As a foreword, yes I am very aware of resources like https://web3isgoinggreat.com You don’t need to spam the comments with the link.
I am not asking about your general opinions on why crypto kittens is a jerk fest for crypto bros. Please cut the automatic generic rant on why cryptocurrencies is the sandbox of brainless dopamine monkeys. I am asking about your sentiment on a specific scenario, that tries to solve a real problem.
This is just an example, for oversimplification.
In a trust-less environment, one person shares some of their cloud space for a fixed amount of time, with another person they don’t know much.
The person asking for the cloud space, promises that they will use it only for X,Y or Z. They both agree to leave all the data in clear text (it is easy to prove whether there has been a breach of trust).
If the person doesn’t respect their engagement, they must be penalized. In this scenario, there is no legal tool to ensure this.
Enters the smart contract. The individual asking for a share of the cloud space, deposits a certain amount of ETH in a smart contract. The smart contract itself ensures that the owner of the cloud space will NEVER have access to the deposit fund.
Both individuals sign the smart contract. After a fixed amount of time, the depositor can retrieve their deposit back.
However, if for somewhat reason the depositor breaks their engagement (and do something outside X,Y, Z), the person sharing their cloud space can refuse the refund of the deposit.
Both individuals must then reach a consensus, or the deposit will stay frozen on the smart contract forever.
In this case, would the use of a smart contract be a reasonable solution to you?
No because it can’t be revoked when unintended consequences that neither party wants occurs
you can write whatever revolution clauses you like into a smart contract: often they have timeouts so that if something goes wrong with the contract execution, at least nothing is lost forever
A recent example of this was the Actors Benevolent Fund which locked their board of directors out of being able to control the company because they closed the AGM without electing a new board (this was in the middle of protests surrounding their illegal hostile takeover) - luckily their articles of association was a document written in English law rather than a smart contract, so the charity commission could just ‘fix’ the problem by telling them to ignore the AOA this one time.
This may be overkill, but this is the point of a trust-less environment. Both parties ought to be extremely careful of what they sign, I agree.
Yeah and the problem is, the real world kinda doesn’t care. Code gives zero fucks. If I have to be 250% sure the code is correct because no court can fix it if we screw up that’s just not worth it to me. I’d rather trust in unbiased humans
Plus, there will always be people who will exploit hard coded loopholes in the system where no sane, logical third party official would.
The first thing that comes to mind is various ‘police agencies’ in MMOs. Way, way back in the Ultima Online Beta, you’d be walking through town and another player would come up and attempt to pick pocket items out of your inventory. If you turned around and smacked them, the guards would spawn and instantly kill you, which caused everything you were carrying to fall to the ground beside your corpse, and then the thieves would just pick up anything valuable and walk away free and clear. They were counting on this behavior of course, and they’d antagonize new players until they got what they wanted. There was a similar example in EVE Online, where pirates who knew the system would open up floating cans left by players who were mining, causing them to flash red to the miner. If the miner fought back, the police would show up, your ship would be destroyed, and the pirates could pick through all your stuff.
Given OP’s example, I can guarantee scenarios like this with Smart Contracts will be fairly easy to pull off.
Not just in games - the famous infinite leverage glitch from wallstreetbets was ‘just following the rules’ - luckily it was website code rather than a smart contract so they could fix the rule before ControlTheNarrative ended up owning the entire US economy.
I get your point, I agree to some extent.
I don’t know much about MMO, but given your example of in-game situations, there are cases of moderators/admin treating you unfairly because of a misunderstanding, or because they “don’t like you”. Or other cases where you are locked out of a MMO because you were flagged as an abuser, and you need to jump hoops, to prove yourself, and get your account unfrozen.
So I would argue that in this case, nothing is bulletproof of “bugs” or “abuse”, and it is not a black or white situation.
However, it is true that we need a balance between automatic system parsing bazingas of datas everyday, and humans having authority on the outcome, when needed. Harder to know where to draw the line.
Fair point, the advantages are not worth the struggle of triple checking everything and ensuring there is no bug.
This is my personal opinion, but I disagree on this one. I’d rather choose a well written, unbiased piece of code, over a human that cannot be unbiased.
Ah, but how do you know that the code is well-written?
There have been multiple cases in smart contracts where the code looked good, but a subtle bug ended up being exploited.