#social 2019-09-27

2019-09-27 UTC
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cwebber2 cjd_: I'm unsure... if the token is not fungible, what's the point of putting it on a blockchain?
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cwebber2 and how does one get a token
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cwebber2 cjd_: the goal of stamps is to to move the cost from the receiver to the sender in the case of messages of unknown origin; in that case, if making these is cheap, where does the friction that justifies stamps come in?
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cwebber2 gotta pack up though, interested in your response when I get back later
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cjd_ melody: I continue to try to think of limitations which I've not already defined, clearly the wallet bloat is a cost and also there is the fact that you need a token issuer in order for the token to have any meaning...
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melody cjd_: i'm not sure, honestly, i recognize the unhelpfulness of my gut feelings for diagnosis, still can't shake it ^_^;;;;;
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cjd_ :)
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cjd_ So this is breaking (or perhaps, bending) the rule that you can't do decentralized transfer of property for (nearly) free - traditionally there's always some fairly high transaction fee to the underlying blockchain
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cjd_ I can see that would create an "impossible" smell
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cjd_ So, does anyone have a socialhub login generator ?
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cjd_ hey hey cwebber2
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cjd_ > cjd_: I'm unsure... if the token is not fungible, what's the point of putting it on a blockchain? <-- you need this nonexistance proof in order to transfer anything securely, now I think the way to get stamps to be politically palletable is to let everybody issue their own, I think PKT is the best blockchain ever (I created it) but I recognize other people will have their own opinions and I don't expect
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cjd_ I can convince everyone
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cjd_ But what's nice about using such a system though is it's possible to create a swap transaction which swaps one of your tokens for one of mine
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cjd_ or multiple tokens, you get the idea...
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cjd_ So therefore it becomes possible to do decentralized OTC market transactions
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cwebber2 cjd_: I agree with allowing everyone to create their own
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cwebber2 but I'm not sure a blockchain is necessary for that
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cwebber2 let everyone run their own digicash or etc system
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cjd_ Maybe I just don't properly understand digicash
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cwebber2 cjd_: look at the gnu taler demos
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cjd_ https://demo.taler.net/en/ <-- this ?
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cwebber2 cjd_: yes
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cwebber2 key points:
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cwebber2 well
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cwebber2 actually I'm in mid meeting will summarize later ;)
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cwebber2 well
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cwebber2 - reciepts
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cwebber2 - person holding onto tokens/etc is anonymous when buying
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cwebber2 - person selling isn't necessarily (though it could be depending on how you roll it out)
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cwebber2 - no blockchain
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cwebber2 - a fiat system
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cwebber2 so the point is from me
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cwebber2 that I think that we should allow everyone to run fiat systems and exchange them
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cwebber2 and establish value
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cwebber2 eventually there will be some convergence on a few common fiat systems, but ther will always be the option to switch if one becomes untrusted
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cwebber2 so an open market for exchange is necessary for that; I think the agoric folks are probably building the right foundations there
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cjd_ Ok I understand
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cjd_ I looked up their paper in order to figure out how they handle double-spending
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cjd_ > Exchanges perform online detection of double spending, thus providing merchants instant feedback —including digital proofs—in case of misbehaving customers
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cjd_ > Exchanges, which are run by financial service providers
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cjd_ So basically it's paypal
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cwebber2 yep, except everyone can run their own paypal
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cjd_ with some privacy added on and a standardized API
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cjd_ oh, you are going to have Fun when you discover FinCEN
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cwebber2 well with some interesting cryptography
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cwebber2 too bad digicash was heavily patented when it came out
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cwebber2 it could have really changed the world
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cwebber2 it has the chance to again now
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cwebber2 cjd_: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature
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cwebber2 the patents have expired now
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cjd_ It's unfortunate that the Taler paper used the wording "Exchange" because operatung an unregistered exchange in the US is explicitly illegal https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-258
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cwebber2 cjd_: well the taler people want their stuff to be run by banks
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cwebber2 but I'm interested more in individuals being able to use them for things that are mostly-not-money
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cwebber2 but can be exchanged for money, because realistically you can never prevent that anyway
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cwebber2 closer to chuck-e-cheese tokens than dolalrs
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cwebber2 dollars
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cjd_ I don't really see the difference between that and ETH though
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cwebber2 there's no blockchain to maintain
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cjd_ No I mean in terms of it being a financial insturment
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cwebber2 cjd_: you don't know what the difference between chuck-e-cheese tokens and dollars are? :)
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cwebber2 and you might argue there's little difference, but there's a difference in intended use and where they're generally accepted at
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cjd_ Well, the thing is once you make these things electronic, then you have markets spring up which put a price on them
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cjd_ then the SEC looks at that and says "oh, that's a financial insturment"
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cwebber2 cjd_: and do you think your system is less vulnerable to that?
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cjd_ Yes because there's nobody to shut down
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cwebber2 cjd_: you've suggested that each person can run their own tokens right?
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cwebber2 and they're exchangeable
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cwebber2 so shut down each person who provides those on the chain
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cwebber2 that seems no different to me than each person runs their own tokens on their own api endpoint
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cjd_ The way the law is currently working is that a decentralized protocol is not considered to be a "conspiracy to commit financial crimes"
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cwebber2 cjd_: but each person is effectively responsible for their own token in your protocol right?
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cwebber2 and you suggested they can spin them up and be exchanged, right?
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cjd_ This is definitely the weakest part of the proposal
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cwebber2 if that's the case, I think people will be just as likely to be shut down for putting them on that chain
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cjd_ But if *everybody* does it, then it probably gets interpreted more as a decentralized protocol rather than a million security offerings
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cjd_ but yes, issuing a token is taking a risk of ending up classified as an unregulated security offering
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cwebber2 that seems no different putting each of them on blockchains rather than on api endpoints
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cwebber2 or store-and-forward addresses
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cwebber2 and I suspect is just as likely to get shut down
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cjd_ Well they have to shut down each person
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cwebber2 cjd_: same thing with what I'm proposing, yes?
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cwebber2 if each fediverse system booted up with running its own digicash style endpoint by default
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cwebber2 wouldn't that be equally true
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cjd_ Is one digicash issuer able to atomically swap their cash with another's ?
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cwebber2 cjd_: no, that's true that you need some sort of exchange for that
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cwebber2 cjd_: so I think the question is where the *exchange* lives, you're sayin
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cwebber2 g
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cwebber2 rather than the tokens
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cwebber2 if everyone runs their own stamps
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cjd_ If every individual runs their own stamp server then yes
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cjd_ But if each server runs a stamp server, then someone like Gargron will become a target
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cjd_ btw is the discourse forum active at all ?
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cwebber2 cjd_: I'm not sure what the state is
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cwebber2 I suspect it'll come up on tomorrow's call
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cjd_ Can I get a login for it ?
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cjd_ I might enjoy hanging out there, currently I'm taking a break from the fedi again, too much emotional stimulation
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cwebber2 cjd_: could you message https://ps.s10y.eu/@how ?
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cwebber2 oh
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cjd_ sure, no problem
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cwebber2 yeah hellekin is responsible for it and I don't know what's going on kinda
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cjd_ I don't mind jumping on to message him, it's just I don't have the tab open righ tnow
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cwebber2 cjd_: ok :)
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cjd_ Anyway, I think that token issuance in a fully decentralized network should be something which is close to free, like most other services on the net
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cjd_ And also swapping of tokens in order to facilitate decentralized exchange
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cjd_ What makes them start to look like securities offerings is when a token represents a tradable *promise* (e.g. 10% of my company which is going to make beaucoup bucks)
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cwebber2 cjd_: I think you should look at agoric's stuff also because they've written systems where you can do exchanges on both live-actor type things and also blockchain things but actually you run the same code for both
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cwebber2 I suspect you'd find it very interesting
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cjd_ The SEC really doesn't like you warranting that something is going to increase in value, that puts you into the "you're a security" crosshairs
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cwebber2 cjd_: I'm not hoping anything I run increases in value :)
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cjd_ And for good reason, they were established to stop people telephoning old people and selling them fake assets
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cjd_ IANAL but I think stamps, for their ordinary purpose, fall in the realm of "utility tokens" - so you won't catch any heat from the SEC
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cjd_ But any form of central authority is going to be looked at as a financial institution
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cwebber2 cjd_: I think that's probably true
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cwebber2 so exchanges are the bigger concern
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cjd_ My vision is that the miners are able to clear atomic swap transactions, so as long as everyone is issuing on the same substrate, there is no need for exchanges
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cjd_ And then the idea is to make the cost of issuing on that substrate as close to zero as possible, so that everyone can issue on it
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cjd_ Also because "oh, you should just buy my coin in order to issue yours, everyone should buy my coin" is kind of shitty
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cjd_ I mean Ethereum and others need to say that for valid technical reasons, I just think we can do better
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cjd_ Jessie looks like a nice subset of js
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melody cjd_: one question that will either fill in that itchy spot or lead to a lot more questions -- what's the role of miners in this scenario and what are they actually mining, i don't have a clear idea of what miners are for and why they are doing it without the protocol being its own token issuing authority and without managing a global public chain
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cjd_ So miners of some sort are needed because they share the role of the "timestamping server", but clearly it's going to be difficult to get them to work for free...
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cjd_ So an idea that I had is to propose this as a hard fork to the PKT blockchain which I'm the lead developer of and make it so that in order to mine PKT, you need to also have the capability to do this timestamping
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cjd_ So then we hope that at least some of the miners will be nice enough to do it as a community service for free -- and the others will be forced to double-check their work by the protocol
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cjd_ Make any sense ?
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melody not really but i don't know anything about PKT
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cjd_ Consider it as just a blockchain as any other, nothing special at all
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cjd_ The whole idea here is to add this as part of the proof of work
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melody is pkt actually a normal blockchain or were you just saying that to try to simplify the mental model for me, because that just raises more questions
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cjd_ Yes, it's a fork of bitcoin with only the proof of work changed (and a 20% payout to an elected "network steward" who funds projects to help the network)
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melody nods
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melody what's the fine distinction i might be missing between committing and including
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cwebber2 cjd_: yeah I think Jessie might make javascript seem bearable
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cjd_ melody: you can *commit* 10000 messages by making a big merkle tree and only *including* the root of the tree, the messages themselves don't need to be included
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cjd_ so commitment is cheap, inclusion is expensive
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melody what does committing mean/why don't the messages need to be included?
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cjd_ If I commit a message in the bitcoin blockchain (for instance) then I can provide you with a proof which along with the bitcoin chain, you can use to know that the message was committed
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cjd_ The typical proof is a merkle branch
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cjd_ Transactions in bitcoin are both committed and included in the chain, the commitment makes it possible to give someone just one transaction, a proof, and the headers of the blocks and they can know that the transaction was committed in the chain -- that's how light wallets work
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melody feel like i'm still missing something
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cjd_ vgr just released this essay which totally captures a behavior I've been like instincitively doing https://breakingsmart.substack.com/p/the-direction-of-maximal-derangement?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDExMTc2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxMzI4MzMsIl8iOiJBL2ZYRiIsImlhdCI6MTU2OTYxMzAwNCwiZXhwIjoxNTY5NjE2NjA0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItOTk3MyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.myI2KM7vVrziGMBjSZxCCf6bSyO4nTd_FwPfOFWIdVQ
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cjd_ oh wow that's an ugly token
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cjd_ seems not necessary https://breakingsmart.substack.com/p/the-direction-of-maximal-derangement
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melody i cant really relate to anything there
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