Cryptocurrency is Asbestos.
April 21, 2022 1:40 PM Subscribe
Code is LOL Someone stole $182 million by following the exactly coded rules of the cryptocurrency Beanstalk. A compelling and short article about why we’re wrong to call it theft or an attack, and the hubris of “Code is Law” being pushed by coders who style themselves philosopher kings. An excerpt describing the legal caper below the fold.
“In what can only be sort of described as an attack, a “hacker” - by which I mean someone using the available cryptocurrency systems - gained complete control of cryptocurrency project Beanstalk, stealing $182 million in the process. Except they didn’t steal anything or do anything nefarious.
Here’s what happened:
Like many cryptocurrency projects, Beanstalk allows you to vote on governance issues to control the project. This is a big part of the “code is law” ideal behind cryptocurrency, where you can “steer the future of the project” based on how many tokens you have.
In this case, the “attacker” used something called a flash loan (a loan you hold for seconds or minutes specifically to take advantage of the volatility of cryptocurrencies) to get a controlling amount of Beanstalk’s “stalk” token.
In complete accordance with how Beanstalk’s governance works, they used these tokens to create a proposal to give him all of Beanstalk’s money ($182 million), a proposal that the attacker then used their massive amount of tokens to vote “yes” on. I’m not going into the point of that $182 million because it’s boring and irrelevant, but let’s say it was the pooled funds to make the project work.
On receipt, they then returned the funds to the flash loan company, making about $80 million in the process.
Much of what has been written about this has (as I have) used the term “attacker,” as if an attack was made in anything other than complete accordance with how the project worked. The project was set up to allow the largest amount of votes to pass whatever proposal was made, which, in this case, was “I think that I should have all of the money.” To describe this as an attack, a hack, or “malevolent” is to misunderstand the vacuous idea of “code is law” and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
“Code is law” refers to the idea that code can govern without human intervention, and DAOs are the Code Is Law monster - an autonomous organization that operates entirely based on what the highest amount of votes suggest. The problem is obvious if you’ve met more than one person in your life - human beings are fallible and biased, and prone to making mistakes.”
“In what can only be sort of described as an attack, a “hacker” - by which I mean someone using the available cryptocurrency systems - gained complete control of cryptocurrency project Beanstalk, stealing $182 million in the process. Except they didn’t steal anything or do anything nefarious.
Here’s what happened:
Like many cryptocurrency projects, Beanstalk allows you to vote on governance issues to control the project. This is a big part of the “code is law” ideal behind cryptocurrency, where you can “steer the future of the project” based on how many tokens you have.
In this case, the “attacker” used something called a flash loan (a loan you hold for seconds or minutes specifically to take advantage of the volatility of cryptocurrencies) to get a controlling amount of Beanstalk’s “stalk” token.
In complete accordance with how Beanstalk’s governance works, they used these tokens to create a proposal to give him all of Beanstalk’s money ($182 million), a proposal that the attacker then used their massive amount of tokens to vote “yes” on. I’m not going into the point of that $182 million because it’s boring and irrelevant, but let’s say it was the pooled funds to make the project work.
On receipt, they then returned the funds to the flash loan company, making about $80 million in the process.
Much of what has been written about this has (as I have) used the term “attacker,” as if an attack was made in anything other than complete accordance with how the project worked. The project was set up to allow the largest amount of votes to pass whatever proposal was made, which, in this case, was “I think that I should have all of the money.” To describe this as an attack, a hack, or “malevolent” is to misunderstand the vacuous idea of “code is law” and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
“Code is law” refers to the idea that code can govern without human intervention, and DAOs are the Code Is Law monster - an autonomous organization that operates entirely based on what the highest amount of votes suggest. The problem is obvious if you’ve met more than one person in your life - human beings are fallible and biased, and prone to making mistakes.”
How does that quote go? They’re “speed running” the history of financial regulations?
posted by Monochrome at 2:01 PM on April 21, 2022 [55 favorites]
posted by Monochrome at 2:01 PM on April 21, 2022 [55 favorites]
They can't fool me. My virtual beans are stored in socks underneath my virtual mattress, where they belong.
posted by delfin at 2:02 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by delfin at 2:02 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
As a software engineer, I'm still confused about how this "code as law" stuff works. I get that maybe there's some sort of language that enabled the "attacker" to "propose" that everyone move all their tokens into a specific container, but within this same language how would one even describe any other sort of proposal? How would I describe a proposal to change the name of the DAO to "Farts"? To collectively issue a condemnation of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law? Or does this whole "code as law" nonsense limit it's definition of "governance" to issues involving the movement of tokens ala Douglas Adams' famous quote about the movement of small pieces of paper?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him [The Onion]
posted by chavenet at 2:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [61 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 2:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [61 favorites]
This is the right-wing libertarians' manifest plan. Own everything for a split second, long enough to break the world, run away with a piece.
I don't see what they're complaining about.
posted by Horkus at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2022 [35 favorites]
I don't see what they're complaining about.
posted by Horkus at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2022 [35 favorites]
One of the highlights of my day is reading Web3 is Going Great.
Crypto schadenfreude is my problematic fave. Idiots getting hoist on their own petards. Chef's Kiss, hashtag AH HA HA
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [29 favorites]
Crypto schadenfreude is my problematic fave. Idiots getting hoist on their own petards. Chef's Kiss, hashtag AH HA HA
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [29 favorites]
Leaving aside the total absurdity of the system he took advantage of, how did this rando get a "flash loan" of this magnitude? Were they in on it?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:13 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:13 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Or does this whole "code as law" nonsense limit it's definition of "governance" to issues involving the movement of tokens?That's exactly it. All of these "smart" contracts deal exclusively with on-chain interactions, which basically means balances. They're way less interesting than they sound.
posted by simonw at 2:14 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
This is a big part of the “code is law” ideal behind cryptocurrency
Are none of those people programmers? FFS, even simple code is often buggy or filled with weird errors at boundary conditions. With crypto it's even worse because of the "no takebacks" approach.
I'll admit I used to think laws should be written in some kind of legal-pseudo code to evacuate the problems and ambiguities that arrise from using natural language. But now I don't think that's really the issue, it's just hard to codify rules in whatever system you use.
I don't think "legalese" is particularly readable or efficient or devoid of ambiguities, but "code is law and a computer interprets it" is as idiotic as it gets.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
Are none of those people programmers? FFS, even simple code is often buggy or filled with weird errors at boundary conditions. With crypto it's even worse because of the "no takebacks" approach.
I'll admit I used to think laws should be written in some kind of legal-pseudo code to evacuate the problems and ambiguities that arrise from using natural language. But now I don't think that's really the issue, it's just hard to codify rules in whatever system you use.
I don't think "legalese" is particularly readable or efficient or devoid of ambiguities, but "code is law and a computer interprets it" is as idiotic as it gets.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
Binance dropped this super problematic tweet with a barely disguised swastika and a reference to "distributing gas again" complete with a gold colored Star of David on Hitler's birthday of all the damn things.
Crypto, meet fascism! How about a catchy name like cryptofacism?
What do you mean that term was already taken? Oooooohhhhh shit.
posted by loquacious at 2:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [53 favorites]
Crypto, meet fascism! How about a catchy name like cryptofacism?
What do you mean that term was already taken? Oooooohhhhh shit.
posted by loquacious at 2:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [53 favorites]
Wow. What fun. Though, I am a little curious how you cash out. Presumably most remixers don't have hundreds of millions of dollars handy and you'll be facing multiple lawsuits the moment you put your name or address on it.
posted by eotvos at 2:17 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by eotvos at 2:17 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'll never really stop loving Nomic in abstract as a concept, but every year has brought me farther down the path toward understanding it better as a tragicomic satire and warning rather than a game, and the rise of DAOs and smart contracts may have finally put a bullet in my desire to ever actually play it again.
Blockchain smart contracts are high-stakes cash Nomic.
posted by cortex at 2:17 PM on April 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
Blockchain smart contracts are high-stakes cash Nomic.
posted by cortex at 2:17 PM on April 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
This, of course, is great news for Bitcoin Beeple Matt Damon Skynet.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:24 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:24 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'd like to know how all these random out-of-nowhere DAOs get such massive funding out of the blue like this.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:26 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:26 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am a little curious how you cash out.
It's not too hard if you don't mind getting rinsed a bit. If you buy BTC a little high people will sell it to you, then you sell it a little low and people will buy using USD. It's nearly automated. Your $1000 becomes $500 maybe with all those fees, so people don't do it with small stakes. But if you stole $180M and $100M goes by the wayside you're still looking pret-ty good! Buy an island and enjoy life.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:26 PM on April 21, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's not too hard if you don't mind getting rinsed a bit. If you buy BTC a little high people will sell it to you, then you sell it a little low and people will buy using USD. It's nearly automated. Your $1000 becomes $500 maybe with all those fees, so people don't do it with small stakes. But if you stole $180M and $100M goes by the wayside you're still looking pret-ty good! Buy an island and enjoy life.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:26 PM on April 21, 2022 [8 favorites]
Code is lol.
posted by rodlymight at 2:31 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 2:31 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Oh shit that’s actually the title. I is lol.
posted by rodlymight at 2:33 PM on April 21, 2022 [39 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 2:33 PM on April 21, 2022 [39 favorites]
The people who got shook down were idiots and assholes and I feel nothing for them. But neither do I feel any vicarious joy for the ostensible Robin Hood in this story. Not because of what he did, because again, IDGAF about these Beanstalk idiots.
"Has the connections and wherewithal to obtain and deploy a $100MM flash loan for a cryptocurrency transaction" is about as reliable an indicator that the buyer also sucks as I can possibly imagine. This was not a clever scamp, just an asshole robbing other assholes.
This doesn't give me clever underdogs game the system vibes. More like the way I feel when someone bumps off a druglord and takes his territory. Same assholery, different configuration.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:35 PM on April 21, 2022 [27 favorites]
"Has the connections and wherewithal to obtain and deploy a $100MM flash loan for a cryptocurrency transaction" is about as reliable an indicator that the buyer also sucks as I can possibly imagine. This was not a clever scamp, just an asshole robbing other assholes.
This doesn't give me clever underdogs game the system vibes. More like the way I feel when someone bumps off a druglord and takes his territory. Same assholery, different configuration.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:35 PM on April 21, 2022 [27 favorites]
Schneier had a brief post on this yesterday.
When the guy who literally wrote the book on Crypto says, "It is insane to me that cryptocurrencies are still a thing." maybe you should... stop doing it?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 2:39 PM on April 21, 2022 [32 favorites]
When the guy who literally wrote the book on Crypto says, "It is insane to me that cryptocurrencies are still a thing." maybe you should... stop doing it?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 2:39 PM on April 21, 2022 [32 favorites]
@Bowsonk: [Beck voice] in the time of NFTs they stole my monkey
posted by Going To Maine at 2:44 PM on April 21, 2022 [40 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 2:44 PM on April 21, 2022 [40 favorites]
In what can only be sort of described as an attack
I laughed at this.
This is not an attack. This is the system working precisely as designed by people who are very bad at design, and as intended by people who are very shortsighted and naive of intention.
posted by mhoye at 2:46 PM on April 21, 2022 [35 favorites]
I laughed at this.
This is not an attack. This is the system working precisely as designed by people who are very bad at design, and as intended by people who are very shortsighted and naive of intention.
posted by mhoye at 2:46 PM on April 21, 2022 [35 favorites]
As a software engineer, I'm still confused about how this "code as law" stuff works.
Starting from the premise that it does is where you're going off the rails.
posted by mhoye at 2:47 PM on April 21, 2022 [14 favorites]
Starting from the premise that it does is where you're going off the rails.
posted by mhoye at 2:47 PM on April 21, 2022 [14 favorites]
coders who style themselves philosopher kings
Neither philosophers, nor kings, nor much in the way of coders.
posted by praemunire at 2:50 PM on April 21, 2022 [8 favorites]
Neither philosophers, nor kings, nor much in the way of coders.
posted by praemunire at 2:50 PM on April 21, 2022 [8 favorites]
Matt Levine touched on this in his Money Stuff newsletter (scroll down to "Meanwhile in crypto") *chef kiss*
posted by icebergs at 2:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by icebergs at 2:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Leaving aside the total absurdity of the system he took advantage of, how did this rando get a "flash loan" of this magnitude? Were they in on it?
Apparently not. This gives some insight. It seems like anyone (well, almost anyone) can get this loan, because the whole process of getting it, using the funds, and returning the money (plus a fee) is sort of built as a single transaction. If any step fails, the whole thing doesn't happen.
So if you can't use the flash loan to buy something, because if you buy something with the money you no longer have the money. If you no longer have the money, you can't return the money. If you can't return the money, it's not loaned to you in the first place, so you can't buy the thing.
I'm not sure why this doesn't turn into can't-lose investing (if my 10 second buy makes money I can return the funds and if it doesn't I can't make the purchase in the first place. A real-life "If it doesn't go up, don't buy it" scenario). I'm not interested enough (yet) to look to see how these technical details are resolved. I assume they are, because the crypto-bros aren't actually complete morons.
But sometimes they can be pretty stupid.
The trick here is that the person used the funds just as a temporary marker and not to buy anything. There were valuable merely by existing. That's pretty genius (and evil. But, hey, it's crypto. How do you tell the difference?).
As for liquidating it, I'd assume the funds were sent through a tumbler of some sort to obscure where they went.
Agreed with all that this is not an attack. This is "broken as designed". Also known as "hilarious".
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:52 PM on April 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
Apparently not. This gives some insight. It seems like anyone (well, almost anyone) can get this loan, because the whole process of getting it, using the funds, and returning the money (plus a fee) is sort of built as a single transaction. If any step fails, the whole thing doesn't happen.
So if you can't use the flash loan to buy something, because if you buy something with the money you no longer have the money. If you no longer have the money, you can't return the money. If you can't return the money, it's not loaned to you in the first place, so you can't buy the thing.
I'm not sure why this doesn't turn into can't-lose investing (if my 10 second buy makes money I can return the funds and if it doesn't I can't make the purchase in the first place. A real-life "If it doesn't go up, don't buy it" scenario). I'm not interested enough (yet) to look to see how these technical details are resolved. I assume they are, because the crypto-bros aren't actually complete morons.
But sometimes they can be pretty stupid.
The trick here is that the person used the funds just as a temporary marker and not to buy anything. There were valuable merely by existing. That's pretty genius (and evil. But, hey, it's crypto. How do you tell the difference?).
As for liquidating it, I'd assume the funds were sent through a tumbler of some sort to obscure where they went.
Agreed with all that this is not an attack. This is "broken as designed". Also known as "hilarious".
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:52 PM on April 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
I mean, the entire article is a break down of how this is the system working as designed. So, I think the author agrees with you and is saying that it can only be described as an attack because it is not actually an attack in any sense of reality.
posted by Bottlecap at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Bottlecap at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
To claim this isn't an attack is to indulge yourself in the same clueless rules-based orthodoxy that these people do. In the real world it is clear violation of stated and implied social norms.
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:54 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:54 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
What will the claims be? Malicious adherence to contract? Injurious good faith?
Even states that recognize an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing don't permit it to overcome the stated terms of the contract.
Nor is unconscionability likely to apply.
This is why most 'smart contracts' are actually really dumb.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2022 [37 favorites]
Even states that recognize an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing don't permit it to overcome the stated terms of the contract.
Nor is unconscionability likely to apply.
This is why most 'smart contracts' are actually really dumb.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2022 [37 favorites]
Yeah, the section of Folding Ideas' "Line Goes Up" video that covered code as law made me go "what the actual fuck, this both 'works' and is hideously open for abuse and nobody has said 'this is a terrible goddamn idea' yet?"
But no. Line goes up. Line must go up. We've got to pay for these crytypo.com ads plastering all over F1 broadcasts _somehow_, y'all.
posted by Kyol at 3:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
But no. Line goes up. Line must go up. We've got to pay for these crytypo.com ads plastering all over F1 broadcasts _somehow_, y'all.
posted by Kyol at 3:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
It’s the crypto equivalent of quantum tunneling!
posted by notoriety public at 3:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 3:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
"In the real world it is clear violation of stated and implied social norms."
Is it though? The stated, explicit norms - the whole entire point of the project - are that you can buy votes and there are no limits to the decisions that can be voted on. This outcome is one of many reasons that this structure is generally considered a terrible idea. It's a classic hostile takeover/corporate raider move except it happened quickly on the blockchain.
It's exactly what everyone said would happen, it's basically what happened with the original "The DAO" except this time they didn't have the clout to fork the entire chain to rewind time and undo it.
"Malicious adherence to contract? Injurious good faith?"
Thank you, that cracked me up.
posted by Infracanophile at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [18 favorites]
Is it though? The stated, explicit norms - the whole entire point of the project - are that you can buy votes and there are no limits to the decisions that can be voted on. This outcome is one of many reasons that this structure is generally considered a terrible idea. It's a classic hostile takeover/corporate raider move except it happened quickly on the blockchain.
It's exactly what everyone said would happen, it's basically what happened with the original "The DAO" except this time they didn't have the clout to fork the entire chain to rewind time and undo it.
"Malicious adherence to contract? Injurious good faith?"
Thank you, that cracked me up.
posted by Infracanophile at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [18 favorites]
If you’d like to keep abreast of the disaster, we have this community blog post: “Beanstalk: The Path Forward”
There was also this offer from Beanstalk to the person who took the money, which, to my untrained eye, seems to boil down to “please give us back 90% of what you took and we will continue to not be able to do much about it.”
posted by Going To Maine at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
There was also this offer from Beanstalk to the person who took the money, which, to my untrained eye, seems to boil down to “please give us back 90% of what you took and we will continue to not be able to do much about it.”
posted by Going To Maine at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [17 favorites]
That offer from Beanstalk is wonderful. There was a similar offer years ago when Silkroad was hacked (actually hacked) and someone made off with a bunch of bitcoin. They nicely asked if the person would be a man of honor and return the money.
This was not at all amusing and I want to stress that I did not laugh out loud when I heard this.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 3:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
This was not at all amusing and I want to stress that I did not laugh out loud when I heard this.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 3:16 PM on April 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
To claim this isn't an attack is to indulge yourself in the same clueless rules-based orthodoxy that these people do. In the real world it is clear violation of stated and implied social norms.
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
You're bringing up an interesting point, which is a bit of a tangent.
See, the whole point from the start of cryptocurrency is to implement anarcho-capitalism (ugh, I know) using cryptography to make it impossible for the government to track who owns what or who is paying what to whom. Crypto-anarchism, it's called. One of the core features of anarcho-capitalism is that there's no regulations of any kind. Companies can do whatever they want, sell whatever they want, and if they fuck you out of your money or sell you something unsafe, your options basically amount to trying to ruin their reputation so other people won't do business with them or complaining to the private police firm they contract with in hopes they'll care.
This is built into cryptocurrency! It's designed around the idea that everybody needs to be smart and careful all the time, and if you get fucked over you have no recourse but to hope maybe somebody feels charitable. The people who built the structures around Bitcoin, as well as the myriad successors to Bitcoin, knowingly built an engine for fraud. And that's only natural- the history of conservative politics is in large part the history of petty frauds and con men.
One of the things that's been really interesting particularly in the NFT space (a bunch of shitheads trying to scam each other may be a lot of things, but it's not a "community") is the disconnection from that history and ideology. There's NFT shitheads who have some connection to it, but the vast majority of the people promoting NFTs have absolutely no connection to the underlying ideology of cryptocurrency. A lot of them are scammers, sure, because any scam artist worth their fake brokerage license can look at crypto and see a target-rich environment, but many and I'd say probably most of the vocal NFT promoters are/were finance industry and other corporate trash who heard that NFTs were a new investment vehicle where you could make a lot of money fast. That you could just get scammed and the feds wouldn't give a shit doesn't occur to them because this population is largely drawn from the socioeconomic class which the federal regulatory apparatus exists to enable and protect, and the kind of scamming they have in mind is more about conjuring value out of nothing than about the sort of smash-and-grab-and-forward-to-mixer hacks that crypto enables.
And so you've got NFT bros whining about how they got scammed out of their apes and demanding legal action, demanding that the thieves be forced to return them, because they're not crypto ideologues who give a shit about any of the ideas encoded into the technology they're trying to use to convince people that lead is gold. They heard there was a new machine for turning lead into gold just long enough to sell it to suckers, same as they do with stocks and securities, and thought they could scoop up the low-hanging fruit by getting in on the ground floor, not realizing that the ground floor was actually built atop a basement full of monsters. And we laugh at them, because they fuckin' deserve it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [110 favorites]
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
You're bringing up an interesting point, which is a bit of a tangent.
See, the whole point from the start of cryptocurrency is to implement anarcho-capitalism (ugh, I know) using cryptography to make it impossible for the government to track who owns what or who is paying what to whom. Crypto-anarchism, it's called. One of the core features of anarcho-capitalism is that there's no regulations of any kind. Companies can do whatever they want, sell whatever they want, and if they fuck you out of your money or sell you something unsafe, your options basically amount to trying to ruin their reputation so other people won't do business with them or complaining to the private police firm they contract with in hopes they'll care.
This is built into cryptocurrency! It's designed around the idea that everybody needs to be smart and careful all the time, and if you get fucked over you have no recourse but to hope maybe somebody feels charitable. The people who built the structures around Bitcoin, as well as the myriad successors to Bitcoin, knowingly built an engine for fraud. And that's only natural- the history of conservative politics is in large part the history of petty frauds and con men.
One of the things that's been really interesting particularly in the NFT space (a bunch of shitheads trying to scam each other may be a lot of things, but it's not a "community") is the disconnection from that history and ideology. There's NFT shitheads who have some connection to it, but the vast majority of the people promoting NFTs have absolutely no connection to the underlying ideology of cryptocurrency. A lot of them are scammers, sure, because any scam artist worth their fake brokerage license can look at crypto and see a target-rich environment, but many and I'd say probably most of the vocal NFT promoters are/were finance industry and other corporate trash who heard that NFTs were a new investment vehicle where you could make a lot of money fast. That you could just get scammed and the feds wouldn't give a shit doesn't occur to them because this population is largely drawn from the socioeconomic class which the federal regulatory apparatus exists to enable and protect, and the kind of scamming they have in mind is more about conjuring value out of nothing than about the sort of smash-and-grab-and-forward-to-mixer hacks that crypto enables.
And so you've got NFT bros whining about how they got scammed out of their apes and demanding legal action, demanding that the thieves be forced to return them, because they're not crypto ideologues who give a shit about any of the ideas encoded into the technology they're trying to use to convince people that lead is gold. They heard there was a new machine for turning lead into gold just long enough to sell it to suckers, same as they do with stocks and securities, and thought they could scoop up the low-hanging fruit by getting in on the ground floor, not realizing that the ground floor was actually built atop a basement full of monsters. And we laugh at them, because they fuckin' deserve it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [110 favorites]
WaterAndPixels: Are none of those people programmers? FFS, even simple code is often buggy or filled with weird errors at boundary conditions.
They are but IMHO they're the wrong kind of programmer.
When I first heard about Ethereum and how they aimed to add the ability to put executable code on top of blockchain stuff, I was initially intrigued by the possibilities. But, then I found out that the language they developed for it was deliberately designed to be Turing-complete, I realized these guys did not know or fully appreciate what kind of mess they were about to get into. Since the code written in this language was supposed to be doing things in the financial realm, I assumed that they'd implement a relatively limited language in order to allow for things like automatic verification (or at least much more robust verification than you'd get for a full Turing-complete language). Basically, the kind of programmers you'd want designing such a system come from areas like embedded systems or maybe cryptographic protocol design or stuff like that. Areas where if your code is bad, real bad stuff can happen (e.g.: chemical spills, etc...) Instead, I believe the originators were essentially general-purpose programmers who were more accustomed to situations where if your code is bad, you can just push out an OTA patch or reboot the servers and try again or whatever.
posted by mhum at 3:24 PM on April 21, 2022 [26 favorites]
They are but IMHO they're the wrong kind of programmer.
When I first heard about Ethereum and how they aimed to add the ability to put executable code on top of blockchain stuff, I was initially intrigued by the possibilities. But, then I found out that the language they developed for it was deliberately designed to be Turing-complete, I realized these guys did not know or fully appreciate what kind of mess they were about to get into. Since the code written in this language was supposed to be doing things in the financial realm, I assumed that they'd implement a relatively limited language in order to allow for things like automatic verification (or at least much more robust verification than you'd get for a full Turing-complete language). Basically, the kind of programmers you'd want designing such a system come from areas like embedded systems or maybe cryptographic protocol design or stuff like that. Areas where if your code is bad, real bad stuff can happen (e.g.: chemical spills, etc...) Instead, I believe the originators were essentially general-purpose programmers who were more accustomed to situations where if your code is bad, you can just push out an OTA patch or reboot the servers and try again or whatever.
posted by mhum at 3:24 PM on April 21, 2022 [26 favorites]
My schadenfreude when hearing about the latest cryptohack is tempered by the fact many of the theft's funds go directly to North Korea.
posted by gwint at 3:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by gwint at 3:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
In the real world it is clear violation of stated and implied social norms.
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
Social norms are not laws. We cannot sue someone for breaking social norms.
People who break social norms are quite often heavily rewarded, as they become CEOs, senators, billionaires.
posted by explosion at 3:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
And the lawsuits will reflect that.
Social norms are not laws. We cannot sue someone for breaking social norms.
People who break social norms are quite often heavily rewarded, as they become CEOs, senators, billionaires.
posted by explosion at 3:51 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
The project was set up to allow the largest amount of votes to pass whatever proposal was made, which, in this case, was “I think that I should have all of the money.”
Reminds me of colonialism & how desperately needed education in the humanities is for everyone. Then I was reminded again by Pope Guilty:
It's designed around the idea that everybody needs to be smart and careful all the time, and if you get fucked over you have no recourse but to hope maybe somebody feels charitable.
I see this mindset all over the internet and it drives me crazy. Civilization just can't work like this.
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on April 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
Reminds me of colonialism & how desperately needed education in the humanities is for everyone. Then I was reminded again by Pope Guilty:
It's designed around the idea that everybody needs to be smart and careful all the time, and if you get fucked over you have no recourse but to hope maybe somebody feels charitable.
I see this mindset all over the internet and it drives me crazy. Civilization just can't work like this.
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on April 21, 2022 [15 favorites]
I still don't really get how mixers are supposed to work. It seems like an overly digitally literal money laundering conspiracy which is no small federal crime to add to your already probably criminal heist.
posted by srboisvert at 4:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 4:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I realized these guys did not know or fully appreciate what kind of mess they were about to get into.
What is blowing my mind recently is the fact that all those little programs that get queued up to run on Ethereum can be reordered inside a transaction if you pay (ahem, bribe?) the miner with enough currency.
It's a fascinating system but I wouldn't touch it with a 50-foot pole at this point in time.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:05 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
What is blowing my mind recently is the fact that all those little programs that get queued up to run on Ethereum can be reordered inside a transaction if you pay (ahem, bribe?) the miner with enough currency.
It's a fascinating system but I wouldn't touch it with a 50-foot pole at this point in time.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:05 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Social norms are not laws.
At the philosophical level (or in a law school classroom), tort claims are often said to be about social norms (or 'social policy') -- but in the legal context the breach has to be of a norm that's been codified (i.e. a mandate or a prohibition, or a right or a duty); or one that can be cognized as negligence or recklessness (and with the relationship between the parties sufficient for a duty of care to exist, among other elements).
People who break social norms are quite often heavily rewarded, as they become CEOs, senators, billionaires.
A lot of these people break laws too (or violate legal duties, such as to their shareholders or constituents). Just as with social norms, not everyone is held equally responsible for transgressing them.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
At the philosophical level (or in a law school classroom), tort claims are often said to be about social norms (or 'social policy') -- but in the legal context the breach has to be of a norm that's been codified (i.e. a mandate or a prohibition, or a right or a duty); or one that can be cognized as negligence or recklessness (and with the relationship between the parties sufficient for a duty of care to exist, among other elements).
People who break social norms are quite often heavily rewarded, as they become CEOs, senators, billionaires.
A lot of these people break laws too (or violate legal duties, such as to their shareholders or constituents). Just as with social norms, not everyone is held equally responsible for transgressing them.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
I still don't really get how mixers are supposed to work.
Tired: Layering.
Wired: Mixing!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Tired: Layering.
Wired: Mixing!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Crypto is a deep pool nobody (except the actual experts) should get into.
I'm sure the creators of this have the best of intentions when they started (and some are NOT so well intentioned) but failure to see potential attack vector is still a failure.
This is not a hack. This is just the equivalent of a corporate raid and a company end up taking a severe loss, but all done perfectly legal.
It's long been known many cryptos can be manipulated one way or another. Even the reknowned Bitcoin itself is not invulnerable to manipulation. Indeed, it's the very attempt to "industrialize" cryptomining that makes the whole thing vulnerable to manipulation.
The sobering thought we should wonder is what ELSE is vulnerable to this sort of attack, and are we ready for such.
posted by kschang at 4:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm sure the creators of this have the best of intentions when they started (and some are NOT so well intentioned) but failure to see potential attack vector is still a failure.
This is not a hack. This is just the equivalent of a corporate raid and a company end up taking a severe loss, but all done perfectly legal.
It's long been known many cryptos can be manipulated one way or another. Even the reknowned Bitcoin itself is not invulnerable to manipulation. Indeed, it's the very attempt to "industrialize" cryptomining that makes the whole thing vulnerable to manipulation.
The sobering thought we should wonder is what ELSE is vulnerable to this sort of attack, and are we ready for such.
posted by kschang at 4:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
"Code is law" comes from Lawrence Lessig. He is primarily a lawyer rather than a coder. The phrase was meant as a warning, not a suggestion.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 4:22 PM on April 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 4:22 PM on April 21, 2022 [19 favorites]
Indeed, it's a leveraged buyout and a raid of the assets. Just carried out extremely rapidly, what with the technology and lack of any regulation or oversight to slow it down.
The phrase was meant as a warning, not a suggestion.
Most of those who employ it don't grasp that. (And it's become something of a joke at this point.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
The phrase was meant as a warning, not a suggestion.
Most of those who employ it don't grasp that. (And it's become something of a joke at this point.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
You all type funny words hurt Hulk head.
posted by y2karl at 4:31 PM on April 21, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 4:31 PM on April 21, 2022 [21 favorites]
JoeyZydeco: What is blowing my mind recently is the fact that all those little programs that get queued up to run on Ethereum can be reordered inside a transaction if you pay (ahem, bribe?) the miner with enough currency.
Oh holy crap. I haven't really paid much attention to the internal workings of Ethereum after my initial introduction so I didn't realize this was even possible. As if concurrency issues weren't difficult enough to deal with in normal scenarios, Ethereum is operating in perhaps the one of the most hostile computing environments that exists now: pretty much open to the whole world, full of potential to snag some real money, and little to no legal or regulatory recourse.
posted by mhum at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Oh holy crap. I haven't really paid much attention to the internal workings of Ethereum after my initial introduction so I didn't realize this was even possible. As if concurrency issues weren't difficult enough to deal with in normal scenarios, Ethereum is operating in perhaps the one of the most hostile computing environments that exists now: pretty much open to the whole world, full of potential to snag some real money, and little to no legal or regulatory recourse.
posted by mhum at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
i am a fungible token
by that i mean i smoke shrooms
no rules
no code
my hands look funny
posted by not_on_display at 4:35 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
by that i mean i smoke shrooms
no rules
no code
my hands look funny
posted by not_on_display at 4:35 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
I didn't realize this was even possible.
Yeah I'm late to this whole party, and this reordering thing was being discussed three years ago so who the hell knows what kind of shenanigans are being layered on top of this now?
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:40 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah I'm late to this whole party, and this reordering thing was being discussed three years ago so who the hell knows what kind of shenanigans are being layered on top of this now?
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:40 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
This isn't really any different from some hedge fund buying a company, stripping to to sell as assets, and dumping it. It just takes longer.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:56 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:56 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
the whole point from the start of cryptocurrency is to implement anarcho-capitalism
Quite. Jim Bell's Assassination Politics was 1992 so anarchism, in a nasty libertarian Propaganda of the Deed sense, is pretty deeply ingrained.
Ethereum is operating in perhaps the one of the most hostile computing environments that exists now
Aye. More poetically, Ethereum is a Dark Forest (linked previously).
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:03 PM on April 21, 2022 [7 favorites]
Quite. Jim Bell's Assassination Politics was 1992 so anarchism, in a nasty libertarian Propaganda of the Deed sense, is pretty deeply ingrained.
Ethereum is operating in perhaps the one of the most hostile computing environments that exists now
Aye. More poetically, Ethereum is a Dark Forest (linked previously).
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:03 PM on April 21, 2022 [7 favorites]
My rudimentary understanding of algorithmic stablecoins is they're a Ponzi scheme that's hoping to bootstrap into a central bank... what is the incentive in donating currency to their "liquidity pool?" They pay you 20% of your deposit in their own made up currency. I skimmed their white paper and it baldly states "[Stakeholders] become less concentrated over time" with no actual mechanism of ensuring decentralization of stakeholders... Like, preventing single shareholder takeovers isn't a new problem...
I highly doubt this "hacker" is going to net $80 million
... from what I can tell half their asset pool was other made-up stablecoins.
Honestly I used to somewhat understand crypto scams but they have grown way beyond me and I need a semester long intensive to understand each one.
posted by muddgirl at 5:08 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
I highly doubt this "hacker" is going to net $80 million
... from what I can tell half their asset pool was other made-up stablecoins.
Honestly I used to somewhat understand crypto scams but they have grown way beyond me and I need a semester long intensive to understand each one.
posted by muddgirl at 5:08 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Honestly I used to somewhat understand crypto scams but they have grown way beyond me and I need a semester long intensive to understand each one.
Oh, for those simple days of just buying drugs on the darknet...
posted by mikelieman at 5:12 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Oh, for those simple days of just buying drugs on the darknet...
posted by mikelieman at 5:12 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Honestly I used to somewhat understand crypto scams but they have grown way beyond me and I need a semester long intensive to understand each one.
I tried to understand what on earth PancakeSwap (pancakeswap.finance) was up to in order to be better than a Vanguard and just threw up my hands, it’s the impenetrable monkey’s paw apotheosis of a “cute hacker” aesthetic that I otherwise am happy to see.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I tried to understand what on earth PancakeSwap (pancakeswap.finance) was up to in order to be better than a Vanguard and just threw up my hands, it’s the impenetrable monkey’s paw apotheosis of a “cute hacker” aesthetic that I otherwise am happy to see.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
What makes PancakeSwap stand out?
basically, binance
also bunnies
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
basically, binance
also bunnies
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:20 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
Like I have a rule, maybe it's a bad one, that I don't invest in something I don't understand. I barely understand bond funds as it is. Then I see this website say I can lend them beans if they have soil, or store them in a silo and they will pay me more beans based on the weather. This isn't Settlers of Catan! This is my kid's college fund!
posted by muddgirl at 5:25 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 5:25 PM on April 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
This isn't Settlers of Catan! This is my kid's college fund!
In the crypto market, it is a common misconception that the Oculus holds all of the power, when it is, in fact, the Lamplighter who does.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:39 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
In the crypto market, it is a common misconception that the Oculus holds all of the power, when it is, in fact, the Lamplighter who does.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:39 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
I tried to understand what on earth PancakeSwap (pancakeswap.finance) was up to in order to be better than a Vanguard and just threw up my hands, it’s the impenetrable monkey’s paw apotheosis of a “cute hacker” aesthetic that I otherwise am happy to see.
Do they let you go long or short on maple syrup futures, though?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:41 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Do they let you go long or short on maple syrup futures, though?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:41 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
legal-pseudo code to evacuate the problems and ambiguities that arrise from using natural language.
Not really on topic but that's pretty much true right? Or at least the idealized goal of the current system? Anyone claiming modern laws are written in natural language will have a hell a of time, imo, and I'm certain they've never read an utterly normal chunk of municipal code for a medium sized city in the USA.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:37 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Not really on topic but that's pretty much true right? Or at least the idealized goal of the current system? Anyone claiming modern laws are written in natural language will have a hell a of time, imo, and I'm certain they've never read an utterly normal chunk of municipal code for a medium sized city in the USA.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:37 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Not quite to that extent, no. Except for areas of law that lend themselves to tha; typically financial things, thus the pull of smart contracts, but the problem there is that contract law includes a lot of equitable remedies. Positivism is not determinism; statutes are not invalidated for vagueness because they aren't NP-complete. These things have been tried before, here by one of the foremoest scholars of evidence. But we still rely on juries, because the evaluation of evidence is subjective.
It's been a long time since Karl Llewellyn famously noted that for every canon of statutory construction there's a countervailing one; and earlier Oliver Wendell Holmes said "[t]he life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”
And the experience of the law in and around contracts includes dealing with their failure, such as through promissory estoppel or recission. There's no way a smart contract can allow for that; in fact it's a vision of the law actively hostile to any remedy that relies on judicial intervention and the exercise of human judgment post hoc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
It's been a long time since Karl Llewellyn famously noted that for every canon of statutory construction there's a countervailing one; and earlier Oliver Wendell Holmes said "[t]he life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”
And the experience of the law in and around contracts includes dealing with their failure, such as through promissory estoppel or recission. There's no way a smart contract can allow for that; in fact it's a vision of the law actively hostile to any remedy that relies on judicial intervention and the exercise of human judgment post hoc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
It says a lot that this particular set of magic bean peddlers openly nodded to the fact that's what they're selling by calling their scheme Beanstalk.
It makes sense though, because it's open knowledge that all these things are scams. Beanstalk's customers are the people who are already holding cryptocurrency, who are sitting on piles of tokens from old schemes which they either can't cash out due to lack of liquidity, or prefer to gamble with further. So they buy in knowingly to the new scheme, fronting their old tokens as capital, hoping that it will gather enough hype to make some fresh suckers pay actual money for the new magic beans. There's thousands of these schemes, and it's getting harder and harder to find fresh suckers.
But in this particular instance, someone else - or the same people, who knows - stepped in and stole all the beans.
Scammers scamming scammers, all the way down.
posted by automatronic at 7:34 PM on April 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
It makes sense though, because it's open knowledge that all these things are scams. Beanstalk's customers are the people who are already holding cryptocurrency, who are sitting on piles of tokens from old schemes which they either can't cash out due to lack of liquidity, or prefer to gamble with further. So they buy in knowingly to the new scheme, fronting their old tokens as capital, hoping that it will gather enough hype to make some fresh suckers pay actual money for the new magic beans. There's thousands of these schemes, and it's getting harder and harder to find fresh suckers.
But in this particular instance, someone else - or the same people, who knows - stepped in and stole all the beans.
Scammers scamming scammers, all the way down.
posted by automatronic at 7:34 PM on April 21, 2022 [9 favorites]
Just pisses me off because BeansTalk would have been a perfectly good name for a MeFi chatfilter subsite.
posted by cortex at 7:42 PM on April 21, 2022 [39 favorites]
posted by cortex at 7:42 PM on April 21, 2022 [39 favorites]
Just pisses me off because BeansTalk would have been a perfectly good name for a MeFi chatfilter subsite.
Wait'll you hear about MetaMask.
Like I have a rule, maybe it's a bad one, that I don't invest in something I don't understand.
No! This is a very good rule!
Keep following it. And tell other people to follow it!
If someone can't tell you how something makes money for you in language you understand, it probably doesn't.
Speaking of MetaMask, Noam Chomsky could've just swapped out "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" for shit like this:
The trader lost $650,000 worth of cryptocurrency and NFTs, including Mutant Apes and Gutter Cats, to the attack.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:45 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
Wait'll you hear about MetaMask.
Like I have a rule, maybe it's a bad one, that I don't invest in something I don't understand.
No! This is a very good rule!
Keep following it. And tell other people to follow it!
If someone can't tell you how something makes money for you in language you understand, it probably doesn't.
Speaking of MetaMask, Noam Chomsky could've just swapped out "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" for shit like this:
The trader lost $650,000 worth of cryptocurrency and NFTs, including Mutant Apes and Gutter Cats, to the attack.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:45 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]
My worry is less about the people voluntarily putting their money outside the law but how much of our financial system is tied to the magic of inventing new money for suckers or using it as leverage.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:01 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Slackermagee at 9:01 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
I don't have money, all I have is time. And even taking the time reading about this stuff feels like a mistake, like I've been robbed. The knowledge has made me stupider.
What kind of "basilisk" is that?
posted by eustatic at 9:43 PM on April 21, 2022 [47 favorites]
What kind of "basilisk" is that?
posted by eustatic at 9:43 PM on April 21, 2022 [47 favorites]
eustatic, that might be the wisest comment in this thread so far. Thank you.
posted by muddgirl at 9:47 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 9:47 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
The knowledge has made me stupider.
A friend and I agreed that reading through the "moonshot crypto" subreddit was as close as we were going to get to simulating an injury that catastrophically damaged our language-cognition brainparts.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:48 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
A friend and I agreed that reading through the "moonshot crypto" subreddit was as close as we were going to get to simulating an injury that catastrophically damaged our language-cognition brainparts.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:48 PM on April 21, 2022 [11 favorites]
Social norms are not laws. We cannot sue someone for breaking social norms
In the American legal system you can sue anybody for anything.
For example, every once in a while someone cuts their hedge in the shape of a giant middle finger directed at a neighbor they’re feuding with. Very few places have directly applicable laws, but despite that there have been successful lawsuits.
Similarly, despite the lack of crypto-specific laws there have been a number of successful lawsuits when group efforts went south. With this sort of money involved people aren’t just going to let it go.
See, the whole point from the start of cryptocurrency is to implement anarcho-capitalism. []. This is built into cryptocurrency!
I would say that while something like cryptocurrency is necessary for an anarcho–capitalism, it is definitely not sufficient for it. As with all things crypto the weak points are the people at either end, and the current government is quite good at leveraging people’s fear of prison. Your ability to hide your transactions is moot once the subpoena arrives.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:34 PM on April 21, 2022
In the American legal system you can sue anybody for anything.
For example, every once in a while someone cuts their hedge in the shape of a giant middle finger directed at a neighbor they’re feuding with. Very few places have directly applicable laws, but despite that there have been successful lawsuits.
Similarly, despite the lack of crypto-specific laws there have been a number of successful lawsuits when group efforts went south. With this sort of money involved people aren’t just going to let it go.
See, the whole point from the start of cryptocurrency is to implement anarcho-capitalism. []. This is built into cryptocurrency!
I would say that while something like cryptocurrency is necessary for an anarcho–capitalism, it is definitely not sufficient for it. As with all things crypto the weak points are the people at either end, and the current government is quite good at leveraging people’s fear of prison. Your ability to hide your transactions is moot once the subpoena arrives.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:34 PM on April 21, 2022
rhamphorhynchus:
More poetically, Ethereum is a Dark Forest (linked previously)
... contains the stunning line:
Because I’m a professional DeFi thought leader, I had never actually deployed a contract to Ethereum before.
posted by k3ninho at 1:58 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
More poetically, Ethereum is a Dark Forest (linked previously)
... contains the stunning line:
Because I’m a professional DeFi thought leader, I had never actually deployed a contract to Ethereum before.
posted by k3ninho at 1:58 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'll admit I used to think laws should be written in some kind of legal-pseudo code to evacuate the problems and ambiguities that arrise from using natural language.
There is actually an effort to implement some regulations as executable code, mostly to make voluntary compliance easier and to automate some of the things you'd otherwise hire a lawyer to work out for you.
It's a little different because in this case it's a government agency trying to make themselves a little more effective, rather than a bunch of greedy libertarians thinking that governance can't be that hard
posted by Merus at 2:11 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
There is actually an effort to implement some regulations as executable code, mostly to make voluntary compliance easier and to automate some of the things you'd otherwise hire a lawyer to work out for you.
It's a little different because in this case it's a government agency trying to make themselves a little more effective, rather than a bunch of greedy libertarians thinking that governance can't be that hard
posted by Merus at 2:11 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
My worry is less about the people voluntarily putting their money outside the law but how much of our financial system is tied to the magic of inventing new money for suckers or using it as leverage.
Spending any amount of time watching tv leaves me genuinely frightened. There are sooooooo many damned crypto products now being advertised that are obviously aimed at the general public, especially younger people. And, as much as we like to label younger generations as being “digital natives”, that doesn’t mean the majority understand the crypto scam any better than older folks. Given that they’re largely of the same generations of the cryptobros, I can imagine there might be a great deal of subtle peer pressure at work on them to jump into the swamp.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:07 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Spending any amount of time watching tv leaves me genuinely frightened. There are sooooooo many damned crypto products now being advertised that are obviously aimed at the general public, especially younger people. And, as much as we like to label younger generations as being “digital natives”, that doesn’t mean the majority understand the crypto scam any better than older folks. Given that they’re largely of the same generations of the cryptobros, I can imagine there might be a great deal of subtle peer pressure at work on them to jump into the swamp.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:07 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
In the American legal system you can sue anybody for anything.
This is true in the strict sense; however a "lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee" per the widely circulated comment on Trump's post-election suits.
And even that is a little understated; in that if there's no cognizable claim the suit should not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (in lieu of answering it). File too many of those and the court may deem you a vexatious litigant and stop accepting your filings without preauthorization. (California's version.)
For example, every once in a while someone cuts their hedge in the shape of a giant middle finger directed at a neighbor they’re feuding with. Very few places have directly applicable laws, but despite that there have been successful lawsuits.
Common law courts aren't confined strictly to written law, we have case law and judges can fashion equitable remedies; that's the difference between the common law tradition and European 'civil law.' This is not an aberration. Indeed, a lot of law on spite fences and whatnot is not statutory. It is no less extant. And it is indeed an outer limit on the extent to which code can really be law under the present system.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:53 AM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is true in the strict sense; however a "lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee" per the widely circulated comment on Trump's post-election suits.
And even that is a little understated; in that if there's no cognizable claim the suit should not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (in lieu of answering it). File too many of those and the court may deem you a vexatious litigant and stop accepting your filings without preauthorization. (California's version.)
For example, every once in a while someone cuts their hedge in the shape of a giant middle finger directed at a neighbor they’re feuding with. Very few places have directly applicable laws, but despite that there have been successful lawsuits.
Common law courts aren't confined strictly to written law, we have case law and judges can fashion equitable remedies; that's the difference between the common law tradition and European 'civil law.' This is not an aberration. Indeed, a lot of law on spite fences and whatnot is not statutory. It is no less extant. And it is indeed an outer limit on the extent to which code can really be law under the present system.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:53 AM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
It should also be noted that a lot of crypto operations are so sloppy that the terms of service or contracts they use are cut and pasted with placeholder language still in them. So the contracts may fail basic tests of formation or validity, or important components may be void. And of course there's always a fraud claim, which will survive early pleading so long as sufficient facts are stated.
Similarly, despite the lack of crypto-specific laws there have been a number of successful lawsuits when group efforts went south.
Typically against exchanges, or the coin offeror if it turns out to be an unregistered security, or an obvious rug pull; I don't think I've yet heard of any successful suit against a third party user who raided a token by exploiting its own rules.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:06 AM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Similarly, despite the lack of crypto-specific laws there have been a number of successful lawsuits when group efforts went south.
Typically against exchanges, or the coin offeror if it turns out to be an unregistered security, or an obvious rug pull; I don't think I've yet heard of any successful suit against a third party user who raided a token by exploiting its own rules.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:06 AM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
From the Beanstalk community blog:
Beanstalk Farms will double down on its efforts to attract and retain experienced security engineers who specialize in smart contract development.
You'd think a project that handles $182 million in assets might have thought of this step BEFORE they had all their money stolen, no?
posted by signal at 7:41 AM on April 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
Beanstalk Farms will double down on its efforts to attract and retain experienced security engineers who specialize in smart contract development.
You'd think a project that handles $182 million in assets might have thought of this step BEFORE they had all their money stolen, no?
posted by signal at 7:41 AM on April 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
Libertarians seem to believe that a pound of cure is worth an ounce of prevention.
Why put precautions in place when you can do it later for three times the cost and twice the effort?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:59 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Why put precautions in place when you can do it later for three times the cost and twice the effort?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:59 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Can't wait for a hacker to find an exploit in Etherium smart contracts and go full joker and burn it all down, then, likely Etherium will do what has happened and fork make Etherium Classic, Etherium Cash, and Etherium Main.
posted by wcfields at 9:39 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by wcfields at 9:39 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
My 18-yr-old and I agree: "it sounds like gambling in a casino, where you know that the mob is running most of the bets." He will probably be okay in this world.
posted by TreeRooster at 9:42 AM on April 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by TreeRooster at 9:42 AM on April 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
I put all of my dough into CreepDough(TM), and now you can too! Because you're like me. Way too smart to play by the rules in a game rigged by old men to keep the status quo. Keep it safely in their hands and out of yours, that is.
But we know better! We understand that regulations are for suckers. The illusion of protection is just the man extorting your hard earned dough and limiting your profits.
But at CreepDough(TM), there are no regulations. No protection rackets. No limits.
No fees and no recipes. Just unlimited potential.
Because at CreepDough(TM), absolutely everything that you're smart enough to make, take, fake, or half-bake is yours to keep for as long as you can hold onto it.
We're CreepDough(TM), and these mothers are rising!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:17 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
But we know better! We understand that regulations are for suckers. The illusion of protection is just the man extorting your hard earned dough and limiting your profits.
But at CreepDough(TM), there are no regulations. No protection rackets. No limits.
No fees and no recipes. Just unlimited potential.
Because at CreepDough(TM), absolutely everything that you're smart enough to make, take, fake, or half-bake is yours to keep for as long as you can hold onto it.
We're CreepDough(TM), and these mothers are rising!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:17 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
↑ Half baked at the Cracked Pottery or cracked pot at the Half Bakery -- you be the judge.
posted by y2karl at 10:28 AM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 10:28 AM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a software engineer, I'm still confused about how this "code as law" stuff works.
The best way to understand the mechanism of implementation for these contracts is as a DSL for a database. Essentially, a contract is a SQL script. In the same way that a giant SQL script may fail to account for all relevant factors and somehow, in a correct fashion, return the incorrect result, a smart contract or whatever the preferred term du jour can transfer all your money to a rando if you massage the input just so.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
The best way to understand the mechanism of implementation for these contracts is as a DSL for a database. Essentially, a contract is a SQL script. In the same way that a giant SQL script may fail to account for all relevant factors and somehow, in a correct fashion, return the incorrect result, a smart contract or whatever the preferred term du jour can transfer all your money to a rando if you massage the input just so.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
That DeFi dark forest article is terrifying. They're all, every single one, just committing code straight to the production server. And they're pretending like that makes them cowboys, not idiots.
posted by muddgirl at 12:07 PM on April 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 12:07 PM on April 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
The knowledge has made me stupider.
The article contained knowledge. Now you contain it. It is a little like theft and a little like feasting and a little like the progress of an infectious disease.
posted by nickmark at 12:22 PM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
The article contained knowledge. Now you contain it. It is a little like theft and a little like feasting and a little like the progress of an infectious disease.
posted by nickmark at 12:22 PM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
As a software engineer, I'm still confused about how this "code as law" stuff works.
I’ve been a bit confused too, and it seems to have multiple meanings. I think I understand one of them.
Normally when you write a contract it is backed up by the US judicial system. If there are problems with it you can sue to make changes or annul it. For example, if you entered into an agreement that had unforeseen dramatic consequences the US government will let you file a lawsuit to try to remedy the situation.
"Code as law" does away with this and makes it so that if you write a voting system and everyone agrees to use it then the output of that system is 100% binding on everyone. There is no redress because you made an agreement to treat the code as the final arbiter.
Naturally as software engineers we both find this completely terrifying. Code can (does) have bugs, it can be hacked, it can allow unforeseen consequences. One of the most tightly run software shops in the world once plowed a $300,000,000 dollar probe into Mars because of a really silly bug. 100% reliable software is an extremely bad bet.
"Code as law", at least as I’ve understood it, is complete madness.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:42 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
I’ve been a bit confused too, and it seems to have multiple meanings. I think I understand one of them.
Normally when you write a contract it is backed up by the US judicial system. If there are problems with it you can sue to make changes or annul it. For example, if you entered into an agreement that had unforeseen dramatic consequences the US government will let you file a lawsuit to try to remedy the situation.
"Code as law" does away with this and makes it so that if you write a voting system and everyone agrees to use it then the output of that system is 100% binding on everyone. There is no redress because you made an agreement to treat the code as the final arbiter.
Naturally as software engineers we both find this completely terrifying. Code can (does) have bugs, it can be hacked, it can allow unforeseen consequences. One of the most tightly run software shops in the world once plowed a $300,000,000 dollar probe into Mars because of a really silly bug. 100% reliable software is an extremely bad bet.
"Code as law", at least as I’ve understood it, is complete madness.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:42 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
More like "code as flaw"
posted by aubilenon at 12:48 PM on April 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 12:48 PM on April 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
I find I've been using "lol" a lot more these days, but only with reference to Facebook or Cryptocurrency.
posted by suetanvil at 1:01 PM on April 22, 2022
posted by suetanvil at 1:01 PM on April 22, 2022
Yep, this was not a "hack" or even a "scam", at least not in the traditional sense that we understand those terms.
This was an LBO. A sort of hostile takeover, if you will. And it's one of the things that crypto explicitly enables—cryptobros really hate the idea of corporate boards "poison pill"-ing takeover attempts like Musk's attempt to buy Twitter—because they want money to explicitly equal power, period.
The fact that nobody at Beanstalk considered this possibility is just one more example of the "crypto" world basically reinventing the entire financial system, one mistake at a time. They've made it roughly to the mid 19th century, by my reckoning, and are at the point where financial and legal chicanery is starting to cause real pain to regular people. It's a pity none of them have ever bothered to crack a book on the topic, because then they might understand this is why their hated financial regulations exist.
Anyway, lulz on them.
My schadenfreude when hearing about the latest cryptohack is tempered by the fact many of the theft's funds go directly to North Korea.
Yeeeeah. So this is another thing about crypto: anyone who is playing around in that space is swimming in deep water, and there are some very big sharks in there.
We hear all the time in security discussions that "regular people don't need to worry about nation-state actors" and similar. Except, if you are dealing with crypto, actually you do!
Because it turns out that crypto isn't just good for buying sketchy MDMA and taking out hits on people you don't like, but it's also a perfect mechanism for moving money around internationally and evading sanctions.
A few years back, the North Koreans (who are widely known as the ones behind the APT group "Lazarus") started conducting electronic bank heists using the SWIFT network. They primarily targeted banks with poor IT security and may have also had insider help. One time, they almost made off with $1B USD from a bank in Bangladesh. (The majority of the money was eventually recovered and the transactions reversed, although they did get at least several million out of a bank in the Philippines, which presumably ended up in duffel bags headed to the DPRK.) It's a fairly sophisticated combination of traditional computer hacking, social engineering, and wire fraud.
We haven't seen attacks like that on traditional banks in a while. Why? I am of the opinion that it's because Lazarus, and probably a bunch of other financially-motivated APTs, are balls deep in crypto at the moment. They'd have to be stupid not to be—it's like taking candy from babies compared to robbing actual banks. I mean, these people are used to conducting actual espionage operations. You think rolling a few crypto exchanges is hard, by comparison?
If you're playing around with crypto, in addition to the usual low-level Nigerian scam artists and organized crime gangs, that's who is also sitting at the table, playing against you. You have no-shit nation-state-backed hacking groups, full of the best-and-brightest that places like North Korea and Iran can muster, probably with higher motivation than the average hacker (keeping your family out of a multi-generational prison camp will do that), trying to steal your 'coins.
And just in case that wasn't enough, anyone watching the news lately may have noticed that we just created a new financial pariah state—a rather large-ish one in fact—with an ample supply of well-educated IT people, not to mention more traditionally educated spies, who may soon find themselves highly motivated to get "into crypto" for the benefit of their Dear Leader and his warmongering.
It's all fun and games until someone decides to start sending you photos of your kids getting off the school bus (or you with your mistress), or spritzes a little neurotoxin on your front door knob, just to let you know that they are interested in your stupid collection of ape JPEGs / buttcoins / DAO control keys / whatevers. As far as I can tell, the crypto-hype crowd hasn't really gotten this through their collective heads yet. The more money they pump into this stupid system, the more interest they're going to attract, and the higher the stakes will get. Eventually it's not going to matter how good their crypto algorithms are, or whether they're using "cold wallets", because their adversaries are going to start to come after them much more personally.
I'm sure when that happens, they'll come running back to the warm embrace of the very nation-state, fiat-currency-issuing, monopoly-on-violence system that they claim to loathe. Personally, I'd like to make it a matter of policy that we won't lift a finger to help them out of the inevitable jam. No using national assets to recover your "stolen" apes, no dragging in the FBI when someone starts extorting your for your passwords. Let them discover what living outside the pale of law and order actually means. No straddling the line, dipping your toes in outlaw territory just when it's convenient. You want to do your banking in Galt's Gulch? Go for it, motherfuckers. See how that works out for you.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:42 PM on April 22, 2022 [29 favorites]
This was an LBO. A sort of hostile takeover, if you will. And it's one of the things that crypto explicitly enables—cryptobros really hate the idea of corporate boards "poison pill"-ing takeover attempts like Musk's attempt to buy Twitter—because they want money to explicitly equal power, period.
The fact that nobody at Beanstalk considered this possibility is just one more example of the "crypto" world basically reinventing the entire financial system, one mistake at a time. They've made it roughly to the mid 19th century, by my reckoning, and are at the point where financial and legal chicanery is starting to cause real pain to regular people. It's a pity none of them have ever bothered to crack a book on the topic, because then they might understand this is why their hated financial regulations exist.
Anyway, lulz on them.
My schadenfreude when hearing about the latest cryptohack is tempered by the fact many of the theft's funds go directly to North Korea.
Yeeeeah. So this is another thing about crypto: anyone who is playing around in that space is swimming in deep water, and there are some very big sharks in there.
We hear all the time in security discussions that "regular people don't need to worry about nation-state actors" and similar. Except, if you are dealing with crypto, actually you do!
Because it turns out that crypto isn't just good for buying sketchy MDMA and taking out hits on people you don't like, but it's also a perfect mechanism for moving money around internationally and evading sanctions.
A few years back, the North Koreans (who are widely known as the ones behind the APT group "Lazarus") started conducting electronic bank heists using the SWIFT network. They primarily targeted banks with poor IT security and may have also had insider help. One time, they almost made off with $1B USD from a bank in Bangladesh. (The majority of the money was eventually recovered and the transactions reversed, although they did get at least several million out of a bank in the Philippines, which presumably ended up in duffel bags headed to the DPRK.) It's a fairly sophisticated combination of traditional computer hacking, social engineering, and wire fraud.
We haven't seen attacks like that on traditional banks in a while. Why? I am of the opinion that it's because Lazarus, and probably a bunch of other financially-motivated APTs, are balls deep in crypto at the moment. They'd have to be stupid not to be—it's like taking candy from babies compared to robbing actual banks. I mean, these people are used to conducting actual espionage operations. You think rolling a few crypto exchanges is hard, by comparison?
If you're playing around with crypto, in addition to the usual low-level Nigerian scam artists and organized crime gangs, that's who is also sitting at the table, playing against you. You have no-shit nation-state-backed hacking groups, full of the best-and-brightest that places like North Korea and Iran can muster, probably with higher motivation than the average hacker (keeping your family out of a multi-generational prison camp will do that), trying to steal your 'coins.
And just in case that wasn't enough, anyone watching the news lately may have noticed that we just created a new financial pariah state—a rather large-ish one in fact—with an ample supply of well-educated IT people, not to mention more traditionally educated spies, who may soon find themselves highly motivated to get "into crypto" for the benefit of their Dear Leader and his warmongering.
It's all fun and games until someone decides to start sending you photos of your kids getting off the school bus (or you with your mistress), or spritzes a little neurotoxin on your front door knob, just to let you know that they are interested in your stupid collection of ape JPEGs / buttcoins / DAO control keys / whatevers. As far as I can tell, the crypto-hype crowd hasn't really gotten this through their collective heads yet. The more money they pump into this stupid system, the more interest they're going to attract, and the higher the stakes will get. Eventually it's not going to matter how good their crypto algorithms are, or whether they're using "cold wallets", because their adversaries are going to start to come after them much more personally.
I'm sure when that happens, they'll come running back to the warm embrace of the very nation-state, fiat-currency-issuing, monopoly-on-violence system that they claim to loathe. Personally, I'd like to make it a matter of policy that we won't lift a finger to help them out of the inevitable jam. No using national assets to recover your "stolen" apes, no dragging in the FBI when someone starts extorting your for your passwords. Let them discover what living outside the pale of law and order actually means. No straddling the line, dipping your toes in outlaw territory just when it's convenient. You want to do your banking in Galt's Gulch? Go for it, motherfuckers. See how that works out for you.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:42 PM on April 22, 2022 [29 favorites]
Speaking of fraud and the blockchain - this just popped up and I know some of you here enjoy coffee king-nerd James Hoffman. He just put up a video on civet coffee and the fraud surrounding it. His reaction to using the blockchain to solve this problem is worth watching. It’s at 8 minutes in.
Tldw; don’t drink civet coffee.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Tldw; don’t drink civet coffee.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
> As with all things crypto the weak points are the people at either end, and the current government is quite good at leveraging people’s fear of prison. Your ability to hide your transactions is moot once the subpoena arrives.
To wit, XKCD
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:37 PM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
To wit, XKCD
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:37 PM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
A couple of people have used this word so far but I think this whole thing could be reasonably described as an "exploit."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:46 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:46 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Or a "deed". Possibly even a dirty deed. Done dirt... well, okay maybe not that part.
posted by notoriety public at 5:01 PM on April 22, 2022
posted by notoriety public at 5:01 PM on April 22, 2022
>Tldw; don’t drink civet coffee.
Is kopi kopi luwak no longer ok, or just kopi luwak?
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:03 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is kopi kopi luwak no longer ok, or just kopi luwak?
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:03 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Just for rhamphoryncus, this just in --
Quadrupedal water launch capability demonstrated in small Late Jurassic pterosaurs
-- just because...
posted by y2karl at 7:14 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Quadrupedal water launch capability demonstrated in small Late Jurassic pterosaurs
-- just because...
posted by y2karl at 7:14 PM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
...but it's also a perfect mechanism for moving money around internationally and evading sanctions.
Which it was pretty openly designed to do.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:53 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Which it was pretty openly designed to do.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:53 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
DAO
I'll just say that running and organization - any organization - small, medium, or large is hard work.
The reason it is hard work is because different people are involved, they have different ideas and interests, and you have to get them and keep them aligned enough for the organization to function.
DAOs seem to be attempt to "hack" the idea of an organization, to make it somehow just work by magic without anyone having to do that actual work needed and required.
The whole idea is doomed to failure from the start. You can't "hack" the idea of an organization by leaving out the idea of human relationships but once you have taken out the human relationships, there is literally nothing left.
In fact if anything, DAOs have made the parts of running an organization that are already easy, maybe (maybe!) marginally easier.
But it has made the essential parts much, much harder and perhaps even impossible.
Just to be specific: "Voting" on questions is already pretty easy to do. The hard work is in FORMULATING the questions and everyone who knows anything about organizations knows that if you want to control what an organization does you get on the groups that decide what the questions are.
That is, literally, setting the agenda for the organization. If you can do that, you don't even need to control the votes.
posted by flug at 9:48 AM on April 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'll just say that running and organization - any organization - small, medium, or large is hard work.
The reason it is hard work is because different people are involved, they have different ideas and interests, and you have to get them and keep them aligned enough for the organization to function.
DAOs seem to be attempt to "hack" the idea of an organization, to make it somehow just work by magic without anyone having to do that actual work needed and required.
The whole idea is doomed to failure from the start. You can't "hack" the idea of an organization by leaving out the idea of human relationships but once you have taken out the human relationships, there is literally nothing left.
In fact if anything, DAOs have made the parts of running an organization that are already easy, maybe (maybe!) marginally easier.
But it has made the essential parts much, much harder and perhaps even impossible.
Just to be specific: "Voting" on questions is already pretty easy to do. The hard work is in FORMULATING the questions and everyone who knows anything about organizations knows that if you want to control what an organization does you get on the groups that decide what the questions are.
That is, literally, setting the agenda for the organization. If you can do that, you don't even need to control the votes.
posted by flug at 9:48 AM on April 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
You can't "hack" the idea of an organization by leaving out the idea of human relationships but once you have taken out the human relationships, there is literally nothing left.This is a really good point. All my own criticisms of “crypto” have mostly focused on, first, how it is an utter failure at simulating the economic effects of real mining, implemented by people who have no understanding of how or why that works in the real world, and second how the grift is the point, adding up to a 100% pure economic bubble.
You’ve introduced a third pillar I hadn’t considered, perhaps because I am as guilty as anyone of thinking “thank god there’s a website so I don’t have to talk to a human.” Appealing to an incontrovertible external authority is a tried and true method for the poorly socialized to avoid conflict yet still manipulate people into giving them their way. It surfaces in people who pretend to be “data-driven” about things not really amenable to numerical analysis, or insist you need a compelling logical argument for why they should bother to consider your feelings. “Code is law” means it’s not me causing you grief, it’s “the rules,” so you just have to shut up and take it, or at least not not bother me to have any sympathy for whatever your problem is.
This whole thing is the ultimate form (god I hope) of juvenile libertarian antisocialism. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a loser hiding under a rock in total isolation, desperately trying to take advantage of other losers under rocks, forever.
posted by gelfin at 4:13 PM on April 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
"Voting" on questions is already pretty easy to do. The hard work is in FORMULATING the questions and everyone who knows anything about organizations knows that if you want to control what an organization does you get on the groups that decide what the questions are.
I'm reminded of a puzzle here, which I first encountered in a book by Peter Winkler but which might predate him:
Suppose you're the king of a constitutional monarchy of 100 people. Each person has a dollar, and dollars are the smallest unit of currency. As king, you have the unique privilege of proposing wealth-redistribution laws, but because your system of government has democratic aspects to it, everyone gets to vote on it except you (checks and balances!). Everyone votes in their own immediate naked self-interest: each person votes for measures which increase their share, against measures which decrease it, and abstains from measures which don't affect them directly. Ties defeat a proposed law. How much of your society's wealth can you gather with your modest law-proposing power, against your society's presumed interest in not letting you have all the money?
The answer turns out to be "97% of it". You can propose laws to concentrate wealth (including your own single dollar) among a small pool of non-royals, reducing that pool down to two people in the end (you can never get it more concentrated than that, though). Then you propose a law giving $1 to three of the people you disenfranchised earlier, and $97 to yourself. The three beneficiaries vote for it, the two previously-wealthy people vote against, and you take most of the society's money for yourself.
posted by jackbishop at 4:23 PM on April 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm reminded of a puzzle here, which I first encountered in a book by Peter Winkler but which might predate him:
Suppose you're the king of a constitutional monarchy of 100 people. Each person has a dollar, and dollars are the smallest unit of currency. As king, you have the unique privilege of proposing wealth-redistribution laws, but because your system of government has democratic aspects to it, everyone gets to vote on it except you (checks and balances!). Everyone votes in their own immediate naked self-interest: each person votes for measures which increase their share, against measures which decrease it, and abstains from measures which don't affect them directly. Ties defeat a proposed law. How much of your society's wealth can you gather with your modest law-proposing power, against your society's presumed interest in not letting you have all the money?
The answer turns out to be "97% of it". You can propose laws to concentrate wealth (including your own single dollar) among a small pool of non-royals, reducing that pool down to two people in the end (you can never get it more concentrated than that, though). Then you propose a law giving $1 to three of the people you disenfranchised earlier, and $97 to yourself. The three beneficiaries vote for it, the two previously-wealthy people vote against, and you take most of the society's money for yourself.
posted by jackbishop at 4:23 PM on April 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
Jackbishop, I think you can asymptotically approach 100% if your dollars are divisible into cents which are also subdivisible into smaller units etc.
posted by aubilenon at 5:04 PM on April 23, 2022
posted by aubilenon at 5:04 PM on April 23, 2022
Thief steals $1 million of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs with Instagram hack. A phishing link sent from the project’s official Instagram account transferred NFTs to the hacker’s wallet
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:51 AM on April 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:51 AM on April 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
Thief steals $1 million of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs with Instagram hack.
I came here to post this, commenting to bump because LOOOOOOOL.
Also somewhere in the twittershitterverse there's a picture going around of the Safemoon office. It's like two desks and a camping chair.
I love how they have their backs to an open window in what appears to be a massive and unsecured parking lot.
Yeah, that's exactly what I want to see in a DeFi organization somehow worth enough Itchy and Scratchy Dollars to have 182 Big Ones stolen from it - the developers or staff sitting with their backs to an open window in what looks like the cheapest of multi-use commercial parks where anyone could drive up with a car or RV and a telephoto lens and shoulder surf all day and all night long for passwords or keys.
For fuck's sake you could probably just hang out in the parking lot with a renamed router and totally pwn their consumer grade WiFi connections with a MitM attack and some super easy DNS/NAT spoofing and a bog standard copy of Wireshark and other script kiddy shit.
And putting security issues aside, seriously? What kind of genius psychopath sits with their backs to an open window while staring at a screen all day long? Do they like looking at reflections on their screen and enjoy squinting and headaches or something?
posted by loquacious at 5:00 PM on April 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I came here to post this, commenting to bump because LOOOOOOOL.
Also somewhere in the twittershitterverse there's a picture going around of the Safemoon office. It's like two desks and a camping chair.
I love how they have their backs to an open window in what appears to be a massive and unsecured parking lot.
Yeah, that's exactly what I want to see in a DeFi organization somehow worth enough Itchy and Scratchy Dollars to have 182 Big Ones stolen from it - the developers or staff sitting with their backs to an open window in what looks like the cheapest of multi-use commercial parks where anyone could drive up with a car or RV and a telephoto lens and shoulder surf all day and all night long for passwords or keys.
For fuck's sake you could probably just hang out in the parking lot with a renamed router and totally pwn their consumer grade WiFi connections with a MitM attack and some super easy DNS/NAT spoofing and a bog standard copy of Wireshark and other script kiddy shit.
And putting security issues aside, seriously? What kind of genius psychopath sits with their backs to an open window while staring at a screen all day long? Do they like looking at reflections on their screen and enjoy squinting and headaches or something?
posted by loquacious at 5:00 PM on April 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
Pat Dennis @patdennis
Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi scheme. Some crypto projects are pump and dump schemes, while others are pyramid schemes. Others are just standard issue fraud. Others are just middlemen skimming of the top. Stop glossing over the diversity in the industry.
1:05 PM · Apr 25, 2022·Twitter for Android
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:55 AM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
That LegalEagle video is pretty good but save yourself a shitload of time by clicking through to the YT page then on the three dots and "view transcript" and just read it, because there's nothing about this that needs to be in a video that's interrupted by ads every 5 minutes.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:03 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:03 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
I always enjoy LegalEagle but watching this piece was particularly curious as he was giving an American contract law analysis of a system that has ambitions to eventually replace it.
In any case current NFTs seem to create a new category which I call “titular owner”. The only right a titular owner has is to announce that they are the titular owner.
Stripped to that I’m not sure it’s a bad idea. People like fame by association so for example if the estate of Edvard Munch wanted to create a titular owner position for "The Scream" I could see people paying to be attached to a part of history. It’s not unlike the roof tile I bought for Todai-ji many years ago. I have no idea if the money even went to purchase a roof tile but it doesn’t really matter. Every time I look at Todai-ji I feel the kind of warm fuzzy connection only 5000 yen can buy. Definitely worth the price.
However as LegalEagle points out there are currently a lot of misconceptions about what an NFT actually gets you, as well as various corrupt practices in the market for them. After the current bubble crashes I may track down a few items that it would stroke my ego to be associated with.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:29 AM on April 28, 2022
In any case current NFTs seem to create a new category which I call “titular owner”. The only right a titular owner has is to announce that they are the titular owner.
Stripped to that I’m not sure it’s a bad idea. People like fame by association so for example if the estate of Edvard Munch wanted to create a titular owner position for "The Scream" I could see people paying to be attached to a part of history. It’s not unlike the roof tile I bought for Todai-ji many years ago. I have no idea if the money even went to purchase a roof tile but it doesn’t really matter. Every time I look at Todai-ji I feel the kind of warm fuzzy connection only 5000 yen can buy. Definitely worth the price.
However as LegalEagle points out there are currently a lot of misconceptions about what an NFT actually gets you, as well as various corrupt practices in the market for them. After the current bubble crashes I may track down a few items that it would stroke my ego to be associated with.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:29 AM on April 28, 2022
It’s not unlike the roof tile I bought for Todai-ji many years ago.
Sorry to be a jerk, but it's totally unlike the tile that may or may even exist. Because, in general, nostalgic title-themed mementos and charitable donations have not formed the basis of a tradeable market. Ownership of stars, or 1-inch square bits of property, or acres on the moon are not tradeable.
You made a donation to a community and received a nostalgic memento. NFTs pervert that in as much as they mock the form but replace the content with the expectation of profit.
I can donate money to a local park and get my name (or that of a loved one, or a cherished institution) written on a brick in that park. That seems lovely. There is no infrastructure for me to later resell that right, to have the community come in and wastefully chip out the tile and replace it with one with a different name so that I can make a buck off of what was purportedly a charitable act in the first place.
The whole point of the power-consuming blockchain is to enable trading. It's not equivalent to the acts of charity or sentimentality represented by symbolic acts of ownership.
posted by Wood at 9:31 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sorry to be a jerk, but it's totally unlike the tile that may or may even exist. Because, in general, nostalgic title-themed mementos and charitable donations have not formed the basis of a tradeable market. Ownership of stars, or 1-inch square bits of property, or acres on the moon are not tradeable.
You made a donation to a community and received a nostalgic memento. NFTs pervert that in as much as they mock the form but replace the content with the expectation of profit.
I can donate money to a local park and get my name (or that of a loved one, or a cherished institution) written on a brick in that park. That seems lovely. There is no infrastructure for me to later resell that right, to have the community come in and wastefully chip out the tile and replace it with one with a different name so that I can make a buck off of what was purportedly a charitable act in the first place.
The whole point of the power-consuming blockchain is to enable trading. It's not equivalent to the acts of charity or sentimentality represented by symbolic acts of ownership.
posted by Wood at 9:31 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sorry to be a jerk, but it's totally unlike the tile that may or may even exist.
Your attachments are not my attachments.
NFTs pervert that in as much as they mock the form but replace the content with the expectation of profit.
The expectation of profit is not innate to NFTs or most other forms of ownership for that matter. People purchase new cars with an expectation of a massive loss in value the second they are driven off the lot, for example.
The current speculative market in NFTs is not the fault of NFTs.
I can donate money to a local park and get my name (or that of a loved one, or a cherished institution) written on a brick in that park. That seems lovely.
It can be. What I would get out of the deal would be a sentimental attachment, which I could sell using the basic American capitalist tools to anyone I wanted to. But wait, you say, how can you sell a feeling? The answer is: what do you think I’m buying with a titular ownership?
The whole point of the power-consuming blockchain is to enable trading.
I disagree with that assessment. Trading isn’t hard, anyone can do it. What blockchain brings to the table is a complete, incorruptible and public history of the assets it tracks. It does permit trading, but in the end it tells you who owns something.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:37 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Your attachments are not my attachments.
NFTs pervert that in as much as they mock the form but replace the content with the expectation of profit.
The expectation of profit is not innate to NFTs or most other forms of ownership for that matter. People purchase new cars with an expectation of a massive loss in value the second they are driven off the lot, for example.
The current speculative market in NFTs is not the fault of NFTs.
I can donate money to a local park and get my name (or that of a loved one, or a cherished institution) written on a brick in that park. That seems lovely.
It can be. What I would get out of the deal would be a sentimental attachment, which I could sell using the basic American capitalist tools to anyone I wanted to. But wait, you say, how can you sell a feeling? The answer is: what do you think I’m buying with a titular ownership?
The whole point of the power-consuming blockchain is to enable trading.
I disagree with that assessment. Trading isn’t hard, anyone can do it. What blockchain brings to the table is a complete, incorruptible and public history of the assets it tracks. It does permit trading, but in the end it tells you who owns something.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:37 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
a new category which I call “titular owner”.
Title is new? Lord Blackstone will be surprised to hear it. If he can be revived.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:56 PM on April 28, 2022
Title is new? Lord Blackstone will be surprised to hear it. If he can be revived.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:56 PM on April 28, 2022
I guess I highlighted and emphasized the wrong part of your statement.
The temple selling symbolic ownership of a tile that represents a charitable donation going to the upkeep of the temple. The guys in a van across the street printing out meaningless certificates. Same same. Stroke away at that ego.
People like fame by association so for example if the estate of Edvard Munch wanted to create a titular owner position for "The Scream" I could see people paying to be attached to a part of history.
I had this whole thought about how my local museum has a wall of fame for donors and wondering what is the value in making this status an NFT and transferable, but you literally don't give a shit. I totally misunderstood you.
posted by Wood at 3:06 PM on April 28, 2022
I have no idea if the money even went to purchase a roof tile but it doesn’t really matterIf you think it doesn't really matter then more power to you. You're the perfect mark(et) for an NFT.
The temple selling symbolic ownership of a tile that represents a charitable donation going to the upkeep of the temple. The guys in a van across the street printing out meaningless certificates. Same same. Stroke away at that ego.
People like fame by association so for example if the estate of Edvard Munch wanted to create a titular owner position for "The Scream" I could see people paying to be attached to a part of history.
I had this whole thought about how my local museum has a wall of fame for donors and wondering what is the value in making this status an NFT and transferable, but you literally don't give a shit. I totally misunderstood you.
posted by Wood at 3:06 PM on April 28, 2022
The only thing the purchaser of an NFT owns is proof of the transaction. That may or may not confer social capital, which may or may not become reified enough to have tradable value depending on how NFTs go long term.
Ironically, that would be making them rather more fungible -- but what else is new with everything crypto when it comes to turning language inside out. (Like 'titular.')
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:20 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ironically, that would be making them rather more fungible -- but what else is new with everything crypto when it comes to turning language inside out. (Like 'titular.')
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:20 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's funny, I was debating NFTs this last Thanksgiving and the same exact point came up. There's a bunch of set pieces to these debates obviously. It might be worthwhile having a name for them.
This one is basically: 'what if I really, really, value the feels I get from the NFT, and I don't need to make a profit, is it still a speculative frenzy/pyramid scheme/scam' (Cited here as "Definitely worth the price.")
I don't really have an argument against this one. I just think it's bullshit. I value the feeling I have that this is bullshit, and I got them feels for free. And they're not available for sale.
posted by Wood at 3:20 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
This one is basically: 'what if I really, really, value the feels I get from the NFT, and I don't need to make a profit, is it still a speculative frenzy/pyramid scheme/scam' (Cited here as "Definitely worth the price.")
I don't really have an argument against this one. I just think it's bullshit. I value the feeling I have that this is bullshit, and I got them feels for free. And they're not available for sale.
posted by Wood at 3:20 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Can You Really Name a Star?
In short, it’s a novelty gift. No harm. After all, you do receive a thoughtful gift of a well-intentioned loved one. If you’re indeed starry-eyed, this is a gift that encourages us all to to look up at the beautiful night sky and that’s a good thing.
I tend to think it's a scam, but reasonable people can disagree. No harm, no foul... (just a little bit of money, $54 perhaps, more if framed.)
posted by Wood at 3:30 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
In short, it’s a novelty gift. No harm. After all, you do receive a thoughtful gift of a well-intentioned loved one. If you’re indeed starry-eyed, this is a gift that encourages us all to to look up at the beautiful night sky and that’s a good thing.
I tend to think it's a scam, but reasonable people can disagree. No harm, no foul... (just a little bit of money, $54 perhaps, more if framed.)
posted by Wood at 3:30 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the name-a-star thing is the perfect point of comparison. “We’ll sell you a receipt that says we put an entry in our ledger that nobody else has any real motivation to respect.”
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:30 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:30 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yeah, the name-a-star thing is the perfect point of comparison. “We’ll sell you a receipt that says we put an entry in our ledger that nobody else has any real motivation to respect.”
Agreed. But they make nice presents.
The day I can by a titular ownership of Star Wars trading cards from the 1980s run I know what a bunch of people are getting for Christmas. And they’ll appreciate the thought.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:09 AM on April 29, 2022
Agreed. But they make nice presents.
The day I can by a titular ownership of Star Wars trading cards from the 1980s run I know what a bunch of people are getting for Christmas. And they’ll appreciate the thought.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:09 AM on April 29, 2022
>a new category which I call “titular owner”
Title is new?
Titular is only orthogonally related to the traditional idea of Title. It means "holding or constituting a purely formal position or title without any real authority."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:15 AM on April 29, 2022
Title is new?
Titular is only orthogonally related to the traditional idea of Title. It means "holding or constituting a purely formal position or title without any real authority."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:15 AM on April 29, 2022
value the feels I get from the NFT, and I don't need to make a profit, is it still a speculative frenzy/pyramid scheme/scam'
I have no interest in them at current prices, but the bubble will burst soon enough. As soon as the tulips/beanie babies/NFTs have corrected I’ll pick some that are meaningful to me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:24 AM on April 29, 2022
I have no interest in them at current prices, but the bubble will burst soon enough. As soon as the tulips/beanie babies/NFTs have corrected I’ll pick some that are meaningful to me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:24 AM on April 29, 2022
I understand what that rather archaic usage is; if you're proposing it as a 'new category of ownership' it needs to deal with the use of the term in the context of property rights.
Moreover they're not as disconnected as you imagine, it stems from the idea of still holding legal title to some real or personal property (anciently, maybe making you a titled lord; modernly, IP too) but conveying away all of your beneficial or exclusive rights under various more limited forms of ownership or license; such that you remain owner 'in title' only. Uses like 'titular head' are derivative, as far as I know.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2022
Moreover they're not as disconnected as you imagine, it stems from the idea of still holding legal title to some real or personal property (anciently, maybe making you a titled lord; modernly, IP too) but conveying away all of your beneficial or exclusive rights under various more limited forms of ownership or license; such that you remain owner 'in title' only. Uses like 'titular head' are derivative, as far as I know.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:25 AM on April 29, 2022
Really, the word you're looking for is 'sponsor.'
Or since cryptofolk love portmanteau neologisms, you're welcome to 'honsor' or 'honsour' (honoree + sponsor) if you prefer. Or maybe Honz.
Keep hodling my Honzies! Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:38 AM on April 29, 2022
Or since cryptofolk love portmanteau neologisms, you're welcome to 'honsor' or 'honsour' (honoree + sponsor) if you prefer. Or maybe Honz.
Keep hodling my Honzies! Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:38 AM on April 29, 2022
'what if I really, really, value the feels I get from the NFT, and I don't need to make a profit, is it still a speculative frenzy/pyramid scheme/scam'
This is core to some of the magical thinking around blockchain and NFT tech imo: the belief that belief is what fuels the success of currencies or other stores of value. Which is … not wrong … but also misses the deeply embedded relationships between ie currency, people, governments, and institutions that makes these things work. "If we all just believed" is as magical as "if we all masked …" or "if everyone stopped driving …". Of course the latter two here don't have the same incentive to believe (🤑🤑🤑)
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:58 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is core to some of the magical thinking around blockchain and NFT tech imo: the belief that belief is what fuels the success of currencies or other stores of value. Which is … not wrong … but also misses the deeply embedded relationships between ie currency, people, governments, and institutions that makes these things work. "If we all just believed" is as magical as "if we all masked …" or "if everyone stopped driving …". Of course the latter two here don't have the same incentive to believe (🤑🤑🤑)
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:58 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
snuffleupagus wrote....
I understand what that rather archaic usage is
I'm not sure how you've arrived at the idea that it is an archaic usage. It's the first definition of the adjective in every dictionary I've looked at and there is no hint that that it is an old usage in any of them. I'll admit to having an odd vocabulary but it's not a word I'd hesitate to use (obviously).
Your proposed etymology for titular is compelling. However, Samuel Johnson's 1805 dictionary has the "nominal" definition so I would say that the usage has been around long enough to not carry its etymological baggage with it.
Really, the word you're looking for is 'sponsor.'
Sponsor is good. The synonym most often offered up for "titular" is "nominal". So "nominal owner" would work too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:13 PM on April 29, 2022
I understand what that rather archaic usage is
I'm not sure how you've arrived at the idea that it is an archaic usage. It's the first definition of the adjective in every dictionary I've looked at and there is no hint that that it is an old usage in any of them. I'll admit to having an odd vocabulary but it's not a word I'd hesitate to use (obviously).
Your proposed etymology for titular is compelling. However, Samuel Johnson's 1805 dictionary has the "nominal" definition so I would say that the usage has been around long enough to not carry its etymological baggage with it.
Really, the word you're looking for is 'sponsor.'
Sponsor is good. The synonym most often offered up for "titular" is "nominal". So "nominal owner" would work too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:13 PM on April 29, 2022
That would also be potentially misleading, a consideration when naming these instruments using terms that already have meanings and marketing them as investments. (From a legal perspective, that's one of the upsides of entirely novel names for this stuff.) Most people would think the "nominal owner" is person with the titled right to the art (whatever their remaining beneficial rights are). If you're going to say "nominal owner of the NFT" you might as just say "NFT owner" or "token owner." It's best to get away from the language of ownership entirely.
Maybe 'archaic' wasn't quite right, but 'titular' is a world that goes way back. These days if you want to convey that concept in a way everyone will understand you say "in name only;" I promise you a significant number of the kids talking about crypto and NFTs on the gram and TikTok will think you're talking about boobs.
Plus if you tell someone buying the NFT makes them its 'titular owner' it still sounds like that conveys some purview over the underlying art; i.e. that someone else can't be it's titular owner. Except it already has one, it's actual titled owner.
If fractional NFT ownership becomes a thing, I suppose "socialshare" wouldn't be terrible semantically though it makes my skin crawl. Down that road lies Klout and directly tokenized social credit.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on April 29, 2022
Maybe 'archaic' wasn't quite right, but 'titular' is a world that goes way back. These days if you want to convey that concept in a way everyone will understand you say "in name only;" I promise you a significant number of the kids talking about crypto and NFTs on the gram and TikTok will think you're talking about boobs.
Plus if you tell someone buying the NFT makes them its 'titular owner' it still sounds like that conveys some purview over the underlying art; i.e. that someone else can't be it's titular owner. Except it already has one, it's actual titled owner.
If fractional NFT ownership becomes a thing, I suppose "socialshare" wouldn't be terrible semantically though it makes my skin crawl. Down that road lies Klout and directly tokenized social credit.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on April 29, 2022
I promise you a significant number of the kids talking about crypto and NFTs on the gram and TikTok will think you're talking about boobs.
Well that’s just a business opportunity.
Upon further reflection I think you’re right and that no matter how you dress it up the word “owner“ is going to drag people down the wrong path. No adjective is going to counteract that.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:33 AM on April 30, 2022
Well that’s just a business opportunity.
Upon further reflection I think you’re right and that no matter how you dress it up the word “owner“ is going to drag people down the wrong path. No adjective is going to counteract that.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:33 AM on April 30, 2022
the belief that belief is what fuels the success of currencies or other stores of value
I mean, at some level, literally everything people value more abstract than food is predicated on belief. A lot of those beliefs don't get challenged regularly: we live our lives in webs of nearly-universally-agreed-upon institutions or conventions which we take for granted until such time as people start disrespecting them in large numbers (depending on the scope and area of such disrespect, such breakdowns could be called "coups" or "riots" or "runaway inflation" or "financial panic" or many other things). But getting those conventions respected widely enough for them to even seem ironclad is the work of decades to centuries. It took a very long time for people to really get comfortable with ideas like "the son of the guy who was in charge before is in charge now" or "if I give you something useful in exchange for a rare but useless soft metal, someone else will later exchange the useless metal for something useful I need", and even those ideas have been supplanted by others, arguably more baroque as society gets more complicated.
My point is that, yes, mass belief is what makes value. And that for every idea people have ever believed in, there have been many which never got off the ground. And others which had their time in the sun and were supplanted by other ways of achieving the same goal (notably: most of the big ideas in finance and government and the like are soultions to problems. Big problems like "how do I make an exchange for what I want in a specialist-intensive society where direct barter is increasingly impractical?" or "how is a large group of people where not everybody knows everybody else to be managed?" and "how does a society's leadership control value supply when the quantity of rare soft metal is not in its control?". NFTs and cryptocurrency in general do not seem to be a response to this kind of problem, and so lack considerably urgency in encouraging people to share their belief). And others yet which weren't a good solution but which eventually developed into good solutions. I'm not sure MFTs are any of these, but they definitely aren't any of them now. Anyone claiming "this has value because I and others believe in it" needs to take a long, hard look at how difficult a road there is to general acceptance of belief-founded value.
posted by jackbishop at 8:25 AM on May 1, 2022
I mean, at some level, literally everything people value more abstract than food is predicated on belief. A lot of those beliefs don't get challenged regularly: we live our lives in webs of nearly-universally-agreed-upon institutions or conventions which we take for granted until such time as people start disrespecting them in large numbers (depending on the scope and area of such disrespect, such breakdowns could be called "coups" or "riots" or "runaway inflation" or "financial panic" or many other things). But getting those conventions respected widely enough for them to even seem ironclad is the work of decades to centuries. It took a very long time for people to really get comfortable with ideas like "the son of the guy who was in charge before is in charge now" or "if I give you something useful in exchange for a rare but useless soft metal, someone else will later exchange the useless metal for something useful I need", and even those ideas have been supplanted by others, arguably more baroque as society gets more complicated.
My point is that, yes, mass belief is what makes value. And that for every idea people have ever believed in, there have been many which never got off the ground. And others which had their time in the sun and were supplanted by other ways of achieving the same goal (notably: most of the big ideas in finance and government and the like are soultions to problems. Big problems like "how do I make an exchange for what I want in a specialist-intensive society where direct barter is increasingly impractical?" or "how is a large group of people where not everybody knows everybody else to be managed?" and "how does a society's leadership control value supply when the quantity of rare soft metal is not in its control?". NFTs and cryptocurrency in general do not seem to be a response to this kind of problem, and so lack considerably urgency in encouraging people to share their belief). And others yet which weren't a good solution but which eventually developed into good solutions. I'm not sure MFTs are any of these, but they definitely aren't any of them now. Anyone claiming "this has value because I and others believe in it" needs to take a long, hard look at how difficult a road there is to general acceptance of belief-founded value.
posted by jackbishop at 8:25 AM on May 1, 2022
This one is basically: 'what if I really, really, value the feels I get from the NFT, and I don't need to make a profit, is it still a speculative frenzy/pyramid scheme/scam' (Cited here as "Definitely worth the price.")“Cocaine makes you feel really good, when you use it! It turns all your bad feelings into good feelings! Therefore, cocaine is good, and everyone should definitely use it.”
I don't really have an argument against this one. I just think it's bullshit. I value the feeling I have that this is bullshit, and I got them feels for free. And they're not available for sale.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:49 PM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I believe very strongly in the US governments ability to project violence.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:54 PM on May 1, 2022
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:54 PM on May 1, 2022
« Older Holes found in Net | The Rise, and Fall, and Rise Again of Polyester Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:45 PM on April 21, 2022 [23 favorites]