Re:Web3 is centralized and inefficient
by nullc on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @01:38PM
(#30781111)
The ancestor post was about not needing to place every transaction directly into the blockchain, to which someone replied assuming that doing so would eliminate the security, to which I explained it did not eliminate the security. My apologies for using broad language which could be read as implying that any possible dispute could be settled that way-- that wasn't the point I was trying to make.
HOWEVER, you're not entirely correct for two reasons:
(1) There is a much wider class of transactions that can be made cheat proof than you might expect. If, for example, I were purchasing machine validable information from you that could be made resolvable https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting...
(2) Even when that's not possible-- when you transact you can use excrow transactions to specify that any monotone function of additional key holders can release the funds. In the simpliest form, the transfer requires you me and an arbitrator. So you could make it so that if there is a dispute one or more other parties have to approve the outcome-- which could be a court or a private arbitrator (or some quorum of arbitrators, if you like). There the third party isn't eliminated, but it's made very flexible.
As an aside, in US legal tradition civil courts do not usually award specific performance -- I might get my money back and damages, but they won't make you give me bread you promised to give me. (2) is similarly limited, but (1) isn't if applies and you don't choose for it to be.
HOWEVER, you're not entirely correct for two reasons:
(1) There is a much wider class of transactions that can be made cheat proof than you might expect. If, for example, I were purchasing machine validable information from you that could be made resolvable https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-conting...
(2) Even when that's not possible-- when you transact you can use excrow transactions to specify that any monotone function of additional key holders can release the funds. In the simpliest form, the transfer requires you me and an arbitrator. So you could make it so that if there is a dispute one or more other parties have to approve the outcome-- which could be a court or a private arbitrator (or some quorum of arbitrators, if you like). There the third party isn't eliminated, but it's made very flexible.
As an aside, in US legal tradition civil courts do not usually award specific performance -- I might get my money back and damages, but they won't make you give me bread you promised to give me. (2) is similarly limited, but (1) isn't if applies and you don't choose for it to be.