This is just a dumbass user doing dumbass things. This is basic-level stuff right here. Don't interact with contracts directly unless you 100% know what you're doing.
We can even see this with the criticism of wire fraud. Wire fraud is a huge fucking mess that occasionally costs people their life savings. The entire setup is rightly criticized (heck, even by the crypto community) for having users interact with a highly error-prone system with huge consequences.
This is qualitatively different from crypto that allows you to burn your money on accident, while the people who build the infrastructure for this tell you is a smart, safe place to put your money.
But also, wiring money is a thing that laypeople almost never do. It’s nerve wracking to wire money. But the equivalent in cryptocurrency is just how it’s done. Every transaction is just a fuckup with no recourse waiting to happen.
You can dump money into a pit just as easy with the classic banking system. Where I live (EU), wiring money is the primary way of payments and money transfers. People don't use anything else.
Seems like it essentially was. He exchanged ETH for WETH in exactly the same way. Assuming that the reverse would work (as opposed to destroying the money) was not an unreasonable step. He still screwed up, but a design that allows this is user hostile and stupid.
> You can dump money into a pit just as easy with the classic banking system. Where I live (EU), wiring money…
In the US at least, you can get your money back through the legal system. Accidentally dropping your money into someone else’s account does not give them a right to it and for substantial amounts of money people can and do get their money back.
For this amount of money I’d consider pursuing legal avenues against the developers of Etherium. This design seems borderline negligent and Etherium has modified the code at least once already to force a refund.
> In the US at least, you can get your money back through the legal system. Accidentally dropping your money into someone else’s account does not give them a right to it and for substantial amounts of money people can and do get their money back.
I doubt this is true in the case of uncooperative out-of-country second party - yeah they have no right to the money, but they don't care and the legal system won't do much for you.
I still find the wire transfer comparison lacking, mostly because one shitty design does not justify another.
Of course one shitty design doesn't justify another, but the point is not justification but a reply to all the people saying "this is way worse than and would never happen with the traditional banking" that they are wrong. I agree that better UX is needed.
Regarding your point about legal action against Ethereum designers, well... That'd be like pursuing legal action against the designers of your web browser because it allows you to open phishing sites. Nonsense IMHO.
I tend to agree. Dumbasses clearly designed this system if it allows money to be accidentally destroyed. Dumbasses doing dumbass things indeed.
But if you use any of the exchanges you described, you have to trust that they 100% know what they're doing.
It seems safer to avoid smart contracts and cryptocurrencies altogether.