YouSaid · the spoken record

Vlad Zamfir

lines on the record: 39
first: 2021-07-15
most recent: 2021-07-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“From liability, they should be making these decisions. These decisions are crazy for the developers to be making. It's not appropriate to put a software developer in this kind of legal position. And so I think there's a need for kind of reimagination of the nature of these institutions in order for us to have the kinds of skills and capacity to deal with these governance and law issues that just don't exist in technical disciplinary training.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's more or less right. I have life on myself having a slight reservation around the idea that law is an idea, but other than that, I think that's right. And I think, though, it's more like having kind of an ecosystem where the tech people are doing tech governance and you have people with legal disciplinary skills doing these types of more dealing with the legal questions as opposed to trying to have a kind of passing off of this institution as just technology. And so I think that the big thing really is going to be more diverse governance or like a more multidisciplinary approach as opposed to kind of a tech-centric approach that we kind of have now. And so it's not so much about developers really being more realistic about law. I mean, developers don't want anything to do with law. Like they should be isolated.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, the core developers, and which is some way very independent and has been for a very long time of italics influence on a day-to-day basis. So Vitalik is actually really more of like a researcher and like a pioneer future direction as opposed to providing any basis for day-to-day dispute management.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's a blessing and a curse. I mean, sometimes basically sometimes people expect Vitalik to make calls when he doesn't really necessarily want to. Sometimes it's really, really, really useful to have, you know, Vitalik be kind of like this mediator of the different political kind of currents in Ethereum. Basically, it also can lead to a kind of suspension of judgment where basically people think that like, oh, like, you know, if Vitalik approves of this, it must be great, you know, and so it's definitely like cuts both ways. But I would say also Vitalik is kind of like much more benevolent dictator for Ethereum 2 than Ethereum-like 1.0 where like we still have kind of like the alt devs call and the EIPs and we have like this kind of process of”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of, but it also lends itself to becoming like an obsolete or like a relic or like a kind of quaint vintage item or something. It kind of no offense. I don't know. I don't want to say it. I guess let me say that it's not the smartest strategy, I think, in the long run because it's kind of like maximum commitment now, like committing to the position, like never change it. Like it's kind of like it gives up on their ability to maneuver. Who knows what will happen in the future? And it's kind of like painting yourself in a corner. You may like that corner for now, but you might find that one day you have a need to move around. And I don't think it's particularly tactical. I don't think it's particularly smart just from also the point of view of the political agenda of Bitcoin, which is also, which does involve. Having some measure of”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really happen in Bitcoin. In Bitcoin, they're kind of just like 21 million bitcoins. And if you don't agree, get out. And if you don't like one megabyte blocks, like get out. And they have this kind of toxicity, which is kind of like, I like to describe it as a channel authentication strategy, where basically it makes it so that if you don't, if you're not one of them, like you can't really tolerate to be there. And so you kind of just by virtue of being in those channels, like you're kind of authenticated and it makes it a safe space for them. And I think it also helps them reinforce this immutability norm like earlier Joe mentioned, like, oh, it would be very hard to change Bitcoin. And the reason is because you have all these toxic Bitcoiners who will basically be horrible to you if you suggest that we don't need to do this immutability thing. And not that it's like hard to change the software. It's just hard to get through the Bitcoiners who have this kind of pseudo-cult.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Bitcoin has a relatively defined culture, whereas Ethereum's culture is still kind of like a morphous and people have different sustained, very different politics and views within Ethereum. So Ethereum kind of is much more diverse and in some way less toxic than Bitcoin because incentive to get everyone out who doesn't toe the party line isn't really like there as much in Ethereum. And so what happens is basically Ethereum is like supports much more diversity. And Ethereum by virtue of like being more amorphous about being about kind of everything instead of just being about money, it kind of has, you know, a support for much more efficiency. But that also means that there are struggles and factions and people is Ethereum in a way that like does.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the contention is there, like people are ready to fight over these issues and to kind of see what happens. Although we are still in a position where we could easily see some really bad outcomes win. Like, for example, the unstoppable software, the global cyber state or the feudalists just controlling everything. There's a lot of bad outcomes that are kind of in the cake today that could easily get baked, you know, into our reality, but it's not It's still not set in stone yet. It's not clear these outcomes will happen. I'm optimistic that we can find better outcomes than any of these kind of like established ones.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a lot of basic norms around how we have disputes that aren't really settled in a way that's secure or sustainable. There's a lot of reasons why we can't and we shouldn't and they would be like a very bad idea for us to try to like do everything with crypto systems. That said, it's not clear what the technical, legal, economic, et cetera limits are. And so that's something that's like kind of also subject to this ongoing kind of discovery negotiation and so on it's hard to imagine how that would look safe. It's easier to imagine like why people would do it despite it not being safe. And so I'm concerned because like, you know, of the lack of basic infrastructure that's required for this to be safe. However, the opportunity is there, the stakes are there.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's a number of technical, legal, economic, you know, there's lots of barriers. And there's just because we have new primitive forms in this direction and way more possibilities than before doesn't mean that we're there yet. I mean, like privacy in cryptocurrency is very bad.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With this decentralized computer, you know, kind of like, you know, like these servers that are like, you know, no longer own the cyberspace, we can maybe create and have a new balance of powers, more balance of powers, you know, more rule of law as opposed to just, you know, having the feudal lords or like the legislatures or the states kind of like act lawless and like lord over everyone as if like, you know, they own the law.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where our feudal lords who own the big computers like own us and I'm like not exaggerating by lot. And so I think there's like a state of crisis in cyberspace that crypto helps to respond to, you know, as much as also there's like a state of crisis in like global governance and global law and like blockchain crypto kind of like sits in that space and can help us provide new realities, new paradigms, new places where we can try again and like hopefully not fail this time to have like you know good governance and to have like you know institutions that are part of a kind of society that we want to live in so i think i think it's like you know very much like very much political and very much in reaction to some of the prevailing political realities today where basically like you know power is concentrated and and in a way where perhaps”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm really excited about this opportunity that we have both because of the improvement in the technology, but also because of this crazy legal trick and this crazy legal reality that like crypto existent, I think the thing that's most exciting to me is this multidisciplinary mix of like this crazy kind of institution which sometimes passes itself off as tech, but is really a very interesting dynamic, multifaceted, like ontologically very complex type of institution. And I think that these, although primitive today stand to become complex, dynamic, very interesting institutions that get to do a lot for us that like currently we don't have in cyberspace. Because in cyberspace today, we have basically a situation where we have a kind of a neo-feudalism.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And I think people need to be much more secure in their ability to handle conflicts in crypto. Today, they have these kind of aggressive postures because they don't believe that they can handle these disputes. They think that if you delete some coins from some ransomware attack, then that opens the floodgates to the government leading your coins because you didn't pay taxes or whatever. You could imagine people have fears about all the things that could happen if we started to do anything. And people like don't have the security to say, look, we can judge these things. And we don't need to say, look, we don't need to like delegate to like a system that decides and therefore be captured by the system. We can have like the legal security and like the responsibility for our legal judgment in order to have our cake and eat it too to like not allow unchecked state.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Necessarily want to give people ideas, but I will say that whatever you have anything in the law that isn't subject to dispute, you could imagine it being part of some Rube Goldberg machine that does some kind of very unlawful thing in the end. So you could imagine that each of these indisputable components can together come together to make things possible, like the sharp increase in ransomware and like, you know, for one example that's kind of like everyone knows about and won't give anyone ideas for me to talk about. Like ransomware is a good example of something where it just makes the business of ransom so much easier to use cryptocurrency. And so, you know, that is like some quite obvious, unlawful, bad, so many different levels of conduct that is basically being facilitated here and that we currently don't have the means to really stop or let me rephrase.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How will blockchains affect and influence the way we organize society are deep and uncertain? And there is an extent to which the technology really is. Better than traditional consensus protocols. And so there was a way where, okay, we know it'll help us in some computer systems in a rather clear way. But in terms of the promise of social revolution or like a social change in the order or like a social, like, you know, like new way, like escape or things like this, like those are all deeply, not deterministic, and like very unclear. Like it could just be that this inspires the worst kind of global totalitarianism in a crackdown as much as it could be that we're able to like use it responsibly in a way where we can, you know, justify the maintenance of our freedoms in the law.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like smart contracts are like a new paradigm and contract law, really, although they may be a way to, let's say, execute some terms of a contract in some cases. For the most part, smart contracts are not legal contracts and it's kind of a misnomer that's been both tactical and extremely effective, but also is leads to this kind of idea that these are contracts when they're not really. And I think that the question of how do blockchains and cryptocurrency let us organize, how they impact the way that we organize isn't going to be like necessarily a contract law reality as much as it's going to be something like in terms of the new spaces and the new intersections of different cultures and economies and stuff that are going to be facilitated in these spaces. But the question of what like”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, that's an excellent question that I don't think has a super simple answer, other than we need to reckon with the fact that we have this kind of space now that we need to govern and to understand how we have conflict over and around. The kind of first thing to note, though, that I have to mention is like, okay, well, smart contracts aren't actually contracts, like legal contracts exist in the law. Like smart contracts are in the Ethereum virtual machine. If in contract law terms, like smart contracts are more about execution than actually contracting and so like, you know, they're not really contracts. They're more like something you might use when you're trying to avoid getting into a contract. And then you might accidentally get into a contract in some cases. But in terms of contract law, like, I mean, you can't expect too much change. I mean, contract law is like, you know, like extremely robust and like, you know, we've been through a lot in contract law and it's not like, you know.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People with bright legal minds to kind of try to front run all these situations and figure out how we can prevent some of these very bad outcomes.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do and allow all of the worst behavior. Like, you know, if you want to have your cake and eat it too, you know, you basically need to be secure about your ability to manage these conflicts and to say you have a right to have your sanctions and we have the right to have our sanctions. And like, you know, we are not even like a single body politic. And so we're not going to necessarily have like official here is like, you know, like Ethereum, like the sanctions that like Ethereum will respect or anything like that. through the course of disputes and through the course of the various like events that are going to happen in crypto you know these things are going to change basically and and you know it's up to kind of like”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Future, we're going to have like basically, you know, let's say You know, mediums are having these disputes, it's not going to be like, you know, we just accept state authority to like tell us what to do, because that's not the ethos at all. But where we don't want to.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But more generally because of these protocols need to be used everywhere, or not everywhere, but if they were to say mandate a change to the Ethereum protocol in order to let them shut down Uniswap, that would become Ethereum USA or something. And it wouldn't be the same, right? So you need to kind of like there needs to be like a different level of kind of legitimacy and coordination and opt-in on a global basis for a dispute brought by, you know, someone to lead to this change. And so there's kind of like this sort of like nebulous culture that is going to judge the legitimacy of this legal order and then say whether like, you know, like budge for it. And in some way, immutability already says no, like very much like no to all of it. And so because that's the status quo today, it's quite hard to imagine. However, you know, in this”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I mean, that's a challenging question. And basically, the easy thing to say is okay, well, you know, they get to, I mean, they still have like all of their local and also international legal means and they still have the ability to issue sanctions and to say like, oh no, like that's criminal. Like, oh no, like, you know, don't send money to this address because like, you know, or like don't buy like this token because like, and you're just like supporting terrorists. Like, you know, they have this authority to do these things. And those will be, and there will be like real legal consequences for people who find themselves in the, you know, in like, let's say, like the scope of U.S. law, which is vast. And so it's not like they don't have means of regulating many persons that are in the law who would be maybe using the systems. And so I don't want to minimize that because there's a lot there. But I also want to say that because of yes immutability,”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So then they get themselves crazy thinking, I can escape, you know, like the law, but that's not reality. Like, I mean, you know, the reality is that it doesn't matter where you go. Like you bring the law with you and other people will bring the law to you. So I think it just forces us to re-evaluate as opposed to letting us escape. And that kind of like new situation where we have like where we have to deal with our conflict in a new way is super interesting. Although unfortunately today is dominated by this immutability norm, which basically is kind of having people pretend like, oh, they can't interfere with the software, like the software is just fully autonomous, which I think is crazy talk because nothing is above the law, like nothing isn't subject to dispute. I mean, like there's no way in which software will ever be above the law. And so it's only a matter of time before mutability becomes kind of like sidelined and minimized. And we have to find another way to be secure in our conflicts around blockchain.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a tremendously interesting. However, as you say, the idea of escaping law is fallacious and dangerous and facilitates a lot of bad stuff. And certainly I don't advocate legal escapism. I would love to fight it in particular in the context of crypto because people have this idea that just because it's not in this jurisdiction of a state that there's no law. And that's just incredibly untrue unlike a deep, deep analytical basis and a deep, deep analytical way where like it's impossible to escape the law. That's not a thing. And so it just like, it's just that like the particular state enforced rules legal form that people are lazily expect to like always work, you know. But even though it obviously doesn't always doesn't work. And so then they and since.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A tremendous opportunity, but I don't think of it as a scaping law. I think of it as discovering law, actually, and discovering and being kind of like, you know, secure in our conflicts without having this state that can like enforce rules so that we can mediate our experience of law through the state. Because no one wants to create a global crypto law state that will enforce the rules on crypto. There's a push against that kind of like global state in the law. And just in like, you know, just like basic common sense of how is this going to be abused and corrupted. But thankfully, we have a tremendous legal history in the world and we have like tremendous amount of legal culture. And it doesn't just boil down to state rules. And so we have an opportunity to have important legal disputes in a way that is in some way not according to the normal status quo.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so let me say that, okay, I think, let me answer in reverse order. So I don't think the escape is realistic or desirable. But I think what is something we have to face is the fact that we don't have a national or state authority that can call the shots. And so what that means is that we need to develop legal ability, legal security, without having the ability to rely on state enforced rules. And so what that means is, you know, the nature of law today, as we understand it needs to kind of like, or let me take a step back. Like the most powerful legal forms today aren't equipped to deal with this particular conflict. And so it creates a tremendous opportunity to for us to find ways to manage our conflicts in a scope where that doesn't easily lend itself to the existing most powerful legal forms. And so that is a”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The legal non determinism, like a legal uncertainty, that it makes it difficult to see, you know, like how is Uniswap going to be regulated in the US, for example, or like lots of other questions, where there's no legal opinion in the world that is right and it's like a matter of real legal non-determinism. And so I think that creates a tremendous opportunity because it's like politically uncontested territory or politically not uncontested but politically contested is what I mean territory. And so it's a kind of whole place for like, you know, not just people who want to escape finance, but also people who want to like maintain the safety of their financial systems, but also not just in finance, but, you know, because ultimately with Ethereum and blockchain, not Bitcoin, we kind of go away beyond just finance.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the power that's created by having somewhere that's outside of the jurisdiction of your state authority, which today for the most part is charged with maintaining legal order. And so it's basically in some way you just aren't subject to the same disputes from the same parties that you like normally would. So like, you know, normally if you were to try to start an unregistered securities exchange, they can really just like, you know, tell you like, no, you have to stop. And then whereas in crypto, like DeFi today, it's like not so simple, basically, because it's not clear exactly how that plays out. In the terms of the life span and that conflict. And then if it doesn't play out right, you can actually create a bigger problem through trying to shut it down. And so there's kind of like...”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so today the dominant conflict model is like this immutability thing that we kind of just talked about, but it's certainly not really like sustainable or defensible or like analytically like you can kind of just tell not just from history, but like from like the institutional arrangements that like, okay, it's like it's obviously not actually immutable. Like nothing is like really like actually immutable. That's not like a real thing for tech objects. You know, there's like always governance. And so like what this basically means that like the model for conflict for this new space is basically like undetermined and determined. Basically there's no way that like anyone can say by like decree like what it's going to be because basically no one has that legal competence or authority and and it's kind of like it kind of is forcing us to reckon with the fact that law doesn't just exist inside national borders and that like you know we have to deal with the way we have disputes over software that doesn't exist and can't just be”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the cryptocurrency space, that we can talk about the history of a little more, but all this is to say, look, I don't think that it's immutability as much as this question of this new type of space that we have, you know, because you can't shut down a server or regulate a server in order to regulate the cyberspace in the way that is kind of expected in the cyberspace today. And so I think it creates new political and legal ground for dispute. And Satoshi and Co kind of tried to front run this by saying it's immutable and like we decided that this is the protocol forever. But like that is kind of bullshit. But that doesn't mean that blockchain's not useful. It's quite, you know, quite the opposite.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Space, I don't think it is going to be limited by immutability, and I think that's going to actually unlock a lot of value in blockchain to kind of for us to get over this idea that it's useful because it's immutable and that it's trusted because it's immutable. I mean, it's like saying, oh, you can trust me. I put myself in a straitjacket. Like that's something someone who's not very trustworthy would say, you know, that's someone who's kind of like maybe up to something else would say. And in my opinion, basically one way to say it is that the norm of not disputing the software was associated tightly with the software so tightly that you don't even learn about blockchain without learning about this immutability thing. And that has created this amazing international legal order that is basically extremely deviant. Not allowed to be changed. And like it doesn't matter who wants it or like what is happening. Like, you know, it's a really kind of radical founding fallacy or founding trick or like founding disinformation.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Guy who owns this one server is kind of like cyberspace that's in a different kind of space that's like maybe more shared than is possible in like today's like software as a service kind of model and so it's this and then and the ways in which we can fight over and the ways we're going to have disputes over the governance of this”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, well, there's a lot to unpack there, but these are topics that are very near and dear to my heart. And I would say, firstly, that, okay, I think the true revolutionary potential of blockchain isn't because of the immutability thing. I don't think it's like, I don't think the immutability thing is really anything more than misinformation or disinformation about the nature of blockchain in order to kind of manage the way that we have conflict about blockchain tech. And so it's like a tactical misinformation that happened from the start in order to protect the blockchain from like what we're seeing as like political legal adversaries that are too strong for us to have like an independent like legal way to manage disputes like the instead we kind of have this regime where basically like we're supposed to not argue about or supposed to not really change the protocol and I think like the the real kind of like potential doesn't come really from the immutability as much as from the fact that this is a new kind of cyberspace that like isn't owned by like the”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean certainly to some extent, but I think what they really think is they think that they've thought this through and they see how it'll play out and that they're going to win this and that like, you know, the time is right for this revolution and like they can do this without New York's approval and like they're just going to win. But basically like they have this like view actually like a different view of like the legal reality there. Like they don't I think they're like ready to call New York's Bluff and to say like, hey, like, you know, you can't tell us what to do on the blockchain. Like, this is not New York, you know, but then, of course, you know, you're going to interact with the smart contract and then like get into like a legal relationship with someone in New York and then be sued and then you like going through the United States one day and like, you know, there's obviously ways in which, you know, this is going to come to a head and where people are going to get in trouble legally because of this stuff. And not only is it a place for conflict, it's like a place where it's guaranteed that there's going to be conflict. There's no way to get around that just because of the basic.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because, like, of the kind of poor representation that Ethereum gets in the media. But, like, if you kind of are in the scene, like you feel very much like Ethereum is not Bitcoin. And I think the kind of it not being Bitcoin and it posturing in a way that's a much more general amorphous, you know, you can project your own fantasies onto it. It's not like the future of money in the same kind of clear defined kind of way that Bitcoin tries to be. And so I think it has a niche in crypto currency and blockchain. And it kind of like created and changed the way that people even think about the space from just thinking about these kind of money and finance narratives actually to get much broader than that, which in some way lets it actually provide a safe space for some of the financial activity. But that's also very questionable in terms of like how safe is it really to, you know.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and in some way, you could say that it is. But I would say like this basically, Ethereum is very much not Bitcoin. And it was like set up in some way to fill some of the gaps, both politically and technically that Bitcoin left open. And so Ethereum very much contrasts itself to Bitcoin politically, legally, and also has this kind of programmable layer where you can build a lot of applications that are basically like not possible in Bitcoin. And those include things like famously all the SteFi stuff that were intro the conversation with that is in some way financial wizard dream today. And so there's like, in some way, like there is interesting financial stuff that happens on Ethereum and Ethereum in the way it's like postured and positioned. It's not like the future of money and the way Bitcoin is hard to understand how much not Bitcoin Ethereum is.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, I was excited for the future of money at the time. And I was really a Bitcoiner through and through in that way. And then I got interested in Ethereum when I kind of realized that this blockchain, not Bitcoin kind of story where I had the technology is useful way outside the scope of Bitcoin. And it's something where we could potentially use this to decentralize all sorts of things in order to disintermediate into like a kind of, you know, do things without going through gatekeepers, you know, way outside of just money and finance. And I was interested in like decentralizing academia or like peer review through content curation and things like this, which are kind of like still in some way very much part of Ethereum.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I got into Bitcoin during the 2013 Cyprus bail-in sort of financial crisis during. It was like one of those EU crises where the government there decided to seize money from people's bank accounts in order to pay back debt to the EU. And then Bitcoin kind of saw a lot of headlines then because people were using it in order to evade this capture. And so for me, I got into Bitcoin as kind of like revolutionary financial technology that would like help save people from capital controls, inflation and like, you know, this kind of like, you know, that like the global financial system has been co-opted by the law everywhere, Bitcoin provided a kind of escape. And so I was into Bitcoin for this kind of escapist cypher pung kind of like a radical, like we can escape the central banking system kind of agenda. And like that was exciting.”
2021-07-15 · Odd Lots · Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source