> The possibility that a Libra node run by Mastercard or Andressen Horrowitz would suddenly start running malicious code is such a bizarre scenario to plan for and is better solved by simply enforcing protocol integrity and through non-technical (i.e. legal) means.
> The overhead from the consensus algorithm serves no purpose and will only limit throughput of the whole system, and appears to be there here no reason other than apparently cargo culting public blockchain technology which is not designed for this use case.
> ... the model as proposed is hundreds of person-years away from being able to handle global transaction throughput and would likely have to be completely redesigned from first principles.
> Enterprise software consultants generally thrive on ambiguity and smart contracts are the apotheosis of enterprise obscurantism because they can be defined to mean literally anything.
> It should be assumed this entire crypto stack is vulnerable to a variety of attacks until proven otherwise. The “move fast and break things” model should not apply to cryptographic tools handling consumer financial data.
> The final conclusion one must take away after doing technical due diligence on this project is this simply that it would not pass muster in any respected journal on distributed systems research or financial engineering. Before trying to disrupt global monetary policy there is a massive amount of a technical work needed to build a reliable network the public and regulators could trust to securely handle user data.
> I see no reason to believe that Facebook has done the technical work needed to overcome these technical issues in their project, not does it have any technical advantage over existing infrastructure that already works. Claiming one’s company needs regulatory flexibility to explore innovation is not an excuse for not doing it in the first place.
> The possibility that a Libra node run by Mastercard or Andressen Horrowitz would suddenly start running malicious code is such a bizarre scenario to plan for and is better solved by simply enforcing protocol integrity and through non-technical (i.e. legal) means.
> The overhead from the consensus algorithm serves no purpose and will only limit throughput of the whole system, and appears to be there here no reason other than apparently cargo culting public blockchain technology which is not designed for this use case.
> ... the model as proposed is hundreds of person-years away from being able to handle global transaction throughput and would likely have to be completely redesigned from first principles.
> Enterprise software consultants generally thrive on ambiguity and smart contracts are the apotheosis of enterprise obscurantism because they can be defined to mean literally anything.
> It should be assumed this entire crypto stack is vulnerable to a variety of attacks until proven otherwise. The “move fast and break things” model should not apply to cryptographic tools handling consumer financial data.
> The final conclusion one must take away after doing technical due diligence on this project is this simply that it would not pass muster in any respected journal on distributed systems research or financial engineering. Before trying to disrupt global monetary policy there is a massive amount of a technical work needed to build a reliable network the public and regulators could trust to securely handle user data.
> I see no reason to believe that Facebook has done the technical work needed to overcome these technical issues in their project, not does it have any technical advantage over existing infrastructure that already works. Claiming one’s company needs regulatory flexibility to explore innovation is not an excuse for not doing it in the first place.