Imagine people having the deed to their house on the blockchain and then a scammer transferring ownership through a scam. Imagine a real estate agent writing into the smart contract of your house purchase that they get to also take a percentage of when you sell the house later even if they’re not otherwise involved in that sale. The possibilities are endless! Of course you can avoid these things if you’re technically-knowledgeable and can understand the underlying code, but most people aren’t. Heck, even technically-inclined people have some degree of blind trust. Do you read the source code of all the open source software you run?
Thinking these would only be blockchain issues is naive or dishonest. People sign weird contracts all the time (have you ever read a EULA that you’ve agreed to? Those things are wild), people are falling for nigerian prince schemes RIGHT NOW in the year of our lord 2023, and modern day identity theft is stealing homes without the blockchain. Having an immutable ledger would help rewind things when they go wrong if anything.
People sign weird contracts but those contracts are written in a human language. What do you think is more likely? The average person being able to read a contract in their native language or the average person being able to read a contract written in whatever the scripting language is provided by some random smart contracts system?
Yes, people do fall for scams all the time, which was my point. With our existing systems, there are at least ways to undo those transactions. With blockchain you’re out of luck, unless they build in mechanisms to reverse transactions, but then you have the problem of figuring out what transactions are allowed to be reversed and who can reverse them and eventually you end up with a trust-based system.
Imagine people having the deed to their house on the blockchain and then a scammer transferring ownership through a scam. Imagine a real estate agent writing into the smart contract of your house purchase that they get to also take a percentage of when you sell the house later even if they’re not otherwise involved in that sale. The possibilities are endless! Of course you can avoid these things if you’re technically-knowledgeable and can understand the underlying code, but most people aren’t. Heck, even technically-inclined people have some degree of blind trust. Do you read the source code of all the open source software you run?
Thinking these would only be blockchain issues is naive or dishonest. People sign weird contracts all the time (have you ever read a EULA that you’ve agreed to? Those things are wild), people are falling for nigerian prince schemes RIGHT NOW in the year of our lord 2023, and modern day identity theft is stealing homes without the blockchain. Having an immutable ledger would help rewind things when they go wrong if anything.
People sign weird contracts but those contracts are written in a human language. What do you think is more likely? The average person being able to read a contract in their native language or the average person being able to read a contract written in whatever the scripting language is provided by some random smart contracts system?
Yes, people do fall for scams all the time, which was my point. With our existing systems, there are at least ways to undo those transactions. With blockchain you’re out of luck, unless they build in mechanisms to reverse transactions, but then you have the problem of figuring out what transactions are allowed to be reversed and who can reverse them and eventually you end up with a trust-based system.