Ethereum cryptocurrency is at a historic crossroads, which will leave an indelible mark on its history. About “blacklists”, centralized “decentralized autonomy” and why the community with such joy, zeal and carelessness opens a box of cryptocurrency regulation, thereby hammering nails into the coffin of Ethereum.

Instead of the preface

Further in the text, in more detail about this or that event or object, it is possible to read according to the resulted links. In the article itself, some subtleties and technical aspects will be omitted and / or simplified for simplicity and more complete understanding by the reader of the current picture as a whole. The very essence of the described events, processes and consequences remained intact.
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Start

It is important to start with a little insight into history. Not so long ago, the largest in the history of crowdfunding project called The DAO , which collected for its further activities ethereum coins to the amount equivalent to ~ 150 million dollars at the former exchange rate. Instead of the received ethereum coins, the organization provided participants with tokens in the proportion of 100 DAO tokens instead of 1 ethereum coin (in general, the proportion was somewhat different in the last stages of fundraising). Such a decentralized, autonomous, fully open and transparent "JSC" , to some extent, of course. Anyone who could have become a participant, either initially exchanging ethereum coins for DAO tokens, or simply buying the last ones on the stock exchange after the end of the formation. In the future, it was assumed that The DAO would invest the funds received in various projects, by means of general voting, take one decision or another, and in the future make a profit from them. Each participant could participate in polls and profit as part of the number of DAO tokens he has. But, as they say, was not judged.

Problems

A little more than ten days ago an incident occurred , as a result of which one participant, using the poor quality of the contract code of The DAO, found it possible to transfer to the $ 50 million equivalent in a wallet of coins under his control. This wallet, and if we speak in terms of the subsidiary DAO, has received the unofficial name Dark DAO. As a result, the organization, as well as its members, lost ~ 30% of the capital.

The terms “attack”, “hacking”, “intruder”, “stolen”, etc. are not specifically used here, because following the terms and notation of smart contracts , the work of the contract and its result are a priori “correct” and “legal” pre-designated in the contract code. And the fact that he allowed one person to transfer such a significant amount to his wallet, bypassing the "usual" procedures, can rather be attributed to the possibility of using undocumented features and getting benefits from them, so to speak, "feature", than "hacking". From the legal side and from the side of information security, the person did not break anything - he simply used the possibilities of the contract, and got benefit from it. Because “Code is Law” , and it is on this principle that The DAO was founded. And the fact that the code was poorly written and allowed the possibility of such an action is another matter entirely. Thus, ~ 4.5% of all coins of the ether turned out to be in the hands of one person or a group of persons.

Decision!

According to the technical features of The DAO, a person will be able to use his newly acquired coins of ethereum only after 27 days, and at this time you can try to somehow change the current situation. Obviously, the concentration of such a number of coins in the hands of one person who is not interested in their further storage does not bode well for the exchange rate of the ethereum for a fairly long time, because he is likely to try to exchange them for something more solid first thing bitcoin or fiat money, thereby bringing down the exchange rate. In order to preserve the bright future of ethereum, a number of actions were proposed that would have to eliminate this impending threat of gradual discharging of coins with the departure of the exchange rate (hence capitalization, and hence the success of cryptocurrency in the eyes of the general public) below the baseboard, and the subsequent return of their coins to DAO holders the ether. These actions are called soft fork and hard fork of the etchrium blockchain:

1. Soft fork: freeze all assets owned by The DAO and all of its subsidiaries (including Dark DAO).
2. Hard fork: the return in one way or another of all the coins that were originally “invested” into the organization of the ether, in an amount equivalent to the number of DAO tokens that a person has. Transferred to Dark DAO, it was the coins of the ether, the DAO tokens remained with their original owners. And since the person has not yet had time to get full control over the coins, with their subsequent withdrawal / exchange, it is possible to “redeem” the tokens back at their original cost. In other words, everything will be returned to itself in full. Such a self-liquidation of the organization, with the return of all the money invested.

The first item was agreed by the developers, put to the vote and tentatively "successfully" adopted . Regarding the second while there is a debate. One of the working ideas is to change the contract of The DAO so that it will pay to the holders of tokens the corresponding quantities of ethereum coins. And everything seems to be fine, everyone will get their money back (of course, except for those who did not panic and did not sell their DAO tokens), the developers and the community heard each other, and go to a meeting, and as a result, everything and everything will be fine.

Decision?

But here quite reasonable questions begin to arise:

1. Why in the work of The DAO (we remember the decoding of the first two letters of the abbreviation - decentralized and autonomous ), the main principle of which is “Code is the Law” , interfere and change something? Here, by the way, it is worth noting that initially the idea of ​​the possibility of a fork (software or hard in the context of our conversation, it does not matter) was started by the developers in their chat . And the first publicly voiced this opportunity Buterin - one of the main developers and ideologues of ethereum. And although the formalities of voting and “supporting” the decision on the forks by the community were observed, not much remained of true decentralization here, because everything was already decided in advance and rather centralized (see chat chat).
2. Why did the pools ignore the essence, or even more correctly, the “spirit” of introducing support for the soft fork? We do not forget that the activity on pools voting was 25% (for example, dwarfpool , as the largest pool of the network). Of the 25% who voted, 88% support soft-fork, 12% do not. But there are still 75% of the computational power of the pool, which simply ignored the vote, thereby indirectly refused to support the soft-fork. After all, for its introduction, you need to download a new version of the client, and run it with a special parameter that would directly and unambiguously point to the support of the soft-fork. If you simply do nothing (in our case, do not participate in the voting), then you indirectly vote “against”. Mining pools also took to the attention of the distribution of votes only among the voting part.
3. And the main question is: why in general do cryptocurrency developers deal with the problems that have arisen in a “private” third-party organization? At the same time, the main axiom and the pillar of any cryptocurrency, the immutability of the blockchain, is completely ignored.

The answer is surprisingly simple and banal - money. In any of their manifestations - investments in the cryptocurrency itself, its infrastructure, exchange rate, capitalization, and simply - the personal fortune of everyone and everyone who owns etirium coins. The desire is quite natural and understandable to man. And one could understand and accept it. Just why ...

That's how freedom dies, to the thunder of applause

Soft fork is a “black list”, consisting of all the wallets created within the framework of The DAO, operations that are prohibited with the entry of the fork into force. The alleged hard fork is the unconditional transfer of coins from some wallets (all created within The DAO) to others (tokens' wallets) - roughly speaking confiscation. Yes, reader, you were not mistaken - it is “blacklists” and confiscation . In cryptocurrency . As they say - “Arrived”: the very essence of cryptocurrency was originally built on a basis in which this was rejected at the level of an idea.

Yes, let now behind these changes, perhaps, there is a good goal based on returning money to all who lost them, and not to allow big losses for all other members of the Ethereum community. But this is precisely what is, but the regulation of currency. And in the future, Big Brother will definitely knock on the door of the Ethereum Foundation with a proposal to transfer these functions of the regulator into its hands (albeit partially, by the decision of independent courts or under any other pretexts). And in his hands he will hold the stick and the carrot - in one all sorts of sanctions with restrictions, and in the other - even more money. Again, in all their manifestations: legalization, recognition, integration, and all the other advantages that the State and / or Large Business can offer.

And being tempted by the big money, the community (or its remaining part, starting from the miners and ending with the developers) will accept the offer of the carrot. After all, not as scary as the first time. Yes, and everything will be "according to the law", and for a good purpose - only sellers of illegal weapons, drugs, child pornography and other criminal elements will be included in the "black list" with subsequent confiscation. But we all know well how the system is able to gradually, imperceptibly and smoothly expand its areas of influence, gradually tightening the screws. And after a couple of years, the pretext for inclusion in the “black list” can easily become a decision of a closed court on the involvement of a person in financing terrorism, extremist activities , participation in the opposition and other undesirable organizations . There is no reverse in this slippery track.

So why now the community, seduced by fleeting gains, ignores the very idea of ​​cryptocurrency and long-term development prospects, with such joy, zeal and carelessness opens the box of cryptocurrency regulation, thereby hammering nails in the coffin of Ethereum? ..