Crypto Cities
vitalik.ca
vitalik.ca
> Certificates, for example cryptographic proofs that some particular individual is a resident of the city, could be done on-chain for added verifiability and security (eg. if such certificates are issued on-chain, it would become obvious if a large number of false certificates are issued). This can be used by all kinds of local-government-issued certificates.
He does point out latter how does could probably not be decentralised 100% due to legal requirements.
We already have a working solution for this problem in the PKI World - Cert Transparency. It works, is somewhat decentralised and has worked really well. Doesn’t need a blockchain.
> Certificate Transparency brings accountability to the web PKI using a technology called a <del>blockchain an append-only public ledger, </del> an ordered list.
Crypto is really good at co-opting existing terms (crypto, Web3 for eg) and we shouldn’t let it go the other way as well, calling an ordered list a blockchain.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-certificate-transpar...
Like... why _not_ dump Merkle roots on-chain?
As an example, you’re open to Sybil attacks, and ongoing costs of mining. You need to understand the economics behind the chain you chose to make sure it doesn’t die, and hand off the key management to land owners.
When we have a simpler solution that doesn’t burn the planet, and is easily understood by everyone - as engineers it is our responsibility to have a really compelling reason to ignore it. I don’t see it here.
This is a weak argument. Many things shouldn't be written in python, because it would the wrong tool for the job. Networking libraries that require bare metal performance, high assurance systems that are easier to write in strongly typed languages.
Block chains solve untrusted writing in the presence of byzantine faults. Not all applications require this. Most don't.
> Like... why _not_ dump Merkle roots on-chain?
Because the data isn't merkelized?
-Centralized city/county tokenizes all parcels of land, grants them to current owners
-I can prove I own it via a signed transaction, and anyone can trustlessly verify I own it
-When I sell it, I can trustlessly transfer it to the recipient for an agreed upon price via smart contract
Boom, no more closing fees. Eliminate the scammy title insurance industry. No broker fees... etc etc. Can someone ship this before I waste five figures paying parasites next month?
EDIT: Thoughts on flow.
-Seller owns token 123 in address A, which yourCity.gov shows is the following plat.
-Buyer approaches seller, provides address B. Seller provides address, buyer can verify that token matches plat via yourCity.gov
-Buyer and Seller agree on offer, Buyer provides address which reveals requisite funds.
-Seller generates a simple smart contract, _including the buyers address_. Code is essentially "upon receipt of 150 ETH from address B, this address will transfer token 123 to B".
The buyer can then pay or not, knowing that if he pays X he will receive Y (and thus, legal ownership enforced by the state). The seller can take down/invalidate the contract at any time before it executes. The seller could also put another contract up to another buyer, and if buyer #2 pays before buyer #1 they get the token (and any broadcasts from buyer 1 fail because the token is gone).
Seems pretty transparent to me.
It seems that issue being fixed is lack of proper land registry.
The security model doesn’t change - this party could sign away your land ownership already. You don’t need to trust an arbitrary blockchain, or mining economics or get all land owners to buy multisig hardware wallets.
To be honest, the idea of the United States collapsing into a collection of Crypto City-States doesn't sound too bad. Better than a Mad Max scenario.
In it, the heroes form their own society away from an (in their eyes) overreaching government, built on free exchange. In it they have a special bank vault that can never be looted, keeping their wealth safe, even in the event of the community being invaded. If it is forced open, the contents are destroyed. This is what Bitcoin (and crypto) can be to these people.
The very earliest Zionists (Chaim Weizmann[2]) didn't wanted to build a Jewish state, they wanted an ideal/Utopian society with the elite people speaking perfect German. They acquired the charter from the British and were very picky about whom they allowed to immigrate. I.e. they planned to hand pick only up to tens of thousands candidates per year. Eventually they were pushed away by more pragmatic non-colonialist Zionists, who wanted to build (or restore/revive[3]) a normal Jewish nation-state, not the Utopian society.
Something similar but on much larger scale happened in Rhodesia[4] (modern Zimbabwe).
There are probably other examples of picky charter states that I missed.
I remember years ago there were plans to found Crypto states in Central America / Caribbean region (Nicaragua, Puerto Rico). It's relatively easy to bribe the politicians there and get some of the country regions as a concession/charter/"Free Economic Zone".
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation
[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chaim-Weizmann
[3] there were plans to build a new Jewish states in Uganda or Madagascar, but the only place to restore/revive Jewish statehood was in the Land of Israel/Palestina.
It would be more accurate to describe the unit of organization that it empowers as a "gang". ...an "organized semi-anonymous gang".
...and this is why it's very apt at developing organized crime.
Now, to a certain degree, a "gang" that is scalable enough, profitable enough, and efficient enough - could indeed carve out a geographical territory. ...and from there, it's not that different from a city-state or nation.
...but that level of scalability does not yet exist.
You could conceivably program into a massively scalable chain, things like a court system, a legislative system, a tax system, a land records system, etc... but we are very very far away from that.
It's like predicting cyborgs because I can strap my phone to my arm while running. None of that level of scalability nor integration exists or is even theoretically solved.
...but there is one thing I will say. Some generation in the future might look back at our problems with "democracy" and the issues we have with one-man-one-vote, and laugh because the notion of humans having equal votes is a long gone memory. The crypto-hierarchy won't care about anything other than your "stake".
The CityDAO example Vitalik gives uses a one person/one vote system.
Crypto’s not inherently about replacing democracy. A lot of it is about experimenting with varied rule systems that our existing democracies are otherwise incapable of changing. Like shaping our rules for the commons more explicitly in order to nudge things in a better direction. The article points out the misaligned incentives between land owners, residents, and the city collective: land owners want to restrict supply to make their land more valuable, but this restricts growth of the city. For many, crypto is the biggest hope not for building some anarcho utopia, but just for experimenting with tweaks that might better align the incentives for everyone within a city. e.g. put all the land in a city inside a trust and replace land ownership with a share of that trust: now land owners don’t want to increase their tiny plot by restricting supply: they want to increase the whole pie, which can better be done by investing instead of speculating.
It’s hard to believe our cities today have all found their perfect form. Crypto gives you the tools to more rapidly diversify these systems, in the hope of finding better forms, faster.
If you're interested you might want to check out projects like Aragon (https://aragon.org/) to get a glimpse of how this type of thing could work.
I imagine far in the future you'd be a member of one or more DAOs governed by some sort of smart-contract based system. These groups could use tools like Aragon or w/e to vote, hold court, etc.
Not saying the reasons don't exist but I just don't get it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
"aims to encourage spending within a local community"
You may lose on the exchange processes vs “the global currency”, but your community may not care since aiming to trade locally.
PS : in constant inflationary economies (read Argentina, i think 600% in 10y), crypto is mainstream now for regular Joe's. Stable coins are all the rage to fight inflation.
'Regular Joes' call them dollars, they exist as pieces of paper you can hold in your hand. They don't need to play silly games with crypto scammers.
Also, they don't necessarily need to be centralized. The currency could be run via a DAO and changes to the currency could be voted on.
Now they want to run crypto cities...gotta walk before you can run.
How about fixing crypto kitties first?
People have to pay such high fees that they are considering if it's even worth to have their kitties fuck with other kitties.
But well, subprimes and CDS still exist, and the EU re-allowed using Meat and bone meal to feed castle 20 years after the mad cow disease, so I guess it's just that humans are just very bad at learning from our mistakes.
[1] https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/the-dao-hack-makerdao#sec...
https://gnosis-safe.io/ https://www.metacartel.org/ https://compound.finance/governance https://daohaus.club/ https://snapshot.org/#/gitcoindao.eth
We are very good at learning from our mistakes.
In 2021, losing tens of millions in crypto assets because of a bug or a hack is considered normal an bothers no-one: in the last 3 months only, a billion dollar was lost or stolen (Poly network, Compound, Cream finance and smaller others), but “this is fine”.
Disclaimer: I have shares in the company and I was a co-founder long time ago.
I would have appreciated a comment and/or a reason for the downvote.
1) I was involved, I am no longer involved, despite, as mentioned, I still have a vested interest in the company.
2) We had an opportunity to do an ICO in 2017/2018, and we didn't, because we've been sick of the crypto bullshit long before most others have been, and because we wanted to build a serious business, not a scam.
3) It's actually a clever way to use the Blockchain for something useful (transactions as public proof, and tokens as unique identifiers that hold property of a trust, all perfectly compatible with the existing legal structure).
I think it's unfair to quickly downvote someone just because of a general sentiment. I was trying to contribute to the conversation, and I also had a disclaimer of my involvement with the company I was citing.
Anyway. I'll just keep disagreeing with the few that decided to downvote me.