Comment by avnigo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by avnigo | Hacker News Reader

I found it interesting reading the blog post, but delving into the report, some areas didn't seem as straightforward.

I expect to get some flak for saying this, and I don't mean to be cynical, but it's interesting how the table on p. 9 of the report lists Solana with a relatively high Nakamoto coefficient (19 to Bitcoin's 4), given the recent events with Solana [0].

From p. 1 of the report, emphasis my own:

> Trail of Bits also operates a center of excellence for blockchain security. Notable projects include audits of Algorand, Bitcoin SV, Chainlink, Compound, Cosmos, Ethereum 2.0, MakerDAO, Matic, Polkadot, Solana, Uniswap, Web3, and Zcash.

Some of those notable projects are fervently anti-bitcoin, so while some criticisms and concerns may appear to be valid at a first glance, I don't think it can be said to be without bias.

[0]: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/06/19/solana-defi-platfor...

Trail of Bits has no pro- or anti- position when it comes to various cryptocurrency projects. Moreover, this research was entirely funded by DARPA, and was not assisted by any project. Finally, the results only address decentralization, and not the myriad other ways in which these schemes can be economically, politically, or cryptographically unsound.

FD: My employer.

> FD: My employer.

Oh, that's interesting.

Did you write this blog post too?

You've been pretty anti-crypto in previous comments here.

> Did you write this blog post too?

No. I also did not work on the research in the post.

My positions on cryptocurrencies don't necessarily reflect my employer's opinions. I don't work on cryptocurrencies, have no professional or hobbyist interest in them, and have neither direct nor derived financial positions in/against them.

How come the paper doesn't provide similar disclosures for the list of preparers?

That was Solend, not Solana. The concern was just that a liquidation of that scale would significantly move the market.

There are very good reasons to be fervently anti-BTC given its history since 2017.

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