Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by splintercell 3642 days ago
Say BOA, Citi, Goldman Sachs etc want to create a settlement network on blockchain. By using a centralized service, it would result in them trusting a third party (which they currently do) but by using the blockchain, they don't have to rely upon each other, and they all take equal responsibility.

Any entity which can mount a 50% attack in a private permissioned blockchain, would be known to all participant. Average Joe isn't mounting such an attack, because his key doesn't really have write access to the blockchain, only read access.

1 comments

I was completely on board until the second paragraph. Isn't this almost exactly the argument the DAO used?

It seems like in cases where extremely large amounts of money are at risk, we still haven't developed computers that should be completely trusted with it.

I was completely on board until the second paragraph. Isn't this almost exactly the argument the DAO used?

No. The DAO attack wasn't a 50% attack - it was a bug in the contract.

It seems like in cases where extremely large amounts of money are at risk, we still haven't developed computers that should be completely trusted with it.

That's the point of the blockchain.

My point is that I don't believe we are currently capable of mass producing bug free software.