[pavlov]

> ”Does this sentence actually mean anything?”

In more traditional software engineering language, it means “you can run stored procedures on an incredibly slow and limited distributed database.”

Also those stored procedures are immutable, written in a language with more holes than Swiss cheese, and you have to use a scammy cryptocurrency to pay for the privilege of running these unsafe programs. The adherents call this “web 3.0” in some kind of ironic joke because it’s nothing like the web.

[The_Colonel]

> Also those stored procedures are immutable, written in a language with more holes than Swiss cheese...

You're probably referencing this fuck up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)

The huge advantage of smart contracts is that they are supposed to be trustless - you don't need to necessarily trust your business partners because contract is set in stone ... code and will be executed exactly as agreed beforehand.

In reality, you move your trust in your understanding of the code. But then when 18 000+ (probably highly technical) people investing $50 million don't spot the bug in the code, then it calls the whole "trustless" concept into question.

[joosters]

You don't have to go back that far in time, 'hacks' and bugs in 'smart' contracts happen almost every day. Here's a recent $7M loss: https://cointelegraph.com/news/yield-generating-stablecoin-p... and here's a $89M loss less than a week ago: https://decrypt.co/49657/oracle-exploit-sees-100-million-liq...

It's not even the first time that the 'Compound' smart contract has been 'hacked', but that doesn't stop fools from putting more money into it again.

All these fuck ups are called 'hacks', but actually the code is working exactly as intended, it's just that there are so many ways to write smart contracts incorrectly that it's more than likely they all have hidden bugs, just waiting to be exploited.

[pavlov]

"I'd like my investment bank to be an immutable, unfixable piece of code that's a sitting duck target for hackers"

-- nobody ever (except Ethereum ideologists)

[deeeeplearning]

Because no code in the financial sector has ever screwed up. Oh wait...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_flash_crash

Oh Oops...

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

[pavlov]

Exactly. Now imagine how bad it would be if the code handling this kind of money was on Ethereum where bugs are forever and failures irrevocable.

[Karunamon]

Now compare financial loss from bugs/hackers in smart contracts to financial loss from deception on the part of bankers, brokers, company execs, etc - the exact kind of fraud that's much harder to perpetrate with smart contracts. I'd wager the second number is and always will be orders of magnitude larger.

Enron alone was responsible for ~$74bn of loss.

[cwkoss]

Have any ethereum "hacks" ever been prosecuted?

It seems like there would be a reasonable argument that taking value from a contract as defined by code (even if not the intention of the programmer) is not theft.

But would be very interesting to see how a court interprets this.

[TearsInTheRain]

That doesnt sound like an $89 million loss just unexpected liquidations in loan contracts governing that amount of money

[louwrentius]

Hmm, this reads like something I do understand, thank you.