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Comment by TheAdamAndChe | Hacker News Reader

To trust a currency, you must trust the institutions that manage that currency. You have no control over it.

To trust a cryptocurrency, you must trust the algorithm that runs it. It's fully auditable and predictable.

It still takes me several business days to complete an ACH transaction in the US, and requires I trust the banking system. Transferring cryptocurrencies happen much faster and don't require the same kind of trust or centralized management.

What you see as anti-features are good reasons why they won't replace the dollar yet, but they still have a place in the market.

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The US ACH system is extremely slow and still involves nightly batch jobs.

Many other countries have systems that allow for nearly immediate person-to-person money transfer without blockchains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service This is not a good argument for cryptocurrency.

Regarding "trusting" an algorithm: in the real world you also have to trust the implementation, and the configuration, and eventually humans involved in the transaction. How often do we see some big data breach on HN? Very rarely has any cryptographic algorithm been broken, but often one of the other links in the trust chain has broken.

> Very rarely has any cryptographic algorithm been broken, but often one of the other links in the trust chain has broken.

The whole point of Ethereum is to reduce/eliminate those links in the trust chain.

>To trust a cryptocurrency, you must trust the algorithm that runs it. It's fully auditable and predictable.

What happens when Ethereum 2 inevitably hits a security bug, much like the ones Ethereum 1 hit that led to the DAO hack/theft (some might say... worked exactly as coded)?

Compare it to traditional security. If you want to steal a few dollars you just need a sharp bit of metal and an easily frightened shopkeeper.

Of course when you leave, the shopkeeper (assuming you didn't murder them) can use a phone to inform the authorities. Then a manhunt begins involving resources like police and their cars, radios, guns, protocols, legal justice system, forensic investigators etc.

Is the sharp piece of metal a bug? Is the patch just more force, monitoring and authority?

Edit: And is the cost and risk of trusting an algorithm comparable to the human cost and risk in maintaining current securities "authenticity", which is basically a might is right system?

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