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Comment by mehrdadn | Hacker News Reader

> The transfer itself does not require trust. That's the value.

Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion? Which seems just like trusting that, say, your bank or the Mastercard servers will process your transaction properly? Not to mention the more mundane aspects like the fact that you still need to trust that your ISP won't cut off your access to the network, etc...

To me the value seems to be that nobody can forge a transaction based on your currency (or whatever it is you have), not the idea that you somehow don't need to trust anyone when you do transfer value.

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> Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion?

Yes, but their incentives are structured to align with yours in that scenario. You are trusting them to act in their own interest.

Isn't that the same with credit cards, wires, etc.? They make money from your transactions too.

That's true, but the degrees of freedom are different. The node processing your transaction cannot steal your money in crypto. It can only choose not to broadcast your transaction, and they are also in perfect competition with all the other nodes. Which means that if one node chooses not to process your tx, another will soon.

> That's true, but the degrees of freedom are different. The node processing your transaction cannot steal your money in crypto. It can only choose not to broadcast your transaction, and they are also in perfect competition with all the other nodes. Which means that if one node chooses not to process your tx, another will soon.

Hence we circle back to exactly what I said in the last line of my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17493508

You're right, sort of, but I don't think those two things are really distinct capabilities. You trust your bank, because your bank could theoretically forge a transaction to themselves of all of your money. Or just tell you that your balance is zero and refuse to give it to you.

I don't really follow what you're saying now or how it related to the previous discussion to be honest. But to respond to what you currently said, I trust my bank because there's a chain of trust between us via the government and its relevant laws, not because of what the bank itself is or isn't physically capable of doing.

This is the last line to which you were referring, right?

> To me the value seems to be that nobody can forge a transaction based on your currency (or whatever it is you have), not the idea that you somehow don't need to trust anyone when you do transfer value.

What I meant is that the capability that "nobody can forge a transaction" and "don't need to trust anyone" are actually the same thing. You are forced to trust your bank because your bank could forge a transaction on your behalf. You trust them not to do this. That is the nature of your trust in them. Blockchain eliminates this weakness, and it is in that sense that you do not have to trust a 3rd party.

> What I meant is that the capability that "nobody can forge a transaction" and "don't need to trust anyone" are actually the same thing. You are forced to trust your bank because your bank could forge a transaction on your behalf. You trust them not to do this. That is the nature of your trust in them. Blockchain eliminates this weakness, and it is in that sense that you do not have to trust a 3rd party.

If this is really what you're saying, then you've completely changed your argument 180 degrees to match that of me and the above commenter (which is cool!), because earlier you said the exact opposite. Specifically, when the above commenter said "you have to trust the network to maintain the value", you rebutted that that "is clearly not the point. The transfer itself does not require trust. That is the value." Now that you've concluded that the actually is trustless storage rather than in trustless transfer, yes, I think we are in agreement!

Notwithstanding the above, by the way, it simply isn't true that "I am forced to trust my bank because they could forge a transaction on my behalf". It's actually the opposite... I don't trust my bank for precisely that reason. Rather, as I stated above, the reason I nevertheless end up ultimately trusting my bank is that I trust the government will have my back if the bank decides to screw me over illegally. Again: it has nothing to do with the bank's capabilities or lack thereof, and everything to do with the legal system.

I haven't changed my position at all. The transfer does not require trust. Both the transfer and the storage do not require trust.

> I don't trust my bank for precisely that reason

Yes you do, unless you don't have a bank account. The fact that you presumably have a bank account with a non-zero balance is evidence that you trust them not to steal your money.

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