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I wrote two posts on Weibo about my own views on the DAO theft, which sparked a lot of debate and even overwhelming attacks. A Peking University PhD even uttered such a brainless remark as "your Ethereum". Are there so few people who can truly think about problems objectively, calmly and rationally?
Before writing this article, it seems necessary to clarify the following points:
I personally left the Ethereum at around 75, and I don’t have a single Ethereum in my hands, so I have no personal interest in defending Ethereum;
Yunbi, where I work, currently ranks only 11th in the world in terms of Ethereum trading volume, accounting for only 1.27% of the trading volume. Even in a drastic market like yesterday, Ethereum trading volume on Yunbi only accounted for 24% of the total trading volume. Under normal circumstances, it only accounts for 10% or even less. Ethereum is just one of the many blockchain assets of Yunbi.com. Even without Ethereum, Yunbi.com will grow well. Therefore, it seems unnecessary to say that I support Ethereum for the benefit of the platform.
My personal view on DAO has always been rather negative, as you can see from my previous articles on DAO, but that will not stop me from analyzing this event objectively.
Event Review
On June 17, the world's largest crowdfunding project THE DAO suffered an ETH theft. Someone took advantage of a program loophole in THE DAO and created a "sub-DAO" under THE DAO, transferring 3.5 million ethers raised by THE DAO crowdfunding into it. If this is allowed to develop without any measures, hackers will be able to withdraw these ethers to other addresses after 27 days. All users who previously participated in THE DAO crowdfunding may see their assets shrunk significantly as a result.
This is a very serious incident. The official Ethereum team proposed the following solution through an emergency security meeting:
The developer community is proposing a soft fork. There will be no rollbacks, no transactions or blocks will be revoked. The soft fork will invalidate any transactions related to The DAO and child DAO starting at block height 1760000, preventing the attacker from withdrawing the stolen ether after 27 days. There will be a hard fork after this to recover the ether.
Miners and mining pools should process transactions as usual and wait for the soft fork update. If they agree to the soft fork, they should upgrade as soon as possible after the code is released. Holders of The DAO tokens and holders of ether should remain calm. Exchanges can trade ether as usual.
The solution can be interpreted as follows:
Ethereum's blockchain itself does not have any security issues, and everyone can trade and transfer normally. The development team soft-forked the transaction records of the hacker who stole the Ethereum, and upgraded the mining code. After the miners upgraded the code, the mining will invalidate the hacker's attack and the ETH will be recovered.
From the perspective of the incident itself, this matter can be declared over if it is handled in this way. Through the soft fork and miner upgrade, users have no actual loss in the amount of assets, and the system has also patched an important vulnerability.
However, since the soft fork itself involves everyone's understanding and values of the project, the prices of Ethereum and DAO will be under pressure in the short term, and for users who calculate assets in fiat currency, periodic asset shrinkage will be inevitable.
However, this incident caused an uproar in the Bitcoin community.
Surprisingly, this solution, which was agreed upon by most people in the ETH community, made Bitcoin enthusiasts next door very unhappy. The main opinions are:
Ethereum officials do not have the right to execute soft forks;
Ethereum violates its decentralized positioning;
The DAO should bargain with the hacker;
DAO investors should be left to bear their own losses;
In response to this situation, I wrote a joke in a sarcastic manner:
The bank deposit of Mr. Wang’s son next door was stolen, causing him a considerable loss. Mr. Zhang was very happy, clapped his hands and sang, finally venting his anger, as he had been unhappy to see you getting rich for a long time!
However, Lao Wang actually found a way to freeze the money in another bank. Lao Zhang suddenly became furious: "You are such a fucking Lao Wang! You actually didn't let the thief steal your money. No matter how big the door of my house is, it almost broke up the family. How can you solve the problem with just one sentence? Go and see the rules for your son to grow up and start a family independently. Do you still have any shame?" Lao Zhang was very angry!
However, this Weibo post was quickly surrounded by various ETH haters, from verbal abuse to attacks, and even indiscriminate attacks on Yunbi. Even the network congestion caused by the surge in user visits yesterday was blackened as "pulling the network cable". Facts have proved that anti-intellectual behavior in this industry is no less than in other industries. The blogger with a "doctor" identity mentioned earlier can even use the Chinese name of ETH "Ethereum" as an unlucky name to make a fuss, and the only reason for doing so is that ETH has not achieved decentralization.
Some thoughts on the good and evil of decentralization
What is decentralization for? Does Ethereum have to be decentralized?
If in the real world, your next-door neighbor's savings are stolen, even if you feel very happy inside because you have been poorer than your neighbor, you must make a public statement to arrest the thief and severely punish him. This is because theft is a well-known crime, and theft itself is not a right that needs to be protected. In addition, the thief may steal your neighbor's savings or your property. This is a consensus reached based on the need for a safe living environment.
However, when it comes to the two neighbors, Ethereum and Bitcoin, the situation seems to be completely different. Fighting hackers and using technical means to prevent hackers from making profits has lost its legitimacy. Instead, hackers seem to be more sympathetic. It is not easy for them to steal coins, right? Moreover, the logic is that if we can use technical means to prevent hackers from making profits today, we can use technical means to prevent your profits tomorrow, but we completely ignore that the adoption of this technical means requires community consensus to achieve.
The root of this logic that blatantly violates the nature of kindness is actually something called "decentralization."
So where did this "decentralization" oracle come from? The concept of decentralization originated from a network technology P2P. Of course, this is not the "scam to scam" in Internet finance, but an information transmission technology. This technology itself is neutral and has no good or evil. It is Bitcoin that has magnified the concept of decentralization. Bitcoin's blockchain has turned the decentralized accounting method into an idea, something sacred and inviolable.
However, although the value of blockchain is reflected in decentralization, mindless decentralization is not the essence of blockchain value. The essence of blockchain value is: deauthorization. Deauthorization means independent thinking and development. No one may override the rights of others without authorization, but once consensus is formed, the value of consensus can be enhanced together.
Human beings are the masters of this world's consciousness. If we abandon this point, decentralization will become the root cause of disaster. Consensus should exist more than decentralization, and the basis of consensus is human values, which is the ability to distinguish between basic good and evil. Abandoning decentralization of values is essentially no different from Hitler's totalitarianism.
Therefore, there is nothing wrong with being secretly happy and relieved about the theft of DAO. However, it is a tragedy for the blockchain industry if we abandon basic values, regard decentralization as an untouchable oracle, do not agree with community consensus, and use DAO user assets as sacrifices.
In order not to be a headline party, let's write a serious prediction
The DAO users’ Ether will be recovered through the joint efforts of the community;
Ethereum needs to go through this incident before it can grow again;
The DAO may disappear from the market after all problems are solved and all the money is released as ether;
As the best "decentralized application" development platform, the Ethereum blockchain still has huge value and will grow even stronger. Ethereum is still a great project. This article is transferred from the author Lao Mao’s public WeChat: Cat Says (laomaogulu) |
