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by efficax 1434 days ago
crypto solves the byzantium generals problem, sure, but that's not a problem we were struggling with in the financial system, and it creates more problems than it solves
2 comments

Knowing who to trust is absolutely a major problem in financial networking, whether it's crypto, digital or physical.

FUD & FOMO are exactly derived from this problem.

> Knowing who to trust is absolutely a major problem in financial networking, whether it's crypto, digital or physical.

Solving the Byzantine Generals problem doesn't help you know who to trust.

With a large enough network, it makes it extremely difficult for malicious actors to subvert the process of exchanging money.

It does nothing to solve other crucial aspects of "who do I trust with my money", such as having recourse when someone scams you into giving them money.

In fact, the technology's spread has enabled terrible abuses of trust like cryptolocker attacks, and has probably made scamming much more profitable and practical.

If the solution to those problem has even a whiff of "user error" in it, then I submit that the problem is not actually with the users (it so rarely is).

I don’t think so as evidenced by financial systems moving trillions of dollars that have figured out who to trust. There are exchanges that have “solved” the trust issue and they seem pretty solvent and successful.
Does it actually save the Byzantine generals problem though?

How do you prove that only the attacker doesn't also have access to a private key?