corporation, except the ones having a say in what is invested into most likely have no clue about investments or what they're investing in. I suspect this will get scammed worse than Kickstarter backers (on stuff like that self-filling bottle), all the while the people putting money into it will congratulate themselves on the 'successful' system. (Seriously though, this isn't a revolutionary system [I]at all[/I]. The only new part is that the blockchain ledger handles the banking proceedings automatically and probably evades a few taxes along the way if it doesn't count as taxable income.)
[QUOTE=Snowmew;50320079]But [b]that's the point[/b]. Somebody hosts it. Somebody controls it. Somebody - not the government, who has a (debatably) vested interest in the public - will be holding millions upon millions of dollars in escrow. If they disappear - as has happened numerous times with bitcoins - the money is gone and nobody can find it again. Who hosts it? Why would they host it? Who are the "board members"? How can we ensure that there is no corruption? How can we ensure that the board members' votes are being fairly counted? We can't. It's technologically impossible. As someone who has studied a lot of securities regulation, there is a [i]reason[/i] that regulation exists, and there is a [i]reason[/i] that there will be more and more regulation until the end of time. If you work with the SEC, you will soon realize that we don't live in a free market world, and that's a good thing for investors. If the SEC disappeared overnight, so would everyone's IRAs, 401ks, and any other investments. The markets would drop into chaos. It would turn into the wild west. And basically, that's what this DAO thing is. It's basically a stock market that works exclusively with untraceable "currency", with a sprinkling of technobabble marketing bullshit on a flashy website. Maybe some hipster moron will build something cool with it. But the big players in today's global economy aren't just going to greet DAO with open arms and welcome this confusing lawless platform into their world. Won't happen. Period. So I don't see this pipe-dream nonsense getting anywhere, sorry.[/QUOTE] I don't think you really understand the concept fully. It's a smart contract--the whole idea is that the money is held by the contract itself. The whole idea behind DAO is that there is no "someone" middle-man. [quote]If the SEC disappeared overnight, so would everyone's IRAs, 401ks, and any other investments. The markets would drop into chaos. It would turn into the wild west. And basically, that's what this DAO thing is. It's basically a stock market that works exclusively with untraceable "currency", with a sprinkling of technobabble marketing bullshit on a flashy website. Maybe some hipster moron will build something cool with it. But the big players in today's global economy aren't just going to greet DAO with open arms and welcome this confusing lawless platform into their world. Won't happen. Period.[/quote] What about the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Didn't that basically prove that all the regulations in the world don't count for shit at the end of the day? What about the book "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis which pretty much shows that no stock broker, banker or pretty much anyone in the financial world actually has any clue how a stock market even works and that they'd been using timing to fuck over each other and scam the common person out of shit tons of money by making false orders and investing in a $300 million, 827 mile long fibre optic cable project that ran through mountains and under rivers to give its investors a 4 millisecond advantage over their competitors. In terms of voting etc--the idea is this is all in the code already. You can already read the rules now. It's the same concept as having a multisig Bitcoin wallet ([url]https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature[/url]) [quote]1-of-2: Husband and wife petty cash account — the signature of either spouse is sufficient to spend the funds. 2-of-2: Husband and wife savings account — both signatures are required to spend the funds, preventing one spouse from spending the money without the approval of the other 2-of-2: One wallet is on your primary computer, the other on your smartphone — the funds cannot be spent without a signature from both devices. Thus, an attacker must gain access to both devices in order to steal your funds (much more difficult than one device) (...) 2-of-3: Buyer-seller escrow: buyer commits money into a 2-of-3 transaction with the seller and a third-party arbitrator. If transaction goes smoothly, then both buyer and seller sign the transaction to forward the money to the seller. If something goes wrong, they can sign a transaction to refund the buyer. If they cannot agree, they both appeal to the third-party who will arbitrate and provide a second signature to the party that it deems deserves it.[/quote] This isn't some far out intergalactic space hippy theory--it exists. And really in terms of corruption/bad actors/fraudulent people... If you avoid ideas solely because of the possibility of shit happening then that is dumb. eBay, PayPal and various other projects over the years show that even if there are a few bad actors it necessarily count for much. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Tamschi;50320139]It's just a plain old investment corporation, except the ones having a say in what is invested into most likely have no clue about investments or what they're investing in. I suspect this will get scammed worse than Kickstarter backers (on stuff like that self-filling bottle), all the while the people putting money into it will congratulate themselves on the 'successful' system. (Seriously though, this isn't a revolutionary system [I]at all[/I]. The only new part is that the blockchain ledger handles the banking proceedings automatically and probably evades a few taxes along the way if it doesn't count as taxable income.)[/QUOTE] Partially correct. There already was lighthouse: [url]https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse[/url] The dev of this apparently said he gave up because the bitcoin blocksize hasn't increased. For voting/crowdfunding there have already been a few other solutions out there such as SWARM (this is pretty much completely dead) [url]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=664071.0[/url] There is also HELIOS for online voting: [url]https://vote.heliosvoting.org/[/url] This is a growing space so there are tons of projects out there. There are lots of failures. There are lots of scams and there is a lot of stupid shit out there. It is also possible that there are some diamonds in the rough.
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50320279]Are you defensive because you've invested into whatever this is? Just take your money to an actual investment guy in real life[/QUOTE] I may invest, I still haven't made a final decision. In 14 hours the price will rise for the first time, so I'm holding off for now. I have invested in a few other projects in the same space and made some wins and losses. defensive =/= discussing things on an internet forum and providing links/references/information. People are pretty dismissive of the idea and most don't seem to really understand it, so to me it is worthwhile to discuss it. It's also a developing story, so I have been keeping up to date on it and reading a lot. Pretty sure that if this was about the world's largest kickstarter for a videogame people would still be just as dismissive because of the atmosphere that surrounds kickstarter.
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50320279]Are you defensive because you've invested into whatever this is? Just take your money to an actual investment guy in real life[/QUOTE] Why are you so agressive and unwilling to actually take time and learn what this is about? I really do not understand why you all have to be so close-minded, this is not some scam, it is based on the blockchain technology which has already proven itself and for example the NASDAQ stock index uses it. Think of torrents as a similar concept - there is no centralised authority which can "hold" the money, and therefore no chance of anyone running off with it or doing some shady things. and no, I am not personally invested in this project, I've never heard of it before this facepunch thread, but I actually understand the concept instead of hurling insults without even taking a look. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] It's essentially a decentralized VC fund, token holders of the fund vote on what it invests in. It invests based on proposal submissions. Also you can always get your investment back without having to jump through hoops, so that's probably the reason why it has gotten so many backers - if they decide otherwise they can always take their money out (until the first investment is approved of course)
[QUOTE=Turing;50320318]Why are you so agressive and unwilling to actually take time and learn what this is about? I really do not understand why you all have to be so close-minded, this is not some scam, it is based on the blockchain technology which has already proven itself and for example the NASDAQ stock index uses it. Think of torrents as a similar concept - there is no centralised authority which can "hold" the money, and therefore no chance of anyone running off with it or doing some shady things. and no, I am not personally invested in this project, I've never heard of it before this facepunch thread, but I actually understand the concept instead of hurling insults without even taking a look. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] It's essentially a decentralized VC fund, token holders of the fund vote on what it invests in. It invests based on proposal submissions. Also you can always get your investment back without having to jump through hoops, so that's probably the reason why it has gotten so many backers - if they decide otherwise they can always take their money out (until the first investment is approved of course)[/QUOTE] whether or not it's a legitimate thing their webpage just feels like a parody of a real thing
[QUOTE=Turing;50320318]Why are you so agressive and unwilling to actually take time and learn what this is about? I really do not understand why you all have to be so close-minded, this is not some scam, it is based on the blockchain technology which has already proven itself and for example the NASDAQ stock index uses it. Think of torrents as a similar concept - there is no centralised authority which can "hold" the money, and therefore no chance of anyone running off with it or doing some shady things. and no, I am not personally invested in this project, I've never heard of it before this facepunch thread, but I actually understand the concept instead of hurling insults without even taking a look.[/QUOTE] Because reading things is difficult and time consuming and most people don't want to spend the time doing so. I mean if they read the website properly they would have noticed this part in the T/C which covers a lot of the criticism. [quote]1. Risk of Security Weaknesses in The DAO’s Software The DAO concept is both experimental in nature and unproven. There is a risk that, as an open source project, any contributor to The DAO’s software could introduce weaknesses or bugs into the DAO software, causing the loss of DAO tokens or ETH in one or more or even all of the DAO Token Holder’s accounts. 2. Risk of Weakness in the DAO underlying blockchain, and/or Ethereum Network The DAO software is itself based on an unproven platform: the Ethereum blockchain. There is a risk that, as an open source project, any contributor to the Ethereum blockchain could introduce weaknesses or bugs into the Ethereum software, causing the loss of DAO tokens or ETH in one or more or even all of the DAO Token Holder’s accounts. 3. Risk of unforeseen attack vectors The field of Digital Cryptography is very new and for this reason, there is a risk of unforeseen attack both in terms of the underlying cryptographic protocol that back the functioning of the DAO as well as 'game theory' related vectors which have not been documented to date. Both these vectors represent a risk that could lead the loss of DAO tokens or ETH in one or more or even all of the DAO Token Holder’s accounts. 4. Regulatory risks Blockchain technology and Ethereum are allowing new forms of interactions between individuals and/or companies, some of them are still to be imagined and implemented. Like with the appearance of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, it is very likely that specific regulations will be set in different jurisdictions targeting blockchain technology and more specifically DAOs. These regulations may or may not be DAO friendly and some might even forbid any relationships between an individual or company and a DAO.[/quote] People have basically agreed to these risks as well as the rest of the terms with $100m USD of investment.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320310]People are pretty dismissive of the idea and most don't seem to really understand it (...)[/QUOTE] Because it's written in such a way that it's very hard for a normal person to understand what it even is. I doubt this will catch on unless they find a better way of explaining their product.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50318851]It depends. It could be a 50% down payment at the beginning, it could be 100% funding from the start, it could 0.00000036% payments every 342 minutes while the contract is running, it could be anything.[/QUOTE] How is this any different than current contracts? Rent a house. You get it for the specified time, usually around a year, and you pay in predetermined quantities at predetermined intervals. Rent serverspace on amazon's cloud. You get charged based on the amount of processing, data, time, disk space, etc that you use.
[QUOTE=paul simon;50320436]Because it's written in such a way that it's very hard for a normal person to understand what it even is. I doubt this will catch on unless they find a better way of explaining their product.[/QUOTE] Here is a good interview explaining it--its an hour and a half long, but its timed up to an interesting part. [hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_7fdmfZY8&feature=youtu.be&t=4825[/hd] The only way to get into any of this is to read, read, read, watch youtube videos and read some more. There are free university courses that explain bitcoin technology; I've done one of these. You also need to develop skills in identifying good/reputable news and information sources. A lot of cryptocurrency development is never laid out nicely and made easily accessible--its usually contained in a 500 page bitcointalk thread or nestled away somewhere. There is a [b]lot of noise[/b] and a [b]lot of shit out there[/b] but there is no way to get into understanding it. Twitter helps a lot in identifying useful pots of information. Slack channels for these various projects are good. Plebbit is ok. Google News, Google, etc are great. I've used computers since I was a kid, day in, day out. I've tried to learn programming like 10-20 times, trying to get into tutorials, reading python books and I still don't get it, but I won't give up until I can program (which admittedly I probably won't be able to because its just something I can't understand).
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]I don't think you really understand the concept fully. It's a smart contract--the whole idea is that the money is held by the contract itself. The whole idea behind DAO is that there is no "someone" middle-man.[/QUOTE] You're not understanding my reservations. A "smart contract" is essentially not a legal contract. You're relying on DAO to actually do its job correctly without fail. There is no organization that manages it. So, if somebody finds a vulnerability, the whole thing goes to shit and there is no way to reverse it. It is also practically unenforceable in a court of law. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]What about the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Didn't that basically prove that all the regulations in the world don't count for shit at the end of the day?[/QUOTE] Oh, hell, every time someone tries to argue about finance regulations, they always point to 2008 being a regulatory failure. Don't tell me about the 2008 crisis like I'm in finance 101. The only reason we are not in a world of shit right now is [i]because[/i] of the regulations that were enacted after we caught it. Without the bailout, we would be nowhere near as recovered as we are now. Do you think this whole DAO thing could react to an exploit like that? No chance. That's why the markets work. That's why [i]regulations[/i] work. Did you even bother reading my reply? [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]What about the book "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis which pretty much shows that no stock broker, banker or pretty much anyone in the financial world actually has any clue how a stock market even works and that they'd been using timing to fuck over each other and scam the common person out of shit tons of money by making false orders and investing in a $300 million, 827 mile long fibre optic cable project that ran through mountains and under rivers to give its investors a 4 millisecond advantage over their competitors.[/QUOTE] I don't think there's a single person in finance right now that doesn't know how high frequency trading works and why it's both hurting and helping the market. On top of that, to argue that nobody knows how the stock market works is a ridiculous oversimplification. The stock market is not this mystical being that nobody understands. Get real. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]And really in terms of corruption/bad actors/fraudulent people... If you avoid ideas solely because of the possibility of shit happening then that is dumb. eBay, PayPal and various other projects over the years show that even if there are a few bad actors it necessarily count for much.[/QUOTE] It's called risk management. I guess I should invest in high-load mutual funds made up of junk bonds because shit might happen but avoiding it would be dumb, right? [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]This is a growing space so there are tons of projects out there. There are lots of failures. There are lots of scams and there is a lot of stupid shit out there. It is also possible that there are some diamonds in the rough.[/QUOTE] My old grad school ran a venture capital fund where we hear pitches from businesses all the time. If we invested in every project that pulled out this bullshit line about "diamond in the rough", we'd be broke. Get with the program. This is an extremely risky investment. There's a reason that they have to rely on taking money from idiots on Kickstarter who don't get a crack at due diligence.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;50320452]How is this any different than current contracts? Rent a house. You get it for the specified time, usually around a year, and you pay in predetermined quantities at predetermined intervals. Rent serverspace on amazon's cloud. You get charged based on the amount of processing, data, time, disk space, etc that you use.[/QUOTE] Siacoin is a good example of a project that actually exists that could potentially kill Amazon Cloud Storage Services. [quote]Sia is a new approach to cloud storage platforms. Instead of all datacenters being owned and operated by a single company, Sia opens the floodgates and allows anyone to make money by renting out their hard drive. Data integrity is protected using redundancy and cryptography. The promise of Sia is a decentralized network of datacenters that, taken together, comprise the world's fastest, cheapest, and most secure cloud storage platform. Today, being a major cloud storage player requires having datacenters, building trust within the market, reaching customers, and competing with giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.[/quote] [url]https://sia.tech/[/url] It has a working beta, its being developed by a few guys in the US and they've done talks at MIT and seem pretty legit. They also have a working client, not some promise of one in the near future, they have a client which does cloud storage and is being constantly improved to a level that most crypto projects cannot compete with. As always you have to read into it to see exactly how it works. If it scales well, and succeeds it'll provide cloud storage without Amazon or any other company needing to take a cut. There are other useful applications out there--wills, marriage/divorce contracts etc. When I die I'm leaving an encrypted will that my family will have the password for. Then they have proof that my will is real, I could also make it public in some form so that no one could attempt to scam it. [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Snowmew;50320517]You're not understanding my reservations. A "smart contract" is essentially not a legal contract. You're relying on DAO to actually do its job correctly without fail. There is no organization that manages it. So, if somebody finds a vulnerability, the whole thing goes to shit and there is no way to reverse it. It is also practically unenforceable in a court of law. Oh, hell, every time someone tries to argue about finance regulations, they always point to 2008 being a regulatory failure. Don't tell me about the 2008 crisis like I'm in finance 101. The only reason we are not in a world of shit right now is [i]because[/i] of the regulations that were enacted after we caught it. Without the bailout, we would be nowhere near as recovered as we are now. Do you think this whole DAO thing could react to an exploit like that? No chance. That's why the markets work. That's why [i]regulations[/i] work. Did you even bother reading my reply? I don't think there's a single person in finance right now that doesn't know how high frequency trading works and why it's both hurting and helping the market. On top of that, to argue that nobody knows how the stock market works is a ridiculous oversimplification. The stock market is not this mystical being that nobody understands. Get real. It's called risk management. I guess I should invest in high-load mutual funds made up of junk bonds because shit might happen but avoiding it would be dumb, right? My old grad school ran a venture capital fund where we hear pitches from businesses all the time. If we invested in every project that pulled out this bullshit line about "diamond in the rough", we'd be broke. Get with the program. This is an extremely risky investment. There's a reason that they have to rely on taking money from idiots on Kickstarter who don't get a crack at due diligence.[/QUOTE] 1. That's the whole point of a smart contract. Less lawyers. You can assign an arbitrator of your choosing. That's what the risk of this whole project is, its very clearly highlighted in multiple place. Yes it could all go to shit 30 seconds after launch of 3 months after launch. 2. If the regulations actually worked shouldn't it have been caught before it actually had such a large effect? 3. You should probably read that book then. It does a pretty good job of explaining it. [quote]The most sophisticated investors didn’t know what was going on in their own market. Not the big mutual funds, Fidelity and Vanguard. Not the big money-management firms like T. Rowe Price and Capital Group. Not even the most sophisticated hedge funds. The legendary investor David Einhorn, for instance, was shocked; so was Dan Loeb, another prominent hedge-fund manager.[/quote] [url]http://qz.com/193653/the-depressing-truth-behind-michael-lewis-flash-boys-even-the-worlds-top-investors-dont-understand-todays-markets/[/url] 4. The risks are clearly laid out on the website, and there are numerous critical articles/voices against the idea of this project--from technological to legal standpoints. What you replied with doesn't even make sense with regards to what I said. eBay, PayPal, Uber, Lyft & AirBnB all prove that an idea can still work in the face of a few bad actors. 5. You don't seem to have any real understanding of what a multikey wallet is, or what arbitration (in this instance) is or even what a smart contract is.
[QUOTE=paul simon;50320436]Because it's written in such a way that it's very hard for a normal person to understand what it even is. I doubt this will catch on unless they find a better way of explaining their product.[/QUOTE] well it's obviously caught on at least a little bit, considering the amount of money that's been added as of now
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]As always you have to read into it to see exactly how it works. If it scales well, and succeeds it'll provide cloud storage without Amazon or any other company needing to take a cut.[/QUOTE] Except it won't (technically [i]can't[/i]) scale well. It's a neat little project that won't get anywhere close to AWS or GAE. Again, another marketing veil that violates basics economics. AWS/GAE is extremely efficient. This isn't. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]There are other useful applications out there--wills, marriage/divorce contracts etc. When I die I'm leaving an encrypted will that my family will have the password for. Then they have proof that my will is real, I could also make it public in some form so that no one could attempt to scam it.[/QUOTE] I can't help but laugh at the overthinking behind an encrypted will. The fact that you genuinely think this is a serious concern worthy of consideration by anyone outside the top 0.01% of financial elites is particularly telling. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]1. That's the whole point of a smart contract. Less lawyers. You can assign an arbitrator of your choosing. That's what the risk of this whole project is, its very clearly highlighted in multiple place. Yes it could all go to shit 30 seconds after launch of 3 months after launch.[/QUOTE] That sounds like a lot of deflection hiding the point that you can't litigate a smart contract because smart contracts aren't contracts. Unfortunately, here in the real world (not made-up Kickstarter startup land) contracts are worth their weight in gold and no executive will so much as take a piss without one. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]2. If the regulations actually worked shouldn't it have been caught before it actually had such a large effect?[/QUOTE] Regulations are usually reactive, rarely proactive. People will always find ways to break them and regulators will always find ways to stop people from using the same exploits. Not so with DAO. If somebody breaks it, it's over. You don't get to fix the problem and try again, and chances are, you will never find the person who broke it (nor be able to prosecute them under, y'know, the real laws that you rely on). This would be the third time I've had to explain this. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]3. You should probably read that book then. It does a pretty good job of explaining it.[/QUOTE] I know how it works. It's no surprise to anyone who has worked in finance in the past decade. The author dumbs down HFT into a story about how IEX-style exchanges are apparently the next big thing, when the SEC still hasn't even authorized IEX to be an exchange. There are so many flaws in the book that it made traders' heads spin. Hardly anyone in the finance world takes it seriously. Lewis doesn't understand HFT beyond what the guys at IEX told him, and IEX is in it for the money. It's marketing for them. Lewis just sensationalized it to the extremes. He wrote the book to piss of people who don't actually understand how HFT (and finance as a whole) works. He is universally known as that guy who rags on HFT and RegNMS, which is why nobody who actually works in HFT will bother to talk to him. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]4. The risks are clearly laid out on the website, and there are numerous critical articles/voices against the idea of this project--from technological to legal standpoints. What you replied with doesn't even make sense with regards to what I said. eBay, PayPal, Uber, Lyft & AirBnB all prove that an idea can still work in the face of a few bad actors.[/QUOTE] Yes, they succeeded. You're also conveniently limiting your viewpoint to successes and ignoring all of the other projects that failed. You're also, again, forgetting that these organizations are actually running the game. They can react to problems. Bitcoin can't. DAO can't. [QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]5. You don't seem to have any real understanding of what a multikey wallet is, or what arbitration (in this instance) is or even what a smart contract is.[/QUOTE] Can you walk into a courtroom with a smart contract and get the judge to award you a judgement against the other party? There's a reason we didn't see cases show up in small claims of people saying they got scammed on Silk Road. Traditional investors won't at all jive with this system. I'm not saying the DAO won't work. I'm just saying it's not at all going to replace traditional markets by any significant measure. On top of that, valuing it at USD$100mm is ridiculously stupid. If you were to exchange all the ETH into USD, you'd crash the market. That's like saying my portfolio of 100mm $1 stocks is worth $100mm. It'd probably hardly be worth half that if I actually cashed it all out. This is a serious thing that large institutional traders have to deal with.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320522]Siacoin is a good example of a project that actually exists that could potentially kill Amazon Cloud Storage Services. [url]https://sia.tech/[/url] It has a working beta, its being developed by a few guys in the US and they've done talks at MIT and seem pretty legit. They also have a working client, not some promise of one in the near future, they have a client which does cloud storage and is being constantly improved to a level that most crypto projects cannot compete with. As always you have to read into it to see exactly how it works. If it scales well, and succeeds it'll provide cloud storage without Amazon or any other company needing to take a cut.[/QUOTE] So besides the part where you didn't answer the question of how your theoretical contract is in any way meaningfully different from already existing contracts, there's a few problems with your example. It is cheaper to host stuff in datacenters if you value all of data integrity, security, uptime, and most importantly, speed + low latency. You cannot host large files in a distributed p2p fashion, have them be secure, and have them be reliably available at high speeds. You always sacrifice something when you go p2p. For example, Bittorrent sacrifices security and Tor sacrifices speed/latency. Most models make enormous sacrifices of available disc space and network usage (both of which drive total costs up), just to have enough redundancy that the 'swarm' isn't crippled any time a sizable portion of the members leave. Running a website for your dog? Yeah, it works, but only because the drawbacks fade into irrelevance. Running enormous sites that generate gargantuan amounts of dynamic content? (any serious online storefront, IE amazon itself) You cannot go fully p2p where all member nodes can contribute to the swarm. It's just too slow. Datacenters exist because they are geographically located on major internet arteries, and can provide superior quality of service over a residential connection. Large companies already build redundancy into their systems, and have stuff geographically distributed across the world. In some aspects you could consider these cloud systems to already [i]be[/i] p2pesque, but they only utilize supernodes that are capable of providing the extremely demanding quality of service required. There's also economies of scale. Datacenters are much more efficient because they can buy equipment in bulk, have specially trained staff, and other such expenses like specialized hardware, that are only practical to have in large scale environments. Even if you completely disregard network topology, and how the laws of physics, specifically the speed of light, limit what you can do with fully decentralized server space, the economies of scale [i]still[/i] make it effectively impossible for this to ever amount to anything. As an example, google has several datacenters where they literally do not have heating. Just AC. They specifically designed their buildings to be heated [i]by[/i] the server racks. -40 outside? Office is still a toasty 75F. This quickly adds up to millions of dollars, and is a cost saving measure that simply cannot be extensively utilized on small scales. TL:DR any such system like this will have very severe limitations on what it can actually do, many of which boil down to very basic math. Failing that, it's just going to be datacenters at key points in the network, which is the exact definition of cloud computing already. I don't care what magical buzzwords they use in their propaganda, when the speed of light becomes a limiting factor, you have run into an immovable wall.
Responsible Spending 101 really needs to be something that is taught at schools.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;50320912]So besides the part where you didn't answer the question of how your theoretical contract is in any way meaningfully different from already existing contracts, there's a few problems with your example. It is cheaper to host stuff in datacenters if you value all of data integrity, security, uptime, and most importantly, speed + low latency. You cannot host large files in a distributed p2p fashion, have them be secure, and have them be reliably available at high speeds. You always sacrifice something when you go p2p. For example, Bittorrent sacrifices security and Tor sacrifices speed/latency. Most models make enormous sacrifices of available disc space and network usage (both of which drive total costs up), just to have enough redundancy that the 'swarm' isn't crippled any time a sizable portion of the members leave. Running a website for your dog? Yeah, it works, but only because the drawbacks fade into irrelevance. Running enormous sites that generate gargantuan amounts of dynamic content? (any serious online storefront, IE amazon itself) You cannot go fully p2p where all member nodes can contribute to the swarm. It's just too slow. [/QUOTE] As soon as you mentioned P2P it became obvious that you didn't read anything at all; it is not distributed file storage. It is a blockchain system that manages contracts between clients. Anyway, to each their own, if you think its dumb I'm happy for u.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50320150]Partially correct. There already was lighthouse: [url]https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse[/url] The dev of this apparently said he gave up because the bitcoin blocksize hasn't increased. For voting/crowdfunding there have already been a few other solutions out there such as SWARM (this is pretty much completely dead) [url]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=664071.0[/url] There is also HELIOS for online voting: [url]https://vote.heliosvoting.org/[/url] This is a growing space so there are tons of projects out there. There are lots of failures. There are lots of scams and there is a lot of stupid shit out there. It is also possible that there are some diamonds in the rough.[/QUOTE] That's not at all what I mean. There's just no functional difference between this and existing offline investment companies that are traded on the stock market (beyond the lack of regulations and as such state-guaranteed securities). And the relative lack of financial experts of course, which is a giant problem judging what people regularly fund on Kickstarter. Btw, here's an exploit for the system ([URL="https://archive.is/gZLPg"]according to the website[/URL]), assuming the curators go by the rules: - Buy 51% of the DAO (or however much you need to beat the active portion of users) - Make a proposal that cashes out everything to you and [I]be honest about it[/I] - The curators verify that that is indeed what the smart contract do and verify the author (since those are the only thing they're [I]supposed[/I] to do) (- No curator change and as such no split happens) - Vote to accept your proposal - Cash it out Of course in practice this will be easily prevented through curators breaching the terms of their assigned role, but [I]as promoted[/I] the system is fundamentally broken without a 'split on investment' option. [editline]15th May 2016[/editline] Heh, they don't even correctly implement [URL="https://archive.is/uPkzx"]the blog post[/URL] they cite :v: The system isn't going to be secure against 51% nonsense proposals if you formally exclude those from split-inducing actions.
[QUOTE=Tamschi;50324462]That's not at all what I mean. There's just no functional difference between this and existing offline investment companies that are traded on the stock market (beyond the lack of regulations and as such state-guaranteed securities). And the relative lack of financial experts of course, which is a giant problem judging what people regularly fund on Kickstarter. Btw, here's an exploit for the system ([URL="https://archive.is/gZLPg"]according to the website[/URL]), assuming the curators go by the rules: - Buy 51% of the DAO (or however much you need to beat the active portion of users) - Make a proposal that cashes out everything to you and [I]be honest about it[/I] - The curators verify that that is indeed what the smart contract do and verify the author (since those are the only thing they're [I]supposed[/I] to do) (- No curator change and as such no split happens) - Vote to accept your proposal - Cash it out Of course in practice this will be easily prevented through curators breaching the terms of their assigned role, but [I]as promoted[/I] the system is fundamentally broken without a 'split on investment' option. [editline]15th May 2016[/editline] Heh, they don't even correctly implement [URL="https://archive.is/uPkzx"]the blog post[/URL] they cite :v: The system isn't going to be secure against 51% nonsense proposals if you formally exclude those from split-inducing actions.[/QUOTE] A 51% attack is always a risk with these sorts of things. It is covered in the risks that every user agreed to. [quote]The field of Digital Cryptography is very new and for this reason, there is a risk of unforeseen attack both in terms of the underlying cryptographic protocol that back the functioning of the DAO [b]as well as 'game theory' related vectors which have not been documented to date.[/b] Both these vectors represent a risk that could lead the loss of DAO tokens or ETH in one or more or even all of the DAO Token Holder’s accounts.[/quote] In any case it is fundamentally different in terms of offline investment companies because of a few reasons (not necessarily advantages, but still differences): 1. it allows investments of minimal amounts (less than $1 USD) from thousands of psuedonymous users 2. it will run without any government oversight or regulatory approval (which is the nature of disruptive technology)--if it goes well it could turn around a couple of interesting projects that would have never existed with normal regulatory procedures. 3. voter quorum depends on the amount of ETH a project asks for--the more the amount the higher the vote requirement I don't think anyone is at all blind towards the risks, there is plenty of coverage of risks, negative legal/regulatory aspects and the like. But it is not at all dissimilar to something like the Silk Road, where thousands of users trust their escrow to a central party. Will DAO succeed? Who knows. The one thing that people seem to be oblivious to on this thread is that SWIFT has been hacked twice in the past few months as well as the major bank hack that occurred last year. This isn't just some ho-hum "oh its a bank robbery"--in the first case the hackers were pretty much running the insides of more than 100 banks ranging across 22 countries, using their CCTV systems, manipulating records and spewing money out of ATMs to the tune of a billion USD. Then they either hacked the SWIFT system or manipulated banks into making fraudulent transactions via 3 banks. Then there were the panama papers as well as a plethora of recent data leaks from banks. So the entire idea that the way banks currently run is fine is extremely questionable. There needs to be an upgrade of the systems behind banks and it needs to happen soon--the idea of the blockchain/distributed ledger and the fact that it is economically & technologically unfeasible for any single entity to launch a 51% attack on bitcoin means that it is the strongest idea out there. It will also likely cut out much of the traditional idea of a bank. sources: [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/business/dealbook/details-emerge-on-global-bank-heists-by-hackers.html?_r=0[/url] [url]http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/05/swift-hack/482670/[/url] [url]http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/15/technology/security/kaspersky-bank-hacking/[/url]
I have this weird deja vu of reading about bitcoin on facepunch in 2009 or 2010, when Bitcoins were still like 0.001 cents, and everyone was so sure they wouldn't ever be worth anything, that they would all get stolen, etc. Not saying that this will take off, but cmon.
[QUOTE=Kybalt;50324997]I have this weird deja vu of reading about bitcoin on facepunch in 2009 or 2010, when Bitcoins were still like 0.001 cents, and everyone was so sure they wouldn't ever be worth anything, that they would all get stolen, etc. Not saying that this will take off, but cmon.[/QUOTE] People try to talk a lot of shit on it merely because of the fact it rose exponentially and crashed immediately after. This was mainly tied to the activities of a single exchange (bots etc); then the exchange failed and a lot of people lost money. The fact that so many people lost such a large amount of money through a single exchange at that time shows that most people were in it for short term gains and didn't really have an interest or an understanding of the technology (i.e. if your coins/keys are in someone else's possession they can fuck you over). In the time since that occurred there are now hundreds of exchanges, meaning that theft/fraud have much lower repercussions. Exchanges have upped their games and improved security greatly with two-factor auth, email auth and so on. We also now have decentralized exchanges such as BitSquare, CounterParty and a few others which match up buyers/sellers with no middle-man. Which also reduce the risk of things going awry. Through all of this, and all the naysay and criticism the blockchain still functions as intended. Day in, day out it still functions as intended. Some things could admittedly be improved and hopefully they do get improved, but for now its working as it should. [quote]Ben Jabituya: "Unable. Malfunction." Howard Marner: How can it refuse to turn itself off? Skroeder: Maybe it's pissed off. Newton Crosby: It's a machine, Schroeder. It doesn't get pissed off. It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it doesn't laugh at your jokes. Newton Crosby, Ben Jabituya: [in unison] It just runs programs. Howard Marner: It usually runs programs.[/quote] There's also a website with a page called "Bitcoin Obituaries" counting the number of times media have declared bitcoin as being dead: [url]https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/[/url] According to that, bitcoin has died 101 times so far. A lot of flack comes from people who think the value has decreased or is unstable. It is unstable when compared to traditional currencies, but in terms of the people who look at it as a very long-term thing then there is a very limited supply. 1 bitcoin today is 1 bitcoin in 1, 10 or 100 years time (provided no fault happens with the technology).
Like bitcoin, this sounds like a fancy new way to launder money.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.