Mitigating the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchains.
ecosystem
The problem of CryptoArt – Studio Joanie Lemercier
The CryptoArt market is a new way for artists to distribute digital works to collectors: often digital images and video files. The blockchain technology provides secure ownership, traceability, artist commission on second market sales and a thriving market place, with platforms emerging quickly: Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, MakersPlace.. It’s a vibrant and welcoming community, a place to discuss the works with collectors, and it brings a lot of benefits that the Art market fails to provide.With no travel involved, and a mostly digital distribution, this new model looks like it has the potential to become a sustainable practice for artists. That’s until you understand the magnitude of the environmental impacts of the current blockchain: It is a DISAST
Ethereum is a Dark Forest. A horror story. | by Dan Robinson | Aug, 2020 | Medium
In the Ethereum mempool, these apex predators take the form of “arbitrage bots.” Arbitrage bots monitor pending transactions and attempt to exploit profitable opportunities created by them. No white hat knows more about these bots than Phil Daian, the smart contract researcher who, along with his colleagues, wrote the Flash Boys 2.0 paper and coined the term “miner extractable value” (MEV).Phil once told me about a cosmic horror that he called a “generalized frontrunner.” Arbitrage bots typically look for specific types of transactions in the mempool (such a DEX trade or an oracle update) and try to frontrun them according to a predetermined algorithm. Generalized frontrunners look for any transaction that they could profitably frontrun by copying it and replacing addresses with their own. They can even execute the transaction and copy profitable internal transactions generated by its execution trace.
Source: Ethereum is a Dark Forest. A horror story. | by Dan Robinson | Aug, 2020 | Medium
Negen Nederlandse bitcoinstartups gestopt vanwege strengere regels – Emerce
Negen Nederlandse bitcoinstartups gestopt vanwege strengere regelsNiet minder dan negen Nederlandse bitcoinpartijen zijn gestopt vanwege de strengere regels voor bedrijven die cryptomunten aanbieden. Dat meldt Bitcoin Magazine.Zonder vergunning mogen bedrijven die geld omwisselen in crypto’s of wallets aanbieden sinds vorige week niet meer actief zijn in Nederland. De regels zijn ingevoerd om witwassen tegen te gaan.Transacties boven de 15.000 euro moeten worden gemeld. Daarnaast moeten bedrijven onderzoek doen naar de identiteit van hun klanten. Ook worden de bestuurders en andere betrokkenen doorgelicht.De partijen moeten de kosten voor het toezicht daarnaast zelf betalen. Per bedrijf komt dat neer op 20.000 euro.Een van de bekendere namen is Bitkassa, voortgekomen uit een bitcoininitiatief in Arnhem. Een andere bekende naam is Bittr, waar gebruikers een vast bedrag aan bitcoins konden aanschaffen via een simpele bankbetaling.Ook de Rotterdamse broker Nocks is gestopt. De software is overigens al verkocht.Coingarden uit Utrecht noemt de ‘te hoge kosten’ als voornaamste reden om te stoppen. De oprichters gaan door met goudbroker Bitgild.Post-a-coin, een giftcarddienst van Bèr Kessels, valt eveneens onder de wet, net als de miningpool Simplecoin, bitcoin gamingplatform Chopcoin en BitZeb. Een negende startup Bitqist is reeds overgenomen doot Bitvavo. Geen van deze startups had kennelijk voldoende financiële draagkracht.
Source: Negen Nederlandse bitcoinstartups gestopt vanwege strengere regels – Emerce
Brave New Coin
- Earning interest on crypto asset holdings has become easier than ever, thanks to the Compound protocol and DApps like Dharma and Celsius.
- Converting your ETH to other Ethereum tokens can be done securely and privately decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap or IDEX.
- Hedging your cryptographic asset portfolio is now possible thanks to decentralized derivatives trading platforms, such as dYdX.
- Insuring yourself against the failure of smart contracts has become possible thanks to Nexus Mutual.
- Betting on the outcome of elections, sporting events or whether John McAfee’s bitcoin price prediction will come true can be done on prediction markets platforms, such as Augur.
- Storing funds in crypto-backed stablecoins during times of extreme market volatility is now as easy as buying DAI.
The Token Gallery
A visualization of ERC20 token transfers on the Ethereum blockchain by Peter Ruppel and Friedhelm Victor, May 2019.
Contract address: 0xbc34985b4d345aea933d5cac19f3a86bd1fb398f License: CC BY 4.0 — The Token Gallery by Peter Ruppel and Friedhelm Victor (tokengallery.net)
Source: The Token Gallery
In Code(rs) We Trust: Software Developers as Fiduciaries in Public Blockchains by Angela Walch :: SSRN
Abstract
This chapter addresses the myth of decentralized governance of public blockchains, arguing that certain people who create, operate, or reshape them function much like fiduciaries of those who rely on these powerful data structures. Explicating the crucial functions that leading software developers perform, the chapter compares the role to Tamar Frankel’s conception of a fiduciary, and finds much in common, as users of these technologies place extreme trust in the leading developers to be both competent and loyal (ie, to be free of conflicts of interest). The chapter then frames the cost-benefit analysis necessary to evaluate whether, on balance, it is a good idea to treat these parties as fiduciaries, and outlines key questions needed to flesh out the fiduciary categorization. For example, which software developers are influential enough to resemble fiduciaries? Are all users of a blockchain ‘entrustors’ of the fiduciaries who operate the blockchain, or only a subset of those who rely on the blockchain? Finally, the chapter concludes with reflections on the broader implications of treating software developers as fiduciaries, given the existing accountability paradigm that largely shields software developers from liability for the code they create.
Keywords: Blockchain, DLT, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Distributed Ledger Technology, Cryptocurrency, Digital Currency, Blockchain Technology, Governance, Fiduciary, Law
The Future of the Blockchain: Vinay Gupta: how to control the material world with smart contracts?
This year October 31 at the DevCon IV I gave the first talk on the Smart Property Register — the Mattereum innovation, which I think is…
Source: The Future of the Blockchain: my DevCon IV talk. – Mattereum – Humanizing the Singularity – Medium
Cryptocurrency Markets Lost $18 Billion Overnight – Slashdot
Blockchain exists for ~10 years and still there are no mainstream use cases where it replaced the incumbent tech, other than illegal activity. There is a fundamental reason for that.BCh offers a single unique feature: distributed trusted transaction (DTT). DTT competes with a centralized transaction == transaction with a trusted third party (T3P). DTT is by definition distributed and as such is *always* more expensive than a T3P all other things being equal: reaching consensus with multiple parties is harder than with a single party. In order for DTT to be competitive with the old tech T3P, the distributed nature of DTT must offer some advantage for people to be willing to pay the required premium. So far the only use case where people or willing to pay this premium is circumvention of regulation, when the trusted third party does not exist. This brings us to this list of use cases:1. Circumvention of regulation.This is the only meaningful use of DTT.China has capital flow controls which effectively bar companies and individuals from moving money out of China. To get around these regulations people buy video cards and electricity in China for CNY, mine cryptocoins, sell them in the States for USD. That’s the largest market right now, much bigger than buying drugs on the likes of Silk Road. This use case also includes ICOs and other pump and dump schemes.2. Selling picks and shovels.Derivative of (1). If 1 goes away, 2 will go away too.https://finance.yahoo.com/quot… [yahoo.com]3. Marketing & FMOAdd blockchain to the company name and see your valuation pop.”We must work on blockchain because it’s the future”.All kinds of blockchain projects in banks, etc which are going mainstream “any time now”. All of them can be done easier/cheaper/more reliably with a T3P, no exceptions.Reply to This Share
Source: Cryptocurrency Markets Lost $18 Billion Overnight – Slashdot
The Blockchain Stack – Mechanism Labs – Medium
At a fundamental level, blockchains are composed of multiple distinct layers, similar to other technology protocols like the internet paradigm (Link, Network, Internet, Transport, Application). Here, we present a framework of the layers that compose blockchains. The layers are defined such that each layer depends on the one(s) below it. Here, we discuss what each layer provides as opposed to how each layer is implemented.