It's like a libertarian utopia. Literally everything is an individual responsibility with no wider recourse.

Want validation? Other people don't want to pay for stuff they're not validating... so it's on you to be careful.

Accidentally fuck up? Not our problem, that's on you for not calling the right API.

Want your money back? We're not paying money to cover for other people's mistakes. You're on your own bud.

You forgot to add “If you don’t like it, you’re free to create your own blockchain”.

What about the Eth DAO forks? How was that individual responsibility?

All smart contracts are immutable, but some are more mutable than others.

Ok… but then if you’re going to throw out these cases you should also address how markets can fix these issues, such as great customer service: “when I fucked up they helped me out, they’ll get more of my business”, or maybe insurance, or just better products that don’t have these issues.

Idk why people conflate libertarianism with this hyper-individualist stuff. It really isn’t the case.

Do ethereum and smart contracts currently have excellent customer service, such that the guy in TFA can get his 500k back?

Why should this person get anything back? Code is law. And if code is law all bugs are also law.

The half million was a fair and just transfer. Whoever is the recipient is fully deserving both morally and ethically of their new-found wealth.

If I was on the receiving end of this transaction, I’d thank the sender for the money and move on with my life. Of course I’d never be in the position to receive the funds because I’m not stupid enough to play this game—odds are very good I would be the one who sent half a million dollars by mistake!

I mean, I think I’m joking but not really. If you want to practice “code is law” and really mean it, this is the kinds of stuff that will happen.

Code wasn't law when Ethereum foundation insiders stood to lose a fortune in the DAO hack.

The one who has the private keys to that account could give them the ETH back, yeah. But if no one has the private keys, they can not get it back, that would defeat the entire point of cryptocurrencies in the first place.

There are two types of accounts in Ethereum, externally owned accounts (EOA) and contracts. EOA are controlled by private keys where contracts are not. Since the user sent ETH to a contract, he cannot get his ETH back if the contract does not have a method to transfer ETH back. Whereas if he sent ETH to an EOA then the user of that account can send him back ETH.

But of course they can - if they are the right persons, that is. (See DAO hack. Of course, that did defeat the whole purpose of smart contracts but nobody was willing to notice.)

> See DAO hack. Of course, that did defeat the whole purpose of smart contracts but nobody was willing to notice

Of course a lot of people noticed. The problem is that cryptocurrencies are currently primarily functioning as investment object rather than an actual secure financial ledger, which is why the interest of investors will trump purity.

Low-cost insurance is an interesting idea that might actually work to smooth over some of the hard edges of "code is law".

It ought to be possible to craft an insurance policy that would pay out the $500k (or equivalent WETH/ETH) in cases like the one in this article, where the transparency of the ledger clearly shows that the tokens are unrecoverable.

As insurance companies are notorious for declining to pay out, the clear evidence trail would be helpful to allow the insuree to take the claim to a regular court for a human decision on its validity.

Lol, so like the FDIC but you have to sue to get your money.

Not really. Having the option of a lawsuit is just a backup; the possibility is what makes sure the insurer chooses to pay without one.

An insurer that knows when it doesn't have a case and will be forced to pay (plus costs) when there's clear evidence of coverage and loss will almost always pay without a fight.

However if there are high-value decisions which are not so clear cut, then having the option to go to court or some other mediation system to settle is quite useful. One of the critisms of "code is law" is the lack of mechanism for nuanced, human intervention when something unexpected happens due to a bug, design flaw or unexpected consequence that turns out to be unreasonable.

Code can screw up at scale. And at this point if you’re capable enough to understand the edge cases and offer insurance against them, the insurance went really cover that much.

> but then if you’re going to throw out these cases you should also address how markets can fix these issues, such as great customer service

Ahahahahahha. Ahahahahahahahahahha. Ahahahahahhahahahahahahahah.

--- several minutes of laughter later ---

Markets don't care and they will not fix these issues, because suckers losing money is a much better market proposition than losing money on customer support.

Fo go ahead and learn some history, will you? Almost every single regulation we have in place is precisely because markets never ever fix things.

And yet, disputing charges via your bank and issuing chargebacks via VISA/Mastercard are things that definitely exist and work perfectly fine. And as long as there is no equivalent function in crypto, it won't be suitable as a currency for general use.

And no amount of mocking faux laughter will change that.

Crypto works like cash. If you lose cash, there is no one to dispute charges and issue chargeback.

BTW I never had success trying to chargeback VISA for services that were not delivered. Scammers do it without problem though.

Cash transactions are done locally when you can typically inspect the object of the transaction before paying. That's why there is not the same need for these kinds of protection.

Crypto combines the worst properties of cash and wire payment into a package that has no customer protection and is almost tailor made for scammers.

There are customer protections in the form of 1) escrow 2) seller reputation 3) seller depositing some risk capital at a selling platform. That said, customer protections have never really worked for me in fiat world.

That is not entirely true. Stock exchanges will reverse some clearly erroneous trades, even when they are not required to by law, because people trade more when they feel protected against mistakes.