> Output: Digital services, site subscriptions, digital assets, in-game items, NFT's representing real world assets held by trusted companies (wine, event tickets, tokenized securities).
> None of this requires oracles and exists today.
While I only mentioned oracles specifically, I should have clarified: I'm referring both to oracles (making queries to external data sources and providing the results to the blockchain), and to external code that interprets data stored on the blockchain and acts on it. I'm not sure if there's a name for it in common use (I'd call it something like a "performer"). Either way, the issue is the same as that with oracles; whatever decentralization or smart contract guarantees you had on the blockchain disappear as soon as you have external code interpreting blockchain data to then make decisions in external systems (digital services, site subscriptions, digital assets, in-game items, NFT's, etc). If oracles provide inputs to the blockchain, these non-blockchain pieces of code provide the real-world outputs.
Example: even if somewhere in the blockchain I can prove that I should own something in the real world, it's still up to your site/service/app/whatever to honor that through external code. If it doesn't honor it, I'm stuck relying on traditional legal means to intervene, just as with any other standard contract. That legal system – as flawed as it is – tends to work for contracts written on the back of a napkin, stored in a SQL database, or coded in a smart contract (though that's probably the most questionable at the moment).
If I'm wrong, please correct me, but I've been interested in this stuff for a while, and I haven't found anything that actually solves the fundamental problem of oracles and the interpretation of blockchain data. That problem is important because it undermines many of the primary selling points of smart contracts.
> Your mistake is thinking that just because the base layer is decentralised that we're somehow not allowed to connect to companies we choose to trust
So, honest question: why care about the base layer being decentralized if in the end, you choose to trust those companies? What did the decentralization do for you in that interaction?
Yep. Blockchain says I own this case of wine... but the other guy wont give me my wine! Who do I call? The physical, centralized police and the centralized legal system that back it. Without that legal system recognizing and honoring it, it's worthless. And if it all depends on my centralized legal system, then who cares about the decentralized blockchain. Might as well put it in a table in a database instance running on AWS, or in a written contract.
You could say the same thing about property deeds, contracts, etc. The fact that the laws of physics still apply in the world and thus people can still physically take things from you, harm you, etc. is hardly an argument against any specific method for establishing and recording ownership or contracts.
No, the basic problem is ownership rights over physical objects can't be enforced without coercive power, but blockchains and smart contracts can't use coercive power, therefore they would have to rely on an external entity to enforce such rights. But then the system is no longer "trustless", "permissionless", or "censorship-resistant", and therefore we have none of the supposed benefits of blockchains but we do have all of the inconveniences, which means at this point we're better off with a centrally-managed registry which at least is cost-effective.
This is a strawman. The entire ecosystem does not have to be 100% decentralised. There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities. A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons.
> There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities.
No, there's no utility in that, if ultimately enforcement relies on an entity that needs to be trusted and can override the blockchain.
> A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons.
Centrally-managed registries are already in use and have been in use for a long time, they exist in every single country, and entire markets depends upon them, but somehow they "would never be suitable for obvious reasons"? They have already been shown to be suitable, what on earth are you talking about?
I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. A centralised implementation of this would clearly be a bad idea.
If you don't see utility in this I don't know what to tell you.
> I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications.
What does that even mean? How is a global API going to support the enforcement of a rental agreement? Or of a bond indenture? Who is actually going to enforce the contract? And what is the role of a global API in that? And what do you mean value transfer between applications? You want to transfer "value" (like a bag of rice?) between computer programs??? None of that makes the slightest sense. Meaningless gibberish intended to fool gullible idiots into thinking that blockchains are some kind of disruptive technology that is going to turn everything upside down. Nonsense. It's a pump & dump scheme, and little else.
Ignoring the condescending tone, value is already being transferred between computer programs. Trillions of dollars per year on Ethereum alone. A lot of the volume is undeniably speculation but denying that value can be transferred on blockchain is denying reality at this point.
Ethereum allows you to transfer digital tokens from one address to another. This is what it does. Calling this "transferring value between computer programs" is both inaccurate and pompous. It's like a truck driver insisting that you call them a "transporter of value". Nobody speaks like that. Your comments consist entirely of marketing buzzwords, which is unfortunate because this is a technology site and we're trying to have an honest discussion about technology.
I'm having an honest discussion. You have accused me of being "a gullible idiot", "pompous" and of using "marketing buzzwords" (which words?). You come across as being very emotionally attached to your negative opinion of the space.
Value can be transferred between programs through Ethereum. The tokens you mentioned have value, because people are willing to exchange them for money. So it's not an inaccurate statement. Web3 provides the standardised API through which these programs can communicate.
Don't twist my words, I never said that you were a gullible idiot. I said that using the term "transferring value" is inaccurate and pompous, and that you are using marketing buzzwords. And I stand by that, "transferring value" is an example of a marketing buzzword. It's not a descriptive term, because what is being transferred is digital tokens, which may or may not have value. Whether they have value is irrelevant as far as the technology itself is concerned. I don't have anything against you personally, but this is the way I see it.
If it helps you can read 'transferring value' to 'transferring digital tokens which have value on the market', the distinction is irrelevant to the point.
> Whether they have value is irrelevant as far as the technology itself is concerned.
I'd argue that it's not irrelevant. The whole point of the technology is, at risk of more 'marketing buzzwords', a decentralised way of moving value around (moving digitised tokens which have value on the market, around).
I had a look at your post/comment history. It's almost exclusively cryptocurrency focussed. I'm curious why you spend so much time discussing a technology you clearly don't think has a future.
It is irrelevant. An automobile engineer would not describe a truck as a "vehicle that transports value", despite the fact that most of the time trucks are used to transport valuable things. It's ridiculous. Nobody in finance refers to financial assets as "value" either.
Why are my comments focused on cryptocurrency? Because I like to discuss cryptocurrencies. I have thought a lot about them, and I think it's an interesting phenomenon from an sociological point of view. Plus, I like arguing with people who I think are wrong.
Imagine something like Robocop hooked up to the EVM, if you put your RealID in the escrow contract and then the ubiquitous camera network is unable to verify that you honored the transaction, well then you have 15 seconds to comply…
I worry that this is the endgame; you say "distributed organisation", I say "autonomous cyberweapon".
We're not that far from having a DAO that can bid on zero-days and use them against a list of targets of its choice. If a DAO can make POST requests it can launch exploits. A script kiddie without the kiddie.
Blockchain governs the DIGITAL sphere and in there can actually enforce. People who are trying to combine crypto with physical assets are a shrinking number. Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish.
Not at all, blockchains can't enforce intellectual property rights either. For example, how is a blockchain going to stop an individual from using unlicensed content on their website?
With enforcable, what is meant is anything that can be programmed into a contract and be executed will be executed (enforced).
That can as an example be someone raising a million dollars for a crypto game by offering 10000 tokens for 100$ each. The million dollars are going to be unlocked in phases. 50k for proof of concept, 250k for alpha etc. Each phase have to be approved by the toke holders. If they dont agree that the proof of concept is good enough they can vote the unlocking down and there is nothing the game developers can do about that. That is what is meant by enforable.
We already know what "enforce" means. You said blockchains can enforce "digital" whatever that means. The only thing blockchains can "enforce" is that data are added to the chain according to some rules. There isn't any type of property right, digital or real, that can be enforced in this way.
I already explained what enforcement means in this context giving you a very concrete example. Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is. Instead of just repeating what you already said.
I can't help you see something you don't want to see.
> Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is.
Because, quite honestly, I don't what your claim is. You're saying that a blockchain can "enforce DIGITAL" which is a meaningless sentence. Are you claiming that you can write a program and execute it on a blockchain? Sure. I can do the same on my computer. This is not an example of enforcing property rights, which was what we were talking about.
You replied to a comment where I argued that property rights cannot be enforced with blockchain technology. So, yeah, it's pretty obvious that we were talking about enforcement of property rights.
> Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish.
The Winklevosses came up with an elaborate system to store and secure their own private keys. They cut up printouts of their private keys into pieces and then distributed them in envelopes to safe deposit boxes around the country, so if one envelope were stolen the thief would not have the entire key.
the only thing the system can do is ask more and more from their users, but there is no way to know if the transaction is good: if it looks good, it is good.
so it can't enforce anything on its own.
a CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent.
There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself.
Because the chain can't enforce anything.
p.s. note that I wrote the keys (plural) not the key (singular)
basically your answer is "have a multifactor authentication" but if that is broken by some malevolent actor, I can go to the police.
There's not true fro Cryptos, if they are stolen they are lost.
I have answered it and again you are answering it ex. here:
"A CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent.
There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself."
This is a feature NOT a bug. It comes with it's own consequences of course but that's exactly what makes it enforceable just like physics enforce its laws.
This is a complete FAILURE to enforce property rights. If by stealing your car, I automatically own it, that means there are no property rights whatsoever.
No it's not. You are assuming that the entry on the ledger is a person it's not. It's a thing. I can steal all sorts of things from you in real life and if you don't know I stole them, then they will be gone forever.
You are still not understanding what is meant by enforcing.
> You could say the same thing about property deeds, contracts, etc. The fact that the laws of physics still apply in the world and thus people can still physically take things from you, harm you, etc. is hardly an argument against any specific method for establishing and recording ownership or contracts.
On the contrary, it's a strong argument for using those methods of establishing and recording ownership that are blessed by the relevant local legal system (or, sure, ultimately by those who control local violence, if you want to go all the way down). It's the reason why you get lawyers still insisting on using faxes rather than emails.
> This <legally enforceable contract> says I (should) own this case of wine... but the other guy wont give me my wine! Who do I call?
Answer: You have a cause of action for breach of contract. In UK/US/Aus/Canada/etc, you can "call" / take it to a court, and they may grant you the remedy known as specific performance, which is essentially a court order to do the thing that was promised. This remedy is available because the thing to be done was the transfer of property. The remedy is part of the law of Equity, a set of doctrines and principles that has been in development since the 13th century. It got its big break with people complaining to the King of England that "the law is too harsh, it should be fair!!!" and went from there, eventually becoming a huge body of law about exactly what it means to make the law fair, what principles to follow when doing that, and how to deal with the many categories of unfairness that come up regularly.
You might look at the DAO hack in this context and think, the Ethereum folks really threw out the baby with the bathwater when they decided to invent a new financial system that didn't have to play by the existing rules. Many people talk about ICOs etc taking us back to the 19th century and the Wild West, but smart contracts take us back hundreds of years further back, with echoes of literally the first people to complain to the King demanding a writ to remedy the injustice of the Common Law. If since then blockchain enthusiasts have come up with something better than Equity, I would ask that they let us know.
Main message from the people in The System to you: We have thought of all of these problems before, and we have solved them all before, and if ye who have spurned the legal system come running for help, ... we will actually welcome you with open arms, like we aspire to do for everyone else.
It is an argument against unnecessarily elaborate and complex methods of recording contracts like crypto.
A lot of important, trusted systems often don't have particularly sophisticated security in every single layer. Homes and mailboxes have simple locks. Online transactions have fairly basic digital integrity checks (ie. you connected to a bank's server using HTTPS with a secret cookie). Credit card chips and card readers are riddled with vulnerabilities. We still sign legal documents with like, pen and paper and a scribble that even children can forge.
These systems are still trusted because trust isn't established by infallible recordkeeping processes, it's the humans and the organizations and the written/spoken promises we make that matter. A legally recognized scribble is as trustworthy and useful as a foolproof NFT. Crypto's complexity adds very little in practice.
Sure. You need a state to enforce property rights.
But the point is that the centralized system that managed property deeds does not require an absolutely gargantuan amount of computation to be performed to do a basic transaction. And since I already need the state to enforce property rights, why not have the state also be involved in the recognition of who owns what?
> So, honest question: why care about the base layer being decentralized if in the end, you choose to trust those companies? What did the decentralization do for you in that interaction?
My trust extended only as far as a single interaction/asset. The rest of my wallet and the assets within are completely unaffected. A company might rip me off, and I might have legal recourse, or I might not. Such is life. We won't ever be able to decentralise away all trust. A single entity isn't able to manipulate all my assets, or print more tokens, or confiscate my money. The network is solid even if all the 'performers' are not.
To build a centralised 'universal API' on which applications can communicate and exchange value is a terrible idea. Who would own it? But such an API is surely a useful technology.
We do need reliable oracles for external data feeds- prices, weather, news... can all feed into contracts for extra utility. This is a hard problem being tackled by ChainLink and others.
> None of this requires oracles and exists today.
While I only mentioned oracles specifically, I should have clarified: I'm referring both to oracles (making queries to external data sources and providing the results to the blockchain), and to external code that interprets data stored on the blockchain and acts on it. I'm not sure if there's a name for it in common use (I'd call it something like a "performer"). Either way, the issue is the same as that with oracles; whatever decentralization or smart contract guarantees you had on the blockchain disappear as soon as you have external code interpreting blockchain data to then make decisions in external systems (digital services, site subscriptions, digital assets, in-game items, NFT's, etc). If oracles provide inputs to the blockchain, these non-blockchain pieces of code provide the real-world outputs.
Example: even if somewhere in the blockchain I can prove that I should own something in the real world, it's still up to your site/service/app/whatever to honor that through external code. If it doesn't honor it, I'm stuck relying on traditional legal means to intervene, just as with any other standard contract. That legal system – as flawed as it is – tends to work for contracts written on the back of a napkin, stored in a SQL database, or coded in a smart contract (though that's probably the most questionable at the moment).
If I'm wrong, please correct me, but I've been interested in this stuff for a while, and I haven't found anything that actually solves the fundamental problem of oracles and the interpretation of blockchain data. That problem is important because it undermines many of the primary selling points of smart contracts.
> Your mistake is thinking that just because the base layer is decentralised that we're somehow not allowed to connect to companies we choose to trust
So, honest question: why care about the base layer being decentralized if in the end, you choose to trust those companies? What did the decentralization do for you in that interaction?