Topic: Practical use of Ethereum. (Read 2378 times)

The Poloniex was hacked before, it returend the funds to the user later. The Ethereum is still under development.

why would it be needed? do you know how it works(polo lending)?
and... dude, it's eth... how could you trust in such platform...

Some Ethereum practical use:

https://keepingstock.net/10-things-to-know-about-ether-camps-crowdsale-877810fd6419#.5hor3lw8w

10 Things to know about Ether.Camp’s Crowdsale
Before you decide whether to buy into token sales, it’s important to understand what you’re getting. Only then can you evaluate the risk you’re prepared to take. Here’s 10 takeaway points about Ether.Camp’s sale.
If you only want the TL;DR, just read the bits in bold.
Ether.Camp have already run successful events and projects.
Ether.Camp’s strength is trying to create a community of users around and within startups. They’ve earned a lot of good faith within the community for this, and other projects, so have done far more to earn ‘credit’ than other recent crowdfunders.
Ether.Camp are not trying to raise $50m
Contrary to how it may appear, the $50m thrown about is not a target but a limit. According to Ether.Camp, it’s for safety. However, this is far higher than the recommendation of the Ethereum Foundation IIRC therefore calling it a safety feature is a mistake and it’s obviously mislead people.
Ether.Camp is for any startup, including Rootstock and non [Suspicious link removed]panies.
This is not an investment in the Ethereum space. In fact, the whitepaper says “Year 2016, we are starting the Virtual Accelerator (VA) to provide transparent and true acceleration to blockchain developers around the world” and a Slack response yesterday goes further: “Romanj: @keat we very much want to see people from different places joining hackathon, naturally the crypto guys were first to know… but any startup innovative idea ia very welcome”. This is not a bad thing — it gives Ether.Camp longevity. However, it should be clearer.
Ether.Camp receive the money, not the startups.
The funding only goes to Ether.Camp. None of it goes to the startups other than via prizes or to a decentralised system. Note that prizes can also potentially come from sponsors. In essence, the fundraise is for Ether.Camp to run a set of online hackerthons using their framework. There is no discussion of how the exchange rate risk will be handled and how much regular currency (e.g. USD) is required for operations.
Read the whitepaper. It won’t take long because it’s incomplete.
One day before the sale and “// TODO: add source code” is still prevalent and there’s a lack of detail throughout. Be aware that the crowdsale will be funding its own design.
Understand how the HackerGold token works and how it may or may not provide an ROI.
The token is given to startups in exchange for the right to vote against an expenditure request. The donor receives a token from the startup. This token is undefined. Note that startups (DSTs) cannot just issue tokens. Token issuance (unless Kickstarter reward style perhaps) needs to be carefully planned and with lawyers engaged, because of securities law, security, gameability, and use case. I can see the token may have some value given good startups but it’s very hard to say how much because of the definition issue.
HackerGold may have design flaws with regard to voting rights.
If I understand correctly, the current design allows for startups to pay themselves HackerGold, thus allowing them (unknown to others) to control the expenditure blocking vote and the team impeachment vote. This would be near impossible to spot or stop, thus rendering the vote design critically flawed. It’s particularly important because the vote will also control those investing ether after the camp. In addition, there is no discussion on how impeachment could actually work, what happens to funds prevented from being spent consistently, or discussion of the voting success rate (even the dao allowed this to be changed). Requiring 55% of the vote to block expenditure will inevitably break down at some point, even for bad actor companies because eventually people will get bored. I feel these problems should have been fixed before a crowdsale as they’re quite fundamental.
Kudos can be Sybil attacked.
Kudos are the voting system used in Ether.Camp and are directly tied to prize money. Anyone can vote — it appears unrelated to HackerGold. The voting system is trivial to Sybil attack. In the AMA, Roman suggested they would throw out companies they see doing this. However, 1) hard to spot, 2) hard to conclusively prove, 3) an easy way to get another team thrown out, 4) what happens to the HKG people gave, 5) who is responsible. As we all know, voting systems are hard. In this case, however, we already have a set of judges so the simplest solution (and there will be better) is to use Kudos only as a signalling mechanism and let the judges decide. Since Kudos are not directly related to the crowdsale token, they can easily be fixed later.
There is no published business model for Ether.Camp.
HackerGold value relies on the continued existence of Ether.Camp but there is no business model published beyond the crowdfunding. If Ether.Camp are awarding prizes, they could be taking equity or some tokens IMV. This is actually better for everyone who invests in HKG as Ether.Camp need to be sustainable.
Ether.Camp is a traditional uncapped (effectively) token sale.
Similar to other crowdsales in this respect.
In conclusion, the Ether.Camp project is one I support, the crowdfunder in present form not so much. It’s being rushed in the face of others from lesser known companies who have lowered the bar of expectation rather than raised it (post DAO). This may all work out in the end but I genuinely wish Ether.Camp would have given this more time.
Tomorrow I may launch AlexCoin. Next week I may even tell you how it works.

Again, you're thinking in terms of absolutes.  "true" anon.  I'm talking about "good enough" anon.
There's no way to do something even "off chain" without leaving any records.  If you use communication infrastructure, you always use third-party stuff that can make records.  And if not, you have to make physical contact in some or other way, and you leave physical traces (ADN, video surveillance, ...).  So your "true anon" is an illusion, but that's not what one is after.  That's what I said: the (impossible) perfect is the enemy of the good (enough).



Didn't know that quote, but it is exactly what I wanted to say.

If you want true anon, it has to be done Off-Chain with no records.
These anon blockchain want-a-be are just honey pots for the anon believers.
One Day when the People truly decide to make their selves Free, so they don't have to hide from their government.
Well Thomas Jefferson , said it Best.



 

It's not.  You are falling in the trap of the perfect being the enemy of the good.  Of course with enough effort, SOME anonymity can be lifted.  Of course with enough effort, all of your privacy can be undone and told to the world.  But it is nevertheless a good idea to lock the door.

The idea of freedom regained is not so much that you can be the perfectly hidden, lone enemy of the almighty state, totally secure behind your keyboard.  It is rather that *if enough people give something about freedom and hence use privacy/anonymity stuff like they close their door*, for small stuff you can more easily stay under the radar ; and it can hopefully gain adoption sufficiently that large parts of the population start enjoying their regained freedoms.  (I have to say that when I see people, I don't have much hope).  The "almighty state" cannot do much against MANY PEOPLE using anonymity tools to enjoy their regained freedoms, if they are numerous enough.  The almighty state cannot easily use dragnet techniques to do so.   If the almighty state would like to regain confidence of people so that they don't use anonymity tools to hide from it in general, then maybe the almighty state shouldn't steal as much freedoms from people in the first place.  (but that would make the raison d'existence of that same state futile).

Smart Contracts ETH

Nodes can be traced thru their IP address, doubtful Eth guys would try to hide, most miners will just follow what the guy in the above pic says.

Monero's Fluffy Pony aka Riccardo Spagni


anon is a bad joke.  


 

FYI:
To this date , Satochi was the only one smart enough to hide his real id and disappear.

"suppose that every crime would be solved, then there cannot be a perfect crime QED".  If you start from your conclusion with your assumption, then of course it is not difficult to reach your conclusion.  Yeah, of course, if you KNEW about the contract between an unknown and a contract killer, then of course both would be taken to jail. 

Of course, I'm not saying that such kind of crime cannot be solved.  It can, if one puts in enough of an effort.  Traces of the crime scene might trace back to the actual killer if he made enough errors.  Research of who might have motives would trace back to me.  But establishing the link between the killer and me would be way more difficult than if *I* were the killer myself.  If I committed "anonymity errors" AND the killer committed anonymity errors, and if law enforcement were smart enough to do so, they could prove the link, and we would be convicted.  But the difficulty for law enforcement is to find the link in the first place.  If the killer is sufficiently smart, there's no trace on his computers of this contract.  I may have a motive, but 100s of other people may have a motive too.  As there has never been any direct contact between me and the killer, and as we don't know each other at all, most usual techniques to establish a link will fail.

It is not waterproof.  And that's good: we're talking murder !  This is an extreme example.  For much less severe "crimes", it would be too involved for law enforcement to spend all the needed resources to trace back, with little hope of succeeding.


What "guys" are "running the smart contract block chain" ?  The nodes ?  The miners ?  Some chinese guys with free electricity ?

This is btw also why serious anon devs should remain anon too... and disappear once the system is up and running.

Anon is really a pipe dream on the internet.
Let's say I am Joe's Brother, and was aware of your contract.
I would have law enforcement check you and the other guy out to see if you had my brother killed.
If so the funds would be seized as they were part of a crime.

Also, even if you claimed it was some type of insurance payout (with no foul play) ,
any relative or debtors could sue you & the other guy claiming they were due a share.

Claims of anon activity are really fantasy, but it would not matter as the guys running the smart contract blockchain are not anon and will hard fork it in a heartbeat to avoid jail time.


 

Multiple oracles can, up to a point.  If smart contracts are to be connected to the real world, one has to accept oracles, in the sense of "reliable data base queries" of officially known data.  This is not very well done in ethereum, but one could think of having cryptographically signed (certificate stuff) data from reliable web sites, such as public obituaries or the like.  What is considered reliable is coded in the contract.  For instance, the beneficiary has to download a web page, signed by a CA saying that the web page content is coming from one or other entity, in which a certain phrase appears, like "Joe Smith, date XX/XX/XXXX" date of death or the like.

Ethereum is far too complicated for most people to wrap their heads around. While it has risen in price I would not give it a second look really. Bitcoin is all that matters.

The code beeing the law. Intriguing concept!

However, you cannot mold everything into code. "if Joe Smith is dead" cannot be proofen like some boolean variable.

No of course you don't want that.  If I am an unknown, anonymous entity that makes a smart contract with you, another unknown, anonymous entity, on terms that only you and I know, without knowing one another, then no law can interfere, and nobody can be sued or forced to follow the contract, or not.  If code running our contract is such that transactions happen according to our agreements, then that's all there is to it.

For instance, if I agree upon a contract with you, that if Joe Smith is dead between the 20th and the 27th next month, you get 100 000 XMR, and we set up a smart contract that can read obituaries, and if Joe Smith is marked as dead in the indicated period, the transfer is acted, and you don't know who I am (apart from the fact that I must be someone who doesn't like Joe Smith) and I don't know who you are, then this smart contract is perfectly binding.  If Joe isn't dead, then you won't get the coins, and if he is (whether you are lucky, or whether you killed him), you get the coins.

What "legally binding" is needed here ?  I would expect that such a contract can never be legally binding if I'm not a member of a powerful state agency.  But it is a contract that will run to terms nevertheless.  I see this as the core of "smart contract".

If you want things that are legally binding, then there's no need for smart contracts.  Smart contracts are *especially* useful if they cannot be made legally binding, and you want to set them up nevertheless. 

Problem is you want the so called Smart Contract to be Legally Binding,
however it can never be unless Laws are put into place that guarantee that.

At the moment , there are no such laws, and it is just automated code (not legally binding).
Any one can sue anybody, our world is a litigious society. (If they have the Financial Resources.)

Someone could say you were perpetrating fraud and that you had already given the hashes to a co-conspirator , before the challenge began.
Does not mean you did, but they do have a right to sue you to provide information showing if you did or did not defraud them.

Also there are many people that due to Age, Mental Status, Emotional States, would be deemed unable to enter a contract which brings up a whole list of issues.

 

Well, once the TX has been broadcast to the network, it is written in stone.  That is why you have to be careful and make it just right.  Say I give you a loan for 1 BTC and we set up a contract to handle the collateral.  If on Jan 1, 2017 the loan is paid, we sign the TX and it sends the 1 BTC worth of Doge or whatever to you, this cannot be done without my sig to keep you from taking the Doge yourself.  If you have not paid the loan, I can sign it by myself and have the Doge come to me instead.  It is a rough and tumble contract, but it is what it is.  Now, it is simple two sigs and the Doge go to your address, one sig and to mine.  But what if you email me and say that you are going to be late paying by one day? There is nothing built in to handle that as we laid it out a minute ago.  Two sigs on Jan 2 still work?  In this case it would be fine, the two signatures on ANY date after Jan 1 will be fine, but a poorly coded contract can trap coins.  What if I die before then or I cannot sign for some reason? Then the coins are stuck unless someone can sign with my pvt key.  it gets fun, but to answer your question, you can build the TX and edit it, but once you broadcast it, that is the way it will stay. Oh, and a TX like that has the coins already on the input side, so those coins are spent and will not leave to the output side until whatever conditions you set are met.

I think it is still less risked to invest in Ethereum than in some unknown altcoin run by one guy in its garage.

Hey. Thanks morantis. I think I get a clearer picture of these smart contracts now - Thanks for the simple but powerful pizza illustration. The essence of the smart contract is its ability to embed codes into the transaction input and output and it contains various triggers that determines what events to fire. Since all these are "mined" within the block, it is impossible (I think) to alter these action codes?

I don't that if this possible that you are going to use Ethereum then you are going to withdraw it from the bitcoins automatically i think you need to convert it before you withdraw your eth to bitcoin.

Smart contracts enforce only what is in that system.  First, like many have said, loan sites have their own system that needs no help.  But, smart contracts can be used outside these to enforce a set of "rules".  While lending may not be their ideal home, these contracts have some good uses and they may be the gateway to acceptance.

As far as a loan and a smart contract.....

The best way for that is still not perfect, a smart contract can be used to auto escrow a collateral amount.  That is a simple matter of a TX holding coin til X date and needing two separate signatures to fire.  If X date passes and no signed TX, then a default action could be used to send the collateral to the lender, perhaps at a second future date.

For a physical collateral, it would be harder.  The physical object would have to be stored in such a way that could not be breached without some "information".  For lack of a better example, a local storage facility where they have been legally contracted to only release the contents when given a password, lol.  The password is held in TX, within the data and the above same system is used to deliver the "data", rather than digital currency to both the storage place and the borrower once conditions are met. 

Many people think the smart contracts are silly or just a passing phase, but imagine this....(off topic a little)

Friday night your Bitcoin wallet sends a smart contract TX out.  It goes to "Pizza Hut" automatically at 6:30 PM, as you are leaving work.  Within the TX is the order, the address and the payment.  Since this can be Meta data, Pizza Hut's computer can auto handle it.  The address is sent to the drivers mobile, the order sent to the kitchen and not a single person is needed other than to cook the food and then deliver it.  You can even arrange for the tip to go straight to the drivers Bitcoin wallet.  Even cooler? That driver tip can be scripted to slowly go down from 6:45 until the drivers mobile phone reaches your home.  If he is quick, $20 tip, an hour late and $0 for him.  That is just one small example of a world with Bitcoin for all and smart contracts.

Practical application of smart contract is still in premitive stage and the one who like to try it or implement it get into mesh if he dont know how this works and how to code smart contract. ETH may have been the first one to introduce this but it has lots of bugs stil ned to be fixed like 51% attack on eth clone coins and we remember dao messup so well till now.