I can see there is a trend to adopt a soft fork that involves Ethereum too, not just DAO. Of course this is the type of situation that shouldn't be allowed. The DAO incosistencies are now effecting Ethereum, and all that is managed by the community is to make the "hacker" shoot down two projects with one "bullet".
The funds drained in terms of Ethereum doesn't worth the trouble and reputation loss that comes with the forks. If they want to save DAO they should just suspend operations and fix all detected inadequacies. In any case the "hacker" will either cash out, so it will not affect for long time the Ethereum since there is some kind of PoS involved, or if he doesn't he will be able to provide some kind of leadership that Ethereum clearly lacks of.
I notice some people trying to draw parallels between the existing social structures, legal, economic, etc. and the ones currently in the making in the crypto world, especially on the level of principles and the philosophy that actually made it possible. Some of them even dismiss the whole "trustless" concept and support their fork case using nonsensical arguments, according to my opinion.
I believe it is just another example of the difficulty to prompt individuals think and act differently in a new context or framework that is crypto economy, as we are all born and raised in a legacy one.
I was never involved in the purchase of Ethereum or DAO for that reason. Despite all the fuzz about it, I was never convinced that the leadership is sound, along the economics foundation which clearly suffers. That for, I will not have an actual say in the process, thankfully. Still though, writting about it may influence other crypto developers avoid such mistakes.
Upvoted you
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I fully agree.
This is something I've been trying to say in my posts and comments: blockchain is not only a new type of technology but also a new type of mindset. If we adopt the new technology but keep the same old mindset nothing will really change.
The blockchain itself cannot enforce a new mindset, it's up to the people to embrace it. The way the DAO incident has been resolved is a big step backward in this respect.
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If you are counting on people's "mindset" to secure a blockchain, you're screwed. Game theory incentives secure blockchains, pure and simple. Either those incentives are effective at doing that, in which case your concern of the long-term prospects of Ethereum are misplaced, or they are not, in which case blockchains are doomed whether they fork on not.
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I could say this: "Unless you are counting on the army of your own country not to take power by a military coup, you're screwed". Are you screwed then? I don't think so. The military power of your country has the power to do whatever it wants but this does not mean that it is legal for it to do so or that ordinary citizens should feel frightened or "screwed".
There are always internal powers capable of destroying a state (or a network like blockchain). Yet this does not mean such a state (or network) cannot exist and be stable in the long run. It's all a matter of aligning incentives in such a way that those who have the power to violate the primary consensus never actually use this power.
What is happening in Ethereum right now is a group of users (we can even assume it's a majority) asks the miners to commit a lawless act. The miners obviously have the power to do it but having the power is not equal to having the legal right. It can be resilient to external threats, but internally a blockchain is a delicate mechanism which can be easily thrown off balance by the block producers.
If you haven't done so, please read this remarkable post by Curtis Yarvin. He explains this better than I ever could.
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The military doesn't act against the Constitution for several reasons, little of which has to do with "mindset". The primary reason they don't act to commit a coup is because they haven't solved the Byzantine General's Problem. And the US has done a pretty good job of making the problem unsolvable by distributing military power between different branches (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Cost Guard) and between different sovereigns (Federal government and the 50 states who have their own national guards and police forces). However, rest assured, were there a common crisis of sufficient magnitude that it required threatened them all and required these different branches/divisions to trust each other and act together to solve it for the protection of the grater good, they would, even if doing so violated the Constitution.
I agree, however, that security is all about getting the incentives right. And, that's the beauty of capital markets. They are ruthless in rewarding behavior that they find beneficial and penalizing behavior that they don't. Ultimately the markets will decide whether a fork was the right thing to do. I'm betting that they think it is.
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So you are saying the military does not commit a coup primarily because it's hard to do it? In other words, they would like to do it but they don't because they can't. I have a different opinion explaining why a modern state is able to keep its equilibrium.
That's where we differ. I think there is no greater good than the Constitution.
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If they do think so, then they are just kicking the can down the road. They will be hacked again & again until they will be fed up with their own forks.
Though I give you an upvote for the markets penalizing/rewarding comment. For a moment I though you will close your comment with a conclusion of how bad a soft fork of this kind can prove.
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I am not counting on them to secure it. I am counting on them to use it to build entirely new social, economic, finance, governance, etc. structures. I think it is clear in the context.
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the problem also exists on the opposite end. when there is a real way to give the chain to the people, the people often do not show up to vote (or even set a representative to vote for them!)
overall i think it will not hurt ethereum (simply because its marketcap is 5-10x most other cyptos)...people will go back and put their money back into it either way, though the demographic to put said money back in will vary based on the decision to be made. I always prefer the community has a voice, but man it doesn't look like ethereum has any way to deal with that.
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