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by spaceman_2020 1087 days ago
The fundamental flaw at the heart of crypto: the insistence that only onchain data matters, while in the real world, your reputation is tied to your real identity.

This idea would work if the ETH wallet was tied to a real identity, but since crypto keeps insisting on anonymity, all you get is a random address signing a thing.
3 comments
everfree 1087 days ago
In what way does crypto "keep insisting on anonymity"?

It's a system of private keys. You can attach identities to these keys, or you can not attach identities to them. The tech itself is unopinionated in this way.

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spaceman_2020 1087 days ago
Tech isn’t insulated from culture, and crypto culture so far has heavily emphasized anonymity, starting from the very beginning with Satoshi’s undisclosed identity.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that you even started seeing real world identity startups pop up.

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sowbug 1087 days ago
"... your reputation is tied to your real identity."

Why do corporations get to conduct business, have credit scores, influence others' credit scores, and even make political contributions without anyone knowing the identity of the humans directing them? Seems like that reputation system functions well enough, and it's anonymous vis-a-vis "real identity." Shouldn't human beings be entitled to at least as much privacy as a shell corporation?

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spaceman_2020 1087 days ago
On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog. On the internet, no one also knows that you’re a 14 year old signing off on Wikipedia pages about vaccines.

Anonymity is welcome and important, but some things require connections to your real world knowhow.

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xinbenlv 1086 days ago
> spaceman_2020@: The fundamental flaw at the heart of crypto: the insistence that only onchain data matters, while in the real world, your reputation is tied to your real identity.

OP: I think I share the view with sowbug@ in his answer:

> sowbug@: Why do corporations get to conduct business, have credit scores...

OP: also, in the long term, I believe that "reputaiton" is going to exist in a digitized form in the future, and people will have real identity attested with digital signature, just like HTTPS help you ensure the site you visit is the site that you think you are visiting. And I agree with everfree@ that thinking "blockchain" insist on anonimity is a common misconception and misunderstanding of cryptography.

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