Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future

Re:Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future by newswasboring on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @03:59PM (#30770738)

Hmm... I was not aware that is how slashing works. So basically slashing would spontaneously result in a forked chain. At that point, how do people choose which chain to follow? Is that where human interaction comes in? As in, if enough people choose to follow one chain, that is the truth now. Even if people are running some nodes which follow other chains. Does this mean people who control the nodes are actually the ones who hold power?

Edit: BTW, isn't this what stealing a token would be?

> overpowering and replacing some of the blocks at the top of the chain.

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Re:Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future by vvillena on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @05:46PM (#30771993)

People choose their chain by choosing the software they run on their standard (non-mining, non-staking) nodes. Dishonesty requires custom-made software.

Regarding "stealing a token": remember that even in the case a block gets replaced by another, both have to be valid blocks, containing valid transactions. This is why the most famous attack is a just a "double spend attack" and not any kind of money steal. Problems with tokens, that is, transactions that run arbitrary code, happen due to bugs in such code, not because of fundamental issues with the protocol.

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Re:Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future by vvillena on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @05:53AM (#30776772)

I can't reply to your last comment, we're at the limit of comment nesting :)

Transactions are signed using public key cryptography. A miner can't modify a transaction present in the pool or make it up. Transactions need to be correct in order to be part of blocks.

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Re:Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future by newswasboring on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @08:21AM (#30777684)

This was the best conversion I have ever had about this topic. Now everything seems a bit more clear. Basically the only transactions we can "make up" is from wallets we already control because we will have the keys for it.

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Re:Vitalik Buterin is worried about crypto's future by newswasboring on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @05:09AM (#30776522)

> Dishonesty requires custom-made software.

This is the bit I don't understand. A block is a set of transaction information which is chosen by the miner/staker. What's stopping them from just making it up? It will still be a valid transaction.

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