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Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by nradov on Monday December 19, 2022 @05:29PM (#34058671)
The clearing house hosts the database. There's no need for a blockchain.

https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/advocacy/issues/central-clea...

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by legutierr on Monday December 19, 2022 @05:38PM (#34058790)
What if there is no clearinghouse operating in that particular market?
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by RC_ITR on Monday December 19, 2022 @05:59PM (#34059027)
You build one because it's way easier and cheaper to build a clearinghouse than it is to build a massively decentralized network of trust-less computers?
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by legutierr on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:12PM (#34059177)
Yeah, but what if that decentralized network of trustless computers already exists, and transactions costs relative to costs you would otherwise incur are very low?

The premise of your argument is that building a clearinghouse is cheaper and easier than using a blockchain. That seems laughable, honestly.

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by robjan on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:42PM (#34059489)
If you use the Blockchain you still need to legislate such that whatever is on the chain is legally binding then create an agency to enforce it.
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by legutierr on Monday December 19, 2022 @07:00PM (#34059642)
This should be possible to do only through standardizable contracts, with enforcement through arbitration and/or the courts.
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by RC_ITR on Monday December 19, 2022 @07:50PM (#34060047)
> Yeah, but what if that decentralized network of trustless computers already exists, and transactions costs relative to costs you would otherwise incur are very low?

Sure and what if unicorns were real? Horses would seem pretty boring then I bet.

> The premise of your argument is that building a clearinghouse is cheaper and easier than using a blockchain. That seems laughable, honestly.

I guess it’s good that we are both laughing at each other then.

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by hanniabu on Monday December 19, 2022 @08:51PM (#34060536)
"hey let's facilitate this transaction on Ethereum"

"no, that's ridiculous, let's build a clearinghouse, get a bunch of lawyers and have paper contracts drafter, ad deal with differences in international law."

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by RC_ITR on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @12:00AM (#34061733)
Lmfao. What is this straw man transaction that can be settled on ETH (keep in mind, you’re already completely leaning on sunk cost fallacy) but needs a lawyer off chain?!

Like, either the terms are known and you put them in a smart contract or they’re unknown and you need lawyers anyway.

I dig the energy, but at least be sort of realistic in your “owns”

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by hanniabu on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:02AM (#34067755)
I'm just going along with everyone else's rebuttal of "just use a lawyer", "just use a clearing house", "just pay someone to balance/record your own books", and whatever else they mention to avoid a solution that exists.

It's a bit like hearing people dismiss email and saying "just use snail mail", "just have a scribe write the letter for you", "just use a personal carrier so it's faster".

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by Gwypaas on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:04PM (#34059099)
Then use an escrow.

> An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacting parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrow

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by legutierr on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:39PM (#34059461)
To implement a traditional escrow you need an escrow agent and an escrow agreement, as you rightly note. In the event of a dispute, the escrow just holds onto the money until the question is resolved in arbitration or litigation.

Expenses involved is such a process include legal fees to draft and negotiate the agreement; paying the escrow agent for their bother; paying for litigation in the event of a dispute.

Escrows can be implemented on a blockchain as well. If the use case is suitable, you can save a lot of money and hassle! And if settlement is on-chain and is indisputable, you might not even need any escrow at all.

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by codehalo on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:50PM (#34059556)
And what if the escrow runs off like SBF and spends your money on personal property in the Bahamas?
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by wins32767 on Monday December 19, 2022 @07:37PM (#34059958)
Then the legal system deals with them and your business insurance covers you (or doesn't). This stuff is a solved problem. Business transact in a low trust environment all the time all over the world.
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by hanniabu on Monday December 19, 2022 @08:52PM (#34060546)
A blockchain can perform escrow services in a more secure manner, 24/7.
Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by rvba on Monday December 19, 2022 @07:47PM (#34060026)
As much as I hate bitcoin and blockchain and think that the technology is simply not very useful outside of speculation (+ bad from ecology point of view + slow + unsalable + often a simple database can be better + ...), the one argument that they they say I agree on. Transparency.

Clearing houses do not provide any real information what they do. Supposedly they are regulated, but nobody really seems to look under the rug - which seems to have a lot of dead bodies (anyone remembers the Clearstream scandals?).

DTCC was accused multiple times during the Gamestop saga for allowing naked short selling + for allowing "fail to deliver" all the time. And the worst is that we really dont know. There were no real investigations, no real audits, no information provided to the general public. We are supposed to "trust" the clearing house, but without the ability to verify what it is doing. So how can we know what they are doing? The things we have dont really show what they are doing; also different thing is that they can claim to do one thing, but do something different in reality.

I bet that clearing houses are allowing naked shorts all the time, because nobody can really control it. Are there any programmers doing complicated code reviews with sys admins? The "big four" audits are a joke, they check some papers, of things that supposedly happened or did not happen.

Audits are done by accounting by graduates, who barely understand basics of accounting and here we talk about inspecting complicated software of some clearing house that does a million things per second. Everything is done inside some complicated operatically tool - and I doubt big 4 has any chance to understand it, if even they investigate it, because probably it is outside of scope - they just investigate the print outs, or Excel files "provided by customer". Everyone who works in finance knows that audits are a joke; the auditors barely understand what normal things are doing - and they can barely keep up with the financial part; here we talk about actual checking if the business side isnt cheating somehow inside its software.

A clearing house can just run two sets of books; also how can anyone know it isnt front-running, or naked shorting? There is a lot of money on the table in that and I bet someone tried to skim some of it from time to time. And as I said, we will never know, since this information is hidden from public. We dont really have any way to check it and very doubt if those who check really do.

Re:Binance's books are a black box, filings show, as it trie... by pcthrowaway on Monday December 19, 2022 @09:48PM (#34060927)
Bitcoin and blockchain are not synonymous. Bitcoin is one of the few major blockchain projects still using proof of work, and one of the others, Monero, actually has a good reason to still be doing that (though I still don't like it), and also has a much smaller energy footprint.