Ethereum Code Editor Resigns Over Legal Concerns For Ledger Amendment Proposal
code editor Yoichi Hirai has resigned from his position following personal concerns that an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) over a standardized format for lost fund recovery would potentially violate Japanese law.
Hirai both his resignation as well as posted a more dramatic explanation of his reasons for resigning on :
“My blood pressure is higher since I found this draft. I don’t sleep well. My family accuses me of mental absence. I believe these are signs that my abilities are not ready for the task of the EIP editorship. I resign from the post of an EIP editor.”
Musiconomi developer Dan Phifer and two developers from startup introduced said , which seeks to create a solution method for a simpler way to amend the Ethereum blockchain that would allow to redistribute address balances in the case of lost funds.
A on the Parity Ethereum client caused Musiconomi to raised by crowdfunding when Parity froze their multi-sig wallet. Phifer’s proposal would allow such lost funds on the Ethereum platform to be returned in the case of a similar future hack.
Hirai’s reportedly main is what he sees as its conflict with a Japanese penal code on the He writes on Github that he doesn’t think that “anybody has the authority to make an irregular state change”, because he doesn’t believe that Ethereum users know about or authorize the EIP process, and thus doesn’t want the non-democratically chosen EIP leaders to make these kind of rules for Ethereum users.
Hirai that he thinks the proposal is “at odds with the Ethereum philosophy”, because Ethereum was made to avoid “single points of failure and the need of trust”. In a , Hirai amended that he could ignore his understanding of the Ethereum philosophy, but that he can’t ignore violations of the penal code.
Software engineer Afri Schoedon, who also works in community management at Ethereum and technical communication at Parity, has come out strongly in favor of Phifer’s proposal. In response to Hirai’s negative comments about the proposal on Github, Schoedon tweeted asking Hirai to step down as an EIP editor:
I don’t want to be part of the community anymore if only one entity can singlehandedly block any proposal based on a Japanese law that bans the unauthorized creation of electromagnetic records.
— default (@5chdn)
Hirai responded directly to the call for resignation, that stepping down would signal that he allows other people to ignore the penal code and thus break the law. However, Hirai did resign about 10 hours after that tweet.
Hirai’s resignation over this proposal, even though he cites his personal legal responsibility as his impetus, brings up the question of whether should be modifiable in the case of hacks or errors that lead to a loss of user funds.
The from the BitGrail exchange caused a furor in the crypto world when it came out that Bitgrail’s owner had allegedly asked for the ledger to be altered to cover the losses.
The largest example of conflict over the nature of Blockchain’s ability to be edited was the aftermath of the , when stolen funds were moved back to their rightful accounts through a hard fork that led to the split between Ethereum (ETH) and (ETC). Ethereum Classic is the original Blockchain where the stolen money remained with the hackers.
, co-founder of Ethereum, had tweeted on Feb. 14 in response to a tweet criticizing him for his decision to hard fork Ethereum, “doing rescue forks in exceptional circumstances can be a great choice for nascent early-stage blockchains.”
In response to Buterin’s tweet, Greg Maxwell, former bitcoin developer, that Ethereum’s operators are missing the main point of the hard fork debate:
“The point they’re missing? No one should have that power. If there is even a choice to make the system has already failed.”
AI-Related Jobs And Who’s Hiring? Are You At Risk Of Losing Your Job? Technology has become increasingly integral to jobs across all industries and continues to impact the majority of people to some extent in […]
RichCat — 🏡 The First Monopoly Game in Blockchain – Bruce Meerkat – Similar to Monopoly game, users can buy a house at the lowest price at the beginning, and collect rent from others. Each house has […]
In December 2017, an interesting rumor : According to “sources familiar with the matter,” the messaging app , very popular among crypto-enthusiasts for its strong encryption and privacy features, would launch its own blockchain platform and cryptocurrency.
On January 8, 2018, TechCrunch that several unnamed sources had confirmed the news and quoted a secret Telegram white paper. According to TechCrunch, “the potential for a cryptocurrency inside a widely adopted messaging app is enormous.”
Of course, a leaked executive summary of the white paper is now available. The document has been by Cryptovest, and its authenticity has been independently by TNW. The 23-page executive summary often refers to an unreleased technical white paper which, according to TechCrunch, has 132 pages.
“This paper outlines a vision for a new cryptocurrency and an ecosystem capable of meeting the
needs of hundreds of millions of consumers, including 200 million Telegram users,” reads the white paper. “Launching in 2018, this cryptocurrency will be based on a multi-blockchain proof-of-stake system — TON (Telegram Open Network, after 2021 The Open Network) — designed to host a new generation of cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications.”
Scaling and Adoption
According to Telegram, while cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based technologies have the potential to make the world more secure and self-governed, no consensus-backed currency has been able to appeal to the mass market and reach mainstream adoption. Despite the utility of bitcoin and Ethereum, “there is no current standard cryptocurrency used for the regular exchange of value in the daily lives of ordinary people.” This is what the TON project wants to change. According to Telegram, the world needs an electronic “decentralized counterpart to everyday money — a truly mass-market cryptocurrency.”
Scaling transaction throughput to the tens of thousands of transactions per second supported by major credit card networks such as Visa and Mastercard is an important requirement for a mass-market cryptocurrency. While bitcoin and Ethereum developers are working toward achieving higher throughput, the Telegram white paper notes that bitcoin and Ethereum are currently limited to a maximum of only seven transactions per second for bitcoin and 15 transactions per second for Ethereum, resulting in insufficient speeds and higher transaction costs. The white paper does not seem to take second-layer protocols into account, however.
Existing cryptocurrencies face other roadblocks as well, according to Telegram. For example, they are still too complicated for average merchants and consumers, the demand for crypto-assets comes mainly from investors rather than consumers, and there’s no critical mass for the ecosystem to grow and “eventually become adopted by hundreds of millions of users.”
“Telegram will use its expertise in encrypted distributed data storage to create TON, a fast and
inherently scalable multi-blockchain architecture,” states the white paper. “TON can be regarded as a decentralized supercomputer and value transfer system. By combining minimum transaction time with maximum security, TON can become a VISA/Mastercard alternative for the new decentralized economy.”
The Tech Specs
The TON blockchain will consist of a master chain and (eventually) a huge number (2**92) of accompanying blockchains (shards) that can dynamically split and merge to accommodate changes in load and achieve optimal throughput. TON will use a proof-of-stake approach based on a variant of the protocol and instant to partition the workload among shards. Network protocols for storage, TOR-like privacy and micropayments will be released after the TON blockchain core.
Of course, TON will be fully integrated in the Telegram messaging network. According to the white paper, this will permit leveraging Telegram’s massive user base and developed ecosystem to provide a clear path to cryptocurrencies for millions of people, with light wallets implemented in Telegram applications. The white paper notes that 84 percent of blockchain-based projects have an active Telegram community, more than all other chat applications combined, which makes Telegram the “cryptocurrency world’s preferred messaging app.”
According to the roadmap in the white paper, a Minimal Viable Test Network for TON will be launched in Q2 2018. Then, after a testing phase and a security audit, a stable version of TON and a Telegram wallet will be deployed in Q4 2018.
Funding with Grams
The TON coins will be called Grams. To fund TON, Telegram will launch a token sale in Q1 2018. Initially, 44 percent of the total supply (2.2 billion) of Grams will be sold at a price that will start at $0.10 per Gram and gradually increase, with each Gram priced one billionth higher than the previous one, reaching $1 per Gram once 2.2 billion tokens have been sold. Based on these projections, it seems that Telegram’s token sale could easily become the biggest in history.
Of the total supply of Grams, 52 percent will be retained by the TON Reserve “to protect the nascent cryptocurrency from speculative trading and to maintain flexibility at the early stages of the evolution of the system,” and the remaining 4 percent will be reserved for the development team.
According to current plans, the token sale will use a (SAFT), to be converted 1:1 to native TON Grams after the deployment of the TON Blockchain.
Telegram wants to serve as a launch pad for TON, but it plans eventually to transfer ownership and governance of the TON system to a non-profit TON Foundation. “By 2021, the initial TON vision and architecture will have been implemented and deployed,” states the white paper. “TON will then let go of the ‘Telegram’ element in its name and become ‘The Open Network.’ From then on, the continuous evolution of the TON Blockchain will be maintained by the TON Foundation.”
The TON Killer App: A Privacy-Focused User Base
TON’s killer app is Telegram’s ability to leverage the enthusiasm of millions of cryptocurrency fans among the app’s 200 million users. At the same time, however, it’s worth noting that the greater population doesn’t really care much about encryption or cryptocurrencies. Many other messaging apps, such as Facebook’s Messenger and Whatsapp, are much more popular than Telegram.
Telegram is independent, self-funded and privacy-focused. The popularity of Telegram among cryptocurrency enthusiasts can be explained by the fact that the messaging app was founded “by libertarians to preserve freedom through encryption.” These features make it more attractive than other platforms, like Messenger or Whatsapp, to users who feel strongly about privacy protection.
It’s then interesting to speculate about possible moves of Facebook toward developing a cryptocurrency integrated with its social network and messaging platform.
In , Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg notes that, contrary to the once widespread belief that technology could be a decentralizing force that puts more power in people’s hands, it now appears that technology’s net effect is that of centralizing power in the hands of large corporations and governments.
“There are important counter-trends to this — like encryption and cryptocurrency — that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands,” says Zuckerberg. “But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies and how best to use them in our services.”
In as speech by FBI Director Christopher Wray on January 9, 2018, to the International Conference on Cyber Security, he highlighted his concerns over encryption, pointing out that last year, 7,800 devices were rendered inaccessible to law enforcement.
“This problem impacts our investigations across the board — human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation and cyber,” he stated.
He called on the private sector to find ways that would allow them to “respond to lawfully issued court orders, in a way that is consistent with both the rule of law and strong cybersecurity.” It is these sorts of access measures that Zuckerberg will probably be considering.
While it doesn’t seem plausible that Facebook could become a staunch champion of privacy like Telegram, it will definitely be interesting to watch Facebook’s moves in the cryptocurrency space.
