..... proof of reserves is a good idea in theory, but is also gameable, and frankly therefore useless. Particularly since no one has ever mentioned "Proof of Liabilities" which would also be needed for that to work in the first place.
All kinds of people are saying that there is a need for both proof of reserves and proof of liabilities.
Sure, there are ways that people, exchanges and third party custodians could game these kinds of attempts at transparency - yet it seems way better to take some actions and to promote some standards rather than just throwing up our hands and suggesting that "they are going to game it anyway."
Let's say that there is a standard that is established for proof of reserves and some exchanges/third party custodians follow it and others do not, which services are you going to use?
What if some exchanges/third party custodians show their "major liabilities" and others do not show shit? Which ones are you going to use?
Sure, these are not sure-fire ways to secure your coins, and we surely knkow that the best ways to secure your coins are to hold them yourself, but what if you hold most of your keys yourself, and some services allow you to freely move your coins from your cold wallets and onto their platform and then back to your cold wallets, and other exchanges put all kinds of obstacles and play games in regards to shotgun KYC and other seeming phony-baloney requirements, then which services are you going to use? Do you think that there are going to be businesses that are going to want to provide services to bitcoiners and to make money by providing those services and to attract bitcoiners to want to use their services because the bitcoiners consider the services to be valuable? Or do you think that we should throw up our hands and presume that everyone wants to steal your bitcoin so we should all lock ourselves in a cabin in the mountains and refuse to spend our little preciouses?
Anyway... the recent events are making me reevaluate my stance on "Bitcoin Banks"... and i (we) have a long way to go.
I wish we could ask Hal to expand on what he foretold back in the day... ah well.
Hal's dead and he is not coming back. We need to figure this shit out for ourselves, and I believe that if we crowd source, we should be able to come up with ideas that are just as good, if not better than Hal's ideas from 2010.. In other words, fuck Hal (no irreverence intended).. and since I am at it.. fuck satoshi, too..(no irreverence intended there either...). Part of the point is that "we" should be able to figure this shit out for our lil selfies, and if we cannot figure it out, then our successors will.. kids, grandkids, generations to follow, etc etc.. bitcoin seems to be like a living organism in that regard.. in terms of the interactions that we "royal that is not" choose to have with our lil precious within what people want to build around it and what services will be built on top of it, used or not used.
