Bitcoin discussion and news

[StakerOne]

One thing about crypto scams. In all honesty, I'll tell you the scariest crypto scam I've ever seen....

A founder of a well known crypto project had a serious amount of tokens in his wallet for the project he founded. - let's call him "Fred".

I can't remember the token, but believe me, millions and millions, certaintly over 10 million squids worth.

A graphic designer built up a relationship with him for his project (Let's call him "John")... and the months went by with great work being done for the projects website and newsletters.

One day the graphic designer, John, said he was starting an exciting crypto project and he alluded to some of the details, then went quiet for a while, save for the occasional bit of artwork.

All of their communictions were via Discord.

Then one day, naughty Johnny was back, saying that the project was up and running and would be delighted if Fred gave it a whirl.

Now Fred's primary wallet, not only had all those tokens, but it also had his decentralised website, which in a way, is kinda like an identity.

Fred gave naughty Johnnys new project a go, but by logging onto it's web3 website with a different wallet than the one he used.

Within 24 hours, Johnny was back and he wasn't happy. He wanted Fred to use his primary wallet, because that's the one he was known for and would add to the credibility of his new project.

Fred smelt a rat. So he went to the Johnnys web3 website and followed the code to the smart contract that would have run had he interacted (by interacted I mean signed off any transaction that makes changes to the blockchain, not just log on).

When he read the smart contract, his blood turned cold. If he had intereacted with it, it would have sent millions of pounds worth of his tokens to what clearly was a scammer.

At that time, many realised that there was a weakness in many (but not all) crypto wallets in that when the user signs a transaction, there isn't really much info up on the screen to say what is really going on.

Needless to say, many wallets have been upgraded since, to display a lot more about what is really going on.

My point is. The crypto community is and are honest about weaknesses that come up, we have to be, otherwise no one will make things more secure.

"Fred"' also make a bad mistake, which is fairly obvious. Never store large amounts of tokens in a wallet that you use for publicity or identity.

 

[kabbes]

The point is that in the real world, you can’t be a finance company in the first place without being regulated. And being regulated comes with a tonne of things you have to do to ensure good risk management, prudent financial management, anti-money laundering, good conduct etc etc etc etc. you can’t just set yourself up as a bank and start taking in deposits. You can’t just set yourself up as an insurer and start selling premiums. You can’t do that stuff in the first place.

 

[StakerOne]

Insanity.

Insanity.

Insanity

Insanity

Insanity.

Very constructive, bravo.

You believe a smart contract that everyone can see, being audited is "insanity", but a company's accounts that can only be seen by 3 parties, isn't insanity, espeically when time to time, auditors can sometimes wind up colluding with their clients ... yet ironically, when (not if) those same companies wind up doing all of their operations on the blockchain, they can't falsify anything, with auditing taking seconds.

No, it's backward behind the doors corporate fraud that is insane and blockchains fix it all, which is why ALL the top auditing firms are embracing blockchain tech.

I rattled out a load of positives that are true, that you can't do in the traditional financial world, that you can't refute and your reply is "insanity".

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A number of detractors have been playing whack-a-mole on these points, because I've been countering point after point but it's all deflected with rehashed arguments that I've already countered - successfuly!

You really haven't, you know. From your posts, I know that you don't really understand what money is, how money is created, or what its function is in a political economy. You also don't understand power structures or how the distribution of ownership affects everything anyone tries to do wrt money systems, and you don't understand where that pattern of ownership has come from.

I will admit that half the stuff you write I only half-understand, lacking the knowledge of the area. Problem comes when you stray into areas that I do understand such as the above. And as soon as you do that, you show me that you don't know what you're talking about.

Others appear to have had a similar experience. We're whacking slightly different moles because we have interests or understanding in different areas.

I'd advise you to step away and read some radical anthropology to give yourself a broad historical view of this stuff. David Graeber is a decent place to start. But I know you won't.

 

[kabbes]

Very constructive, bravo.

You believe a smart contract that everyone can see, being audited is "insanity", but a company's accounts that can only be seen by 3 parties, isn't insanity, espeically when time to time, auditors can sometimes wind up colluding with their clients ... yet ironically, when (not if) those same companies wind up doing all of their operations on the blockchain, they can't falsify anything, with auditing taking seconds.

No, it's backward behind the doors corporate fraud that is insane and blockchains fix it all, which is why ALL the top auditing firms are embracing blockchain tech.

I rattled out a load of positives that are true, that you can't do in the traditional financial world, that you can't refute and your reply is "insanity".

It’s insanity to try to remove the humans from a social system. To think you can turn people into nodes on a computer mainframe, never interacting and pretending that each other doesn’t exist. It’s a staggering misunderstanding of what society is, how it functions and what keeps it going.

 

[StakerOne]

The point is that in the real world, you can’t be a finance company in the first place without being regulated. And being regulated comes with a tonne of things you have to do to ensure good risk management, prudent financial management, anti-money laundering, good conduct etc etc etc etc. you can’t just set yourself up as a bank and start taking in deposits. You can’t just set yourself up as an insurer and start selling premiums. You can’t do that stuff in the first place.

A bank is a bank.

A bank doesn't have 0.001% of the products and services that exists on a public blockchain such as Ethereum.

A blockchain isn't a bank. The blockchain isn't an insurer, save for insuring smart contracts - that type of insurance doesn't need to be regulated for many many reasons.

Your prescious regulated banks, insurance firms, auditors and any other large bodies that are within the pervue of regulators, will eventually all use public ledgers and those banks, insurance firms and auditors will still be regulated.

Sometimes, banking, insurance and corporate regulations will be updated to accomodate blockchains how much ever it pisses you off, because the regulators work out how blockchains affects those businesses and on reflection, what regulations need to be added, updated or removed.

I am confident that they will be able to do this, because they eventually understand the technology.

Edit to add:

As said elsewhere, blockchain cuts out middlemen and all sorts of processes.

Banks are full of middlemen, so because they are human beings, they need to be regulated, with defences put up, with funds ringfenced to stop abuse by human beings.

The funds are already "ringfenced" in the smart contract world, because the smart contract has the funds and it's a slave to it's own code - you want the money back, you get it.

Web3/Blockchain/Zero knowledge proofs radically changes everything.

If I can prove I'm not someone is sanctioned, why does a bank need to know my name?

If I can prove to the bank that I live in the UK, why does it need to know my address?

If I can prove anything is negative or positive, why does a bank need to know anything about me?

No one, nowhere, needs to know anything about me, because the code can run various checks with the memory space of javascript and the EVM mempool, that I'm not a terrorist, money launderer etc.

You'lll love it, it's going to magical.

You've probably spent years naval gazing over how the Western world, the banking system, the cycle of wars are driving people to terrorism etc, but if the all the upcoming bright eyesd bushy tailed kids can innovate within a new global financial system, what terrorist causes are there, that would drive a 20 year old with his ahead of him, to commit a suicide bombing?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ok here's a prediction. I may well be wrong. I have been before.

While use of blockchains may well come in (in a way that is invisible to most of us, and frankly pretty boring in terms of what they do), smart contracts won't take off. They'll go the same way as NFTs. Bad idea badly executed.

 

[StakerOne]

I know that you don't really understand what money is, how money is

You can send pounds and pence over the blockchain - one day, you will do, directly or indirectly, so your "point" about money is moot, completly irrelevant.

In the case of Ethereum, Ether exists for these reasons possibly more, none of which are supposed to replace national currency.

• To secure the network, earning yield
• To pay for transaction fees.
• To be immutable (It doesn't need a smart contract) - last line of defence against tryanical governance (eg Government trying to control local currency, good job I have some Ether)
• To be a baseline of reference to work out risk in a financial product.

 

[StakerOne]

Ok here's a prediction. I may well be wrong. I have been before.

While use of blockchains may well come in (in a way that is invisible to most of us, and frankly pretty boring in terms of what they do), smart contracts won't take off. They'll go the same way as NFTs. Bad idea badly executed.

Really? OK, thanks for ignoring all the many exciting uses I've listed on this thread, including protecting everyone's privacy.

If you want to live in a world where the government winds up controlling your money and knowing everything about you, with corporates making YOU and YOUR data the actual product, then fine.

I don't want to live in that world and thankfully I don't think I'll wind up doing so.

I want to live in a world where my social media content pays me, rather than Facebook, where advertising revenue comes back to me, without the threat of being banned, demonitised or deplatformed because I hurt someone's feelings.

I want to live in a world with efficent markets with less middlemen meaning those who do the fucking work get the lions share of money.

My money will be my money and ONLY I will know how much money I've got and not another soul on the planet, yet still pay my taxes without even the inland revenue (or whatever they are called now) knowing why I paid the tax that I did, but they'll KNOW that I paid the correct taxes.

Being able to prove I'm over 18, without disclosing my age.

Being able to prove to the police that I wasn't at a crime scene without having to give an aliby or even my identity.

A world where I don't have to claim a refund if the train I'm on is late, it automatcially comes back to me.

As for NFTs, I don't think you know what they even are. Describe what they are!

 

[StakerOne]

It’s insanity to try to remove the humans from a social system. To think you can turn people into nodes on a computer mainframe, never interacting and pretending that each other doesn’t exist. It’s a staggering misunderstanding of what society is, how it functions and what keeps it going.

It removes middlemen. It's not an AI. It's clear you're just having a laugh typing complete bollocks.
By your logic, we should strip out the ATMs from the banks and remove the banking apps from our phones just to interact with the cashiers down the bank.

Edit to add, you still show a complete misunderstanding of what a "node" is. A node is just an instance of the validation / consensys software which typically runs on just one PC.

There might be some cloud services that typically provide "client nodes", whereby there might be multiple instances on one cloud server, but that doesn't affect the security of the blockchain.

 

[8ball]

It’s insanity to try to remove the humans from a social system.

Unless it's a beehive..

 

[BigTom]

Here's a live example of how well defi works if you don't know how to code.

DeFi Web Apps Block Users Hit by Tornado Cash 'Dust Attack'

Tron founder Justin Sun was blocked by the front-end web app of DeFi protocol Aave over the weekend after a Tornado Cash 'dust attack.'

blockworks.co

To note this is eth not btc.
Tornado Cash is a mixer used to try to hide the origin of eth transactions. It's been used by North Korean hackers who have been responsible for some of the biggest thefts of crypto we've heard about, like the $600m stolen from the nft game Axie.

As a result the US has banned this for breaking sanctions and anyone receiving eth from tornado Cash has their wallet blocked by any US regulated exchange.

Someone dusted a load of wallets known to be owned by famous/ big in crypto people with 0.1 eth as a protest to get those wallets blocked and show why this kind of thing is a bit stupid, although really to me or shows the stupidity of the system rather than the FBIs action.

AAVE is defi. A de centralised exchange supposedly free of govt interference.

Guess what, people who have been dusted can no longer interact with AAVE's front end. Same is true for some other defi.

You can still interact with the backend but to do so you would need to be a coder because you need to build a functional front end.
Or you have to trust other people to do that and thereby interact with a middleman and centralised organisation.


Defi is still centralised unless you know how to code.

 

[StakerOne]

Someone dusted a load of wallets known to be owned by famous/ big in crypto people with 0.1 eth as a protest to get those wallets blocked and show why this kind of thing is a bit stupid

"Dusted" - Means to send crypto to uncover the identity of a wallet. That's more of a bitcoin thing. But point taken, you're saying small amounts were sent to various wallets as a "troll" operation...

...It was only profile wallets, you know influencers, youtubers, founders of projects, anyone well known in the Ethereum / Cryptospace.

AAVE is defi. A de centralised exchange supposedly free of govt interference.

It's not fully decentralised. Aave admit that, it's a UK company whose products operate in the DeFi space.

Guess what, people who have been dusted can no longer interact with AAVE's front end. Same is true for some other defi.

I think you will find that they can!

For about 2 or 3 days, AAVE and some other projects, blocked any wallet address which had links to Tornado Cash as a knee jerk reaction. All such blocks have been lifted, at least on AAVE and DYDX.

As you say, the block was done from the frontwend website DAPP page not from within the smart contracts on the blockchain.

But you don't need to be a coder to build a website. People publish scripts all the time that can download and run the website locally within a minute or two.

These large DeFi projects that blocked users, did that as a knee jerk reaction until they could be sure what they really should be blocking legally - which is ONLY the wallets that the FBI (Or other relevant authorities) listed as sanctioned.

The action the US government has taken is going to be challenged by the way.

As for AAVE being partly centralised, that won't be forever. Most DeFi projects start out with a degree of centralisation to them.

Of course that adds to regulatory risk and that's something that users should research and bear in mind.

As the tech becomes more advanced and it will, a project will be able to be decentralised earlier on in.

One area of weakness at the moment, are projects relying on github.

There is software out there that can work with code that has pushed up to the IPFS using git - IIRC it's called "Mango".

Also there is this: Radicle: a Decentralized Alternative to GitHub for Web3

There's also plans to build in privacy to Ethereum so that a tool like Tornado Cash isn't required ... it would work by using wallet addresses that are downstream in the merkle tree from the orginal wallet addreess.

There's also further discussion on this subject concerning larger exchanges that are in control of large staking pools and whether the US government would pressurize them not to process transactions, but as I'm reliably informed, unless their is a change in US law, validators on a network can't be liable ... AND there is already work being done to split up some of the consensus / validation work so that it would be impossible to try and pin any blame on any validator node owner / operators.

 

[kabbes]

But you don't need to be a coder to build a website. People publish scripts all the time that can download and run the website locally within a minute or two.

Brilliant. There it Is, in a nutshell.

Don’t worry, Nan. You’ll be fine. Ah you have to do is build a website and hack about a bit with somebody else’s script in order to access and use your pension. You’ll be fine.

 

[Supine]

All of this in-depth crypto information is a great way to put people off using it. The Wild West of tech and money.

 

[kabbes]

Eventually, and quickly at that, we all rely on third parties for everything. That’s what a society is. It’s what defines humanity. It’s our primary survival trait. Humans are incredibly good at social living. Finance is no exception, as all this stuff about relying on code written by others shows.

And when you do rely on third parties for something — anything — in the financial world, you need to know that what you are relying on is well regulated. You need to know that the people are qualified, to be sure they know what that are talking about and using common language. You need to know that data is being controlled and tracked through the system, to make sure it hasn’t being corrupted or changed (by accident or design) at any point. You need to know that the software you are using has been adequately tested and is being used properly. You need to know that there is a risk management framework in place to identify, mitigate, control and monitor against fatal problems. You need to know which individuals are personally accountable for all these systems, so that there is a pathway back to the person responsible for sorting out problems. You need to know that there isn’t any criminal activity involved. And this is the only the tip of the regulation iceberg. I’ve not even started on the need for a well ordered marketplace.

All this stuff has evolved over hundreds of years to protect the innocent consumers against the problems we’ve seen happen over those years. It works pretty well at this point. But people who know literally zero about any of this are telling us they can do it better by getting us to rely on for-profit third party auditors of the third-party coders that will replace these systems? And these auditors and coders won’t, of course, be subject to any of the rules that we have evolved to implement so those protections, because we’re removing the very safeguard — the regulator — that enforces the rules.

As I said: insanity.

 

[Storm Fox]

"Dusted" - Means to send crypto to uncover the identity of a wallet. That's more of a bitcoin thing. But point taken, you're saying small amounts were sent to various wallets as a "troll" operation...

...It was only profile wallets, you know influencers, youtubers, founders of projects, anyone well known in the Ethereum / Cryptospace.



It's not fully decentralised. Aave admit that, it's a UK company whose products operate in the DeFi space.



I think you will find that they can!

For about 2 or 3 days, AAVE and some other projects, blocked any wallet address which had links to Tornado Cash as a knee jerk reaction. All such blocks have been lifted, at least on AAVE and DYDX.

So you need to trust an unregulated 3rd party and a human or several humans' decisions.

As you say, the block was done from the frontwend website DAPP page not from within the smart contracts on the blockchain.

But you don't need to be a coder to build a website. People publish scripts all the time that can download and run the website locally within a minute or two.

These large DeFi projects that blocked users, did that as a knee jerk reaction until they could be sure what they really should be blocking legally - which is ONLY the wallets that the FBI (Or other relevant authorities) listed as sanctioned.

So who relying on untrustworthy 3rd parties again

The action the US government has taken is going to be challenged by the way.

As for AAVE being partly centralised, that won't be forever. Most DeFi projects start out with a degree of centralisation to them.

Of course, there are humans behind them who want to make money.

Of course that adds to regulatory risk and that's something that users should research and bear in mind.

As the tech becomes more advanced and it will, a project will be able to be decentralised earlier on in.

One area of weakness at the moment, are projects relying on github.

There is software out there that can work with code that has pushed up to the IPFS using git - IIRC it's called "Mango".

Also there is this: Radicle: a Decentralized Alternative to GitHub for Web3

There's also plans to build in privacy to Ethereum so that a tool like Tornado Cash isn't required

Yay more money laundering and Tax Evasion

... it would work by using wallet addresses that are downstream in the merkle tree from the orginal wallet addreess.

There's also further discussion on this subject concerning larger exchanges that are in control of large staking pools and whether the US government would pressurize them not to process transactions, but as I'm reliably informed, unless their is a change in US law, validators on a network can't be liable ... AND there is already work being done to split up some of the consensus / validation work so that it would be impossible to try and pin any blame on any validator node owner / operators.

And the more and more it becomes unregulatable, the more the general public won't adopt it. Most people want to know their money is safe. So people like to gamble or fall for massive returns, which are almost always a scam.

Blockchains will probably be used in some areas, but it will be about as exciting as a SQL Database.

 

[Storm Fox]

Eventually, and quickly at that, we all rely on third parties for everything. That’s what a society is. It’s what defines humanity. It’s our primary survival trait. Humans are incredibly good at social living. Finance is no exception, as all this stuff about relying on code written by others shows.

And when you do rely on third parties for something — anything — in the financial world, you need to know that what you are relying on is well regulated. You need to know that the people are qualified, to be sure they know what that are talking about and using common language. You need to know that data is being controlled and tracked through the system, to make sure it hasn’t being corrupted or changed (by accident or design) at any point. You need to know that the software you are using has been adequately tested and is being used properly. You need to know that there is a risk management framework in place to identify, mitigate, control and monitor against fatal problems. You need to know which individuals are personally accountable for all these systems, so that there is a pathway back to the person responsible for sorting out problems. You need to know that there isn’t any criminal activity involved. And this is the only the tip of the regulation iceberg. I’ve not even started on the need for a well ordered marketplace.

All this stuff has evolved over hundreds of years to protect the innocent consumers against the problems we’ve seen happen over those years. It works pretty well at this point. But people who know literally zero about any of this are telling us they can do it better by getting us to rely on for-profit third party auditors of the third-party coders that will replace these systems? And these auditors and coders won’t, of course, be subject to any of the rules that we have evolved to implement so those protections, because we’re removing the very safeguard — the regulator — that enforces the rules.

As I said: insanity.

 

[StakerOne]

Don’t worry, Nan. You’ll be fine. Ah you have to do is build a website and hack about a bit with somebody else’s script in order to access and use your pension. You’ll be fine.

By the same logic, debit cards aren't viable because not all old folk want to use them. The success of debit cards, doesn't rely on your name, neither does crypto.

 

[kabbes]

By the same logic, debit cards aren't viable because not all old folk want to use them. The success of debit cards, doesn't rely on your name, neither does crypto.

You think that having to put a website together is like wanting or not wanting to use a credit card?

Insanity.

 

[StakerOne]

So you need to trust an unregulated 3rd party and a human or several humans' decisions.

No.

So who relying on untrustworthy 3rd parties again

No.

Yay more money laundering and Tax Evasion

Nope. The complete reverse. Avoiding paying any taxes on gains made on public blockchains, is stupid,, really, really stupid, because the user is leaving behind an electronic trail that is there for all to see until the end of human civilisation.

And the more and more it becomes unregulatable, the more the general public won't adopt it. Most people want to know their money is safe. So people like to gamble or fall for massive returns, which are almost always a scam.

Protocols don't need regulating, because there are no third parties to trust. It just thousands of computers doing what they do best - what they were programmed to do.

Also, "Most people want to know their money is safe" is totally incompatable with "so people like to gamble or fall for massive returns"

I've never heard of anyone who doesn't understand the concept of risk and reward.

It's easy. Don't put your money into a high yield product if you don't even understand what is going on underneath the bonnet.

Besides, there are plenty of centralised entities that are on the internet, that are overseas, that are both crypto and non-crypto that aren't regulated.

At least with crypto, proper decentralised crypto, I can see what is going on, how it works etc and evaluate the risk. I know it is going to do what it says on the tin.

The same cannot be said about centrralised entites that are non-crypto whether they are regulated or not.

All the regulations in the world, do not prevent fraud by centralised third parties.

 

[StakerOne]

You think that having to put a website together is like wanting or not wanting to use a credit card?

Insanity.

• We're talking about a website that was blocking certain users for about 3 days.
• If it was a real emergency, any user could have gone to Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain Explorer, looked up the smart contract on there and withdrawn their money.

 

[StakerOne]

All of this in-depth crypto information is a great way to put people off using it. The Wild West of tech and money.

No problem, you keep doing what you're doing, you'll wind up using it anyway, even if you confine your finances to banking.

The banks are adopting the tech. Intitially it will be just the rails that banks use to settle with each other.

Visa and Mastercard are developing for it, Visa is already using it live in the US for settlements on crypto.com debit cards - if the merchant and the customer are both using it, all the way through from the customer to cyrpto.com to Visa, to the merchant, the money is purely USDC on Ethereum.

 

[kabbes]

Regulation is designed around the least sophisticated consumer upwards. If the least sophisticated are vulnerable to the failure of a system, most particularly as a result of their own actions, that system requires an evermore extensive control framework around it. Not only is this being thrown away by the crypto dystopians, it’s being thrown away with a real glee that only the sophisticated will survive.

Financial institutions spend billions on regulatory compliance. They don’t do that out of love, they do it because they have to do it as a precondition of being in the game. Those billions are directed towards protecting the customer.

 

[Supine]

No problem, you keep doing what you're doing, you'll wind up using it anyway, even if you confine your finances to banking.

The banks are adopting the tech. Intitially it will be just the rails that banks use to settle with each other.

Visa and Mastercard are developing for it, Visa is already using it live in the US for settlements on crypto.com debit cards - if the merchant and the customer are both using it, all the way through from the customer to cyrpto.com to Visa, to the merchant, the money is purely USDC on Ethereum.

I’m not bothered if regulated banks use the tech in a regulated way. What I’m against is the anti government libetarians and the crypto bro’s looking for a new ponzi wave to ride. I very much doubt real banks using the tech will give you a wave.

 

[kabbes]

How would you say this conversation is going for you, StakerOne? Going to plan? Would you say that you’re convincing the masses that you can replace their safe systems with your black box code? Enjoying the feel of that brick wall on your head?

 

[kabbes]

I’m not bothered if regulated banks use the tech in a regulated way. What I’m against is the anti government libetarians and the crypto bro’s looking for a new ponzi wave to ride. I very much doubt real banks using the tech will give you a wave.

This is definitely a big part of what he’s not getting. I’m not against blockchain as a tool. Is no different to SQL as a tool. And like SQL when used within finance, it needs to be implemented within a rigorous system of checks and balances, operated by and overseen by accountable humans within a regulated market.

 

[mojo pixy]

All of this in-depth crypto information is a great way to put people off using it. The Wild West of tech and money.

How would you say this conversation is going for you, StakerOne? Going to plan? Would you say that you’re convincing the masses that you can replace their safe systems with your black box code? Enjoying the feel of that brick wall on your head?

StakerOne , you're doing a great job of making crypto sound like a nightmare. Unregulated, unpredictable, opaque and even a 'simple explanation' is eye-crossingly complicated, full of jargon and acronyms.

I just want to earn money, keep it somewhere safe, and spend it on stuff I need. I'd like to save some for a rainy day in a place it will remain intact and I can access it easily. Not especially interested in unearned income. I have yet to read one statement that convinces me I should come within a thousand miles of crypto for any of this.

 

[Storm Fox]

So you need to trust an unregulated 3rd party and a human or several humans' decisions.

No.

But you said it was a kneejerk reaction by AAVE. So either a human made a decision, or wrote code to generate the knee-jerk reaction and then retract it.

Yay more money laundering and Tax Evasion

Nope. The complete reverse. Avoiding paying any taxes on gains made on public blockchains, is stupid,, really, really stupid, because the user is leaving behind an electronic trail that is there for all to see until the end of human civilisation.

but you said

There's also plans to build in privacy to Ethereum so that a tool like Tornado Cash isn't required

So your crypto transactions are obfuscated but also leave an electronic trail, which is it?

You do seem to argue 2 opposing points of view at once. ETH is not an investment due to fluctuations over a period of months. But didn't really reply about day-to-day usage for buying small items and gas fees and day-to-day volatility.

Tax is unavoidable, as everyone can see your wallet, but it is avoidable as you can hide your wallet, or not declare it.

 

[StakerOne]

Eventually, and quickly at that, we all rely on third parties for everything.

How many posts of mine are you going to ignore on this point?

It's main job is to cut out middlemen.

It seems you are just playing games with the English language to confuse and frustrate and hide the truth with this.

I've already pointed out that your logic is flawed.

For example, most people never ask a cashier to count out money, they simply go to an ATM - because they would rather have a machine count the money.

With blockchain, all that's really going on, is that thousands of computers are enforcing rules that were set in the smart contract code, so we don't have to rely on humans to referee the whole thing.

I have given you real world use cases of that, including:

• non-colateralised loans to facilitate arbitrage trading, making the markets more efficient, providing liquidity to decentralised exchanges, copy trading.
• Automatic refunds without involving humans - for example when a train is more than 20 minutes late.
• The automatic liquidisation of collaterised loans when the collateral has lost too much value, including selling back to the market AND for traders to be able to pick up the cheap collateral with uncollaterised loans to sell at profit.
• Protecting privacy by using zero knowledge proofs.

These things, CAN'T be done in traditional finance.

But you just ignore these facts.

You ignore how it can prevent internal fraud, provides transparency and privacy, that simply can't be done using conventional systems.

You also ignore the fact that there are lawyers who specialise in regulatory laws for various sectors, who work for crypto companies.

I'm sure they have all the knowledge and resources they need, that allows them to keep within the law.

And when you do rely on third parties for something — anything — in the financial world, you need to know that what you are relying on is well regulated.

When you interact with a smart contract on decentralised blockchain, there's no third party - you're dealing with a smart contract - code.

Someone else might interact with that smart contract. You might consider them a third party.

But if everyone who uses the smart contract is happy with it, no regulator is needed to regulate the smart contract.

If the smart contract takes payment for tokens, with it issueing tokens, then IF there is a webiste that has a presence on the normal internet, that interacts with that smart contract, the wording may get the owner of that website in trouble with the SEC in the United States, especially if the website promised that buyers of the token can expect the token to go up in value.

You need to know that the people are qualified, to be sure they know what that are talking about and using common language. You need to know that data is being controlled and tracked through the system, to make sure it hasn’t being corrupted or changed (by accident or design) at any point. You need to know that the software you are using has been adequately tested and is being used properly. You need to know that there is a risk management framework in place to identify, mitigate, control and monitor against fatal problems.

I have previously addressed every single last one of the issues you've raised in the above quote. For you to ignore replying back with one word "insane".

You just want to go around in circles, working it back from how the conventional financial system works, in particular banking and insurance.

The logical flow and journey for how smart contract products work, with how the safeguards are plugged in, are completly different.

So unless we are talking about third parties running a brick and mortar business, regulations aren't even needed at the heart of it. At the edges, absolutely.

The heart of that technology can't be regulated, because it's not even needed.

It's like asking BT to sniff packets of data on case they contain fraud - Insane!!!!! LOL.