Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kennywinker 1621 days ago
Oddly enough making buying a house faster is not really a priority for me. I appreciated that mechanisms of trust kicked in for that transaction - my bank wouldn’t release mortgage money to anyone but a lawyer or notary, and my notary would not have released money to the seller unless they actually owned the place and transferred ownership to me.

Making that trustless means I am open to scam sellers, and have to trust the seller (who stands to gain if they can trick me) instead of now where i trust the bank and the conveyancers instead.
1 comments
zozbot234 1621 days ago
> Making that trustless means I am open to scam sellers

Cryptocurrencies support escrow transactions, where a mutually-trusted third party (e.g. an arbitrator) can decide whether the transaction should go forward if buyer and seller disagree. This is still "trustless" compared to other systems because it only depends on mutual trust wrt. each individual transaction, not on a pre-defined central authority.

link
kennywinker 1621 days ago
Right, so my conveyancer (trusted by me, and my lender) escrows the money (lent to me by a bank that trusts me) via blockchain. How is this better than the current situation, where wire transfers are used, except 1) smaller fees 2) massive carbon footprint? Because I didn’t see any armored cars involved to offset the PoW energy.

I’m not saying blockchain is useless - just i see no use for it when it comes to the way that 99% of americans buy their house - and if 99% of americans switch to btc for this kind of transaction the carbon cost would be massive.

link
vmception 1621 days ago
The carbon argument is so weird to me because if people understood blockchains it would actually bolster their argument.

Proof of Work Blockchains use the same energy whether there are any transactions or not. The idea that your participation or lack thereof deters demand in protest of the carbon footprint is just … wrong. Inaccurate.

link
kennywinker 1621 days ago
Sure it’s not a direct per-transaction carbon footprint - but every transaction has mining fees, and more transactions mean there’s more money in mining which means more miners which means more carbon burnt.
link
vmception 1621 days ago
this doesn't affect demand enough to die on that hill.
link
kennywinker 1620 days ago
So far it has. The amount of co2 emitted by mining has gone up to match it’s adoption… is that supposed to stop somehow?
link