[0x3f]

Not really. At a traditional bank I have to trust n people with varying degrees of access. Et ceteris paribus, any reduction in n is an improvement, even if n is not zero.

Of course n can be smaller and the specific people less trustworthy, but that's quite a different thing.

[mnkyprskbd]

At a traditional bank you have your national deposit insurance scheme; you get that in return for converting your "assets" to the said nations issued currency but accept the authorities control of the money supply and your funds.

With decentralised money, you get the safety of a globally distributed attestation backed by cryptography without a single authority controlling the supply of money or your funds.

There is no halfway option. You either have a single authority that can exercise control or you do not; number of delegates for exercise of control is almost irrelevant since you can change banks.

[0x3f]

I mean you're just making bare assertions, of course there are halfway options. Different components of the account or relationship can have different parameters. Most crypto products are not the equivalent of depositor accounts anyway, they wouldn't be insured necessarily at a traditional bank either.

[mnkyprskbd]

Most "crypto" products aren't even crypto but custody accounts. But that doesn't change the fact that blockchains that can be controlled by specific entities unanimously are a joke of a crypto.

[0x3f]

There are just some things that are unsolved. For example, a smart contract can't act as an oracle for many types of external event. There's no way around that. Doesn't mean it's not valuable to make the rest of your product trustless. Reducing the keyholders matters. Unless you think NSA key escrow is also cool because hey, one person, somewhere, has the key, so why not the whole government?

[mnkyprskbd]

Exactly. It is the same. One person or the whole government; it is the same, when it matters.

[ribosometronome]

That access is to provide account support, no? Reverse fraudulent transactions and the like. A "bank" could just not do that save for if you're a large enough client to merit attention but why would I want to bank there if I'm not a large enough client?

[snypher]

Ok so we are expected to trust; the creator/s, some random hacker, whoever else has the key? So the value here is between 2 and 'many'.

[0x3f]

You're expected to do your own research about how it works, who the keyholders are, and what permissions they have. You're free to choose only projects where n=0. If you choose n>0, you have to work out your trust and confidence level. You're always free to use the traditional financial system as well.

[nkrisc]

If my money in the bank is stolen I have legal recourse.

[dylan604]

is insured by the FDIC legal recourse?

[mothballed]

FDIC does not cover bank theft[].

  FDIC deposit insurance does not protect against losses due to theft or fraud, which are addressed by other laws.

That's covered by private bankers bond insurance, much like you could get for a decentralized stored pots of gold or you can buy insurance in the form of put options (like on IBIT) on the loss of value of bitcoin or if your cold wallet is stolen you can initiate legal proceedings against the thief.

[] https://www.fdic.gov/news/fact-sheets/crypto-fact-sheet-7-28...

[dylan604]

That's good to know. I guess that makes sense though as those swindled by Madoff had to recoup their money through Madoff's estate instead of FDIC.

I guess Hollywood has mislead us yet again in pretty much every bank robbery scene with dialog like "Nobody panic. We're not stealing your money, we are stealing the bank's money".