[rglullis]

Think of any story where PayPal froze someone's assets because they didn't like the type of business or because they mistakenly thought it was suspicious activity.

Think of a system where you can invest your money in a share of land, a fraction of a house or a share in a fleet of a car-riding service without paying 10-20% of fees to realtors/brokers or other middlemen.

Think of ebay, but where you only pay for the product if the whole supply chain can provably demonstrate that no child labor was used. Bonus: no counterfeits.

Think of a community that can run its own credit cooperative without depending on any bank.

Think of the idea of being able to provide micro-credit for people in developing countries without worrying that your funds might end up in the hands of some corrupt tribal leader or siphoned out by some corrupt NGO board member.

That's what "permissionless, programmable money" is.

[louwrentius]

Trust can’t be solved by tech.

https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-b...

[rglullis]

Nice strawman you have there.

"Trustless" is not about solving anything. It's about enabling new interactions that do not require a central coordinator - aka, trusted party. That is it.

Of course you can have "trustless" systems that are malicious or potentially abused. No honest advocate would claim otherwise.

[louwrentius]

Why I made a straw man is unclear to me, I think Bruce’s article exposes exactly the issue with this new tech.

The issue is that it is an illusion to think that trustless systems can exist at all.

To me, trustless is an oxymoron. There is always a step of trust. There is always vulnerability.