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0 pointsatweiden4y ago0 comments

> Usually the "Dole" case is the most famous example, where you have a publicly traded company with all the benefits of corporate record keeping, stock trusts and banks, and centralized stock exchanges, but when the buyer went to take it private low and behold the public company with all the centralized safe guards in the world should have had a total capitalization of 36M shared but somehow had about 49M share issued, it only ended up in $150M in damages, but this could not have happened using blockchain and most agree nearly every publicly traded company likely would have the same inconsistencies.

This sounds like a technology problem for which a public blockchain is but one possible solution. Surely other append-only log data structures exist which could step in to fill this void.

AFAICT the main issue with crypto equities — and all other similar constructs — is what happens when a court of law overrides them. If a court says your ex owns half of the shares in $WALLET, but the blockchain doesn’t, and $COMPANY which issued the shares is also subject to the whims of the court, then what are we to do about this?

OTOH maybe this rabbit hole really just never ends until courts are also somehow replaced by a public blockchain, likely at the behest of the very biased investors who stand to disproportionately profit from this game.

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throwaway_isms4y ago

>This sounds like a technology problem for which a public blockchain is but one possible solution.

I don't disagree, and "blockchain" as used sort of is misleading because at this point their are many solutions within the blockchain technologies and it is still rapidly evolving.

>If a court says your ex owns half of the shares in $WALLET, but the blockchain doesn’t, and $COMPANY which issued the shares is also subject to the whims of the court, then what are we to do about this?

You could hold a non-complying party in jail/contempt of court for one, this happens with real world assets that do not get turned over now.

But again there are implementation of blockchain solutions, where say the Company that issued shares did so on a smart contract and with a Court order they could burn half the tokens/stock in the wallet mint that same number and transfer them to the wife per the Court order.

atweidenOP4y ago

> You could hold a non-complying party in jail/contempt of court for one, this happens with real world assets that do not get turned over now.

This doesn’t appear to resolve the issue of the blockchain reflecting a different reality than that decided by a court.

> But again there are implementation of blockchain solutions, where say the Company that issued shares did so on a smart contract and with a Court order they could burn half the tokens/stock in the wallet mint that same number and transfer them to the wife per the Court order.

How would this hypothetical court order be verified without the involvement of trusted third parties? Presumably judges in many places could be bribed or coerced into rubber stamping such an order.

This seems ripe for abuse.

throwaway_isms4y ago

>This seems ripe for abuse.

You proposed the hypothetical starting with the Court. If you want blockchain to preempt any court involvement your hypothetical needs to start at that point.

I think it is possible through the prisoners dilemma. Have husband and wife have a joint wallet from the beginning governed by smart contract with agreed upon prenuptial terms. Marital assets could go in and then upon divorce they be equally split, the husband and wife could be required signatures, but if only 1 signs the funds/assets are locked until both sign. Maybe in rare instance you get one partner willing to lockup the funds and sacrifice their own finances, but that the entire point of blockchain/miners and the prisoner's dilemma.

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0 pointsatweiden4y ago0 comments

This sounds like a technology problem for which a public blockchain is but one possible solution. Surely other append-only log data structures exist which could step in to fill this void.

0 comments

throwaway_isms4y ago

>This sounds like a technology problem for which a public blockchain is but one possible solution.

I don't disagree, and "blockchain" as used sort of is misleading because at this point their are many solutions within the blockchain technologies and it is still rapidly evolving.

You could hold a non-complying party in jail/contempt of court for one, this happens with real world assets that do not get turned over now.

atweidenOP4y ago

> You could hold a non-complying party in jail/contempt of court for one, this happens with real world assets that do not get turned over now.

This doesn’t appear to resolve the issue of the blockchain reflecting a different reality than that decided by a court.

How would this hypothetical court order be verified without the involvement of trusted third parties? Presumably judges in many places could be bribed or coerced into rubber stamping such an order.

This seems ripe for abuse.

throwaway_isms4y ago

>This seems ripe for abuse.

You proposed the hypothetical starting with the Court. If you want blockchain to preempt any court involvement your hypothetical needs to start at that point.

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