xuanling11
5 supporters
What if you regret your crypto transacti ...

What if you regret your crypto transaction

Sep 28, 2022

Defi hacking is a pandemic now. We lost $2.2B this year, which marked the worst year of the crypto losses despite the fact that we are at the bear market, in which the market capital has shrunk to $1 trillion.


https://twitter.com/nytimesbusiness/status/1575168544349847558


There are a few solutions that can prevent hacking. One of them is creating reversible transactions on Ethereum.


https://twitter.com/kaili_jenner/status/1573727505491673088


Ah, it goes back to the debate on blockchain trilemma.


If you ever noticed the old debate on blockchain trilemma, you realize these three elements control how a perfect blockchain works: security, decentralization, and scalability.


https://www.ledger.com/academy/what-is-the-blockchain-trilemma


Lacking one of the three elements will make blockchain unusable.


The idea of decentralization is providing an option to give power to people by using computer governing and to reach a fair and square consensus.


The characteristics of decentralization include:

  • transparency

  • immutability

  • accessibility

  • trustless


https://blockworks.co/measuring-decentralization-is-your-crypto-decentralized/


The reversible transactions are challenging the decentralization assumption of the blockchain, which sparks debates on sacrificing decentralization to prevent hacking losses.


Is preventing theft more critical than permissionless immutability?


Of course, the proposal is just a suggestion of one possible solution, but I shared some of my ideas about such a proposal.


Utilitarianism

If we only focus on what will work for us, that reversible transactions feature is preferable and can prevent hacking from damaging the crypto project.


Liberalism

If we focus on individual freedom rather than preventing losses, we will not trade off from the immutability feature of blockchain to a centralized governing function to reverse transactions.


Virtue Ethics

Of course, stealing is universally wrong. But what if hackers stole funds to save local people from starvation? Then such stealing may not seem so wrong after all.


But if hackers stole funds to get themselves rich and purchased luxury goods, such action would be prevented.


Moral Absolutism

But if you believe stealing is universally wrong, no matter the circumstances, reversible transactions seem an excellent idea.


Moral Nihilism

We may go extreme that moral is no matter in crypto whatsoever, then implementing reversible transactions simply changes nothing.


Theory of Justice

If you think fairness is more important than utility, implementing reversible transactions is an excellent choice to ensure the ecosystem is fair.


Majority Rule

You may also not decide but ask consensus to vote on such changes and implement them upon the majority vote agree upon.


So which one would you like to choose from?


But no matter what you choose, I think crypto is more toward to Majority Rule that consensus will decide what moves forward with decisions everyone votes.


Of course, who controls the voting power is another debate in the crypto ecosystem—this question we will discuss the next time.


Support writer here or join Medium here

Photo by lucas clarysse on Unsplash

Enjoy this post?

Buy xuanling11 a coffee

More from xuanling11