
Decentralized trust graph for online value exchange without a blockchain - cissou
https://settle.network/posts/intro/?b=3
======
Confiks
This all looks very similar to a naïve version of the early (~2010) Ripple
protocol [1], including all its limitations.

An unmentioned limitation is that the system doesn't really suit the 'consumer
economy', unless salaries by producers are also paid out in the currency. It
does work well for transactions between peers, i.e. friends spending /
borrowing – in this system it's essentially the same thing – from each other.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGcVv04unM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGcVv04unM)

~~~
aravindet
What were the limitations of the Ripple protocol?

~~~
wildbunny
It has no countermeasures for Sybil attack. Therefore, the only trusted nodes
in the Ripple network are owned by Ripple labs, making the entire currency
much more like Visa than a real blockchain.

~~~
jancsika
Ripple labs version of Ripple is completely different than the previous piece
of software called Ripple written by Ryan Fugger.

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mccoyspace
This is very similar to the ripple pre-cursor called ripplepay. A clear
explanation of that can be found here.
[https://classic.ripplepay.com/about/](https://classic.ripplepay.com/about/)

------
fernly
Some things I don't understand about the "mint" concept. Is the mint itself
intended to be a guarantor of its members' solvency?

> User onboarding for the Mint API is left to the discretion of the mint
> implementor or administrator...

If I am registered with a mint, and use Settle to offer to pay someone
registered at another mint, who ensures I have those funds? (If it turns out I
didn't have sufficient funds, I will presumably become dis-"trust"-ed, but how
long will it take for that distrust to propagate? And how would newly-arrived
members of any mint know that I'm not trustworthy?)

On a more mundane level, how is it envisioned that real-world a$$et$ will
enter and exit the settle system? If someone has promised me assets, how do I
cash them out of the mint and into (say) my PayPal account?

I can imagine in a future scenario, existing banks (or PayPal!) could
inexpensively and conveniently act as Settle mints, guaranteeing their
depositors up to their banked assets. E.G. my bank, Stanford federal credit
union, could easily act as a mint and I would be on the network through it as
fernly@sfcu.org. SFCU would "know" that I'm good up to my current balance (or
some fraction of it chosen by me).

But short of that future day, is it not the case that a person setting up
amateur mint must really taking on the responsibility of a banker, holding
funds and paying them out on demand?

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eloary
This looks like an approach more akin to federation (or more accurately
confederation) on social networks than the "distributed" notion of blockchain
trust, which in practice, as noted, still exhibits centralizing political
forces per chain, but is robust to most forms of direct attack. I do think
that a mix of approaches is what will happen in the future since the two
methods express different levels of trust and liquidity of transaction.

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wsxiaoys
I always think the value Ethereum brings is few when the use case is like
"store credit", "in-game reward". This looks like a very promising solution!

Edited: One question: it seems to me that settle service is nothing but a
group of rest API end point(include register?), it'll be really useful if i
could interactive with it directly with curl/bash without installing any
client.

~~~
spolu
If you head to settle.network you have examples available using the command
line until also available.

~~~
wsxiaoys
I was asking if it's possible to interactive purely with curl + api, without
client installed

~~~
spolu
Ah sorry, it's is also definitely possible. The documentation lists the
endpoints but it's still very WIP (the doc, not the endpoints):
[https://settle.network/documentation/](https://settle.network/documentation/)

You can also refer to the source code[0] but that requires a bit more effort.

To interact with m.settle.network you would have to signup first using the
command line (that's the easiest, to get your key, though doable over curl as
well as you rightfully point out)

These are only pointers, but happy to answer any question async over email at
stan@stripe.com as well!

[0]
[https://github.com/spolu/settle/tree/master/mint/endpoint](https://github.com/spolu/settle/tree/master/mint/endpoint)

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infruset
Any signs this project isn't dead? The curl command for installing it does not
work and the last blog post is from January.

------
kang
> "But while the operations of such currencies, based on blockchains, have
> been fully decentralized, the trust graph of these cryptocurrencies have
> remained entirely centralized. Everyone need to trust Bitcoin to transact in
> Bitcoin, and everyone needs to trust Ethereum to transact in Ethereum or
> assets issued on the Ethereum blockchain."

Given a string can you programatically determine whether it is bitcoin?
(Starting from a string called 'genesis block', asking assumingly malicious
nodes for more strings, doing some math you can reach the string in question.)
(Note: You cannot do so with ERC tokens, an alarming thing to ponder[0])

Can you determine with high probability the "amount of work done" in producing
the set over which you previously did math? (This amount acts as the amount of
trust we lay behind it, which we determine on our own. We always await anyone
who can provide more cumulative work done.)

Thus there is no trust graph with bitcoin atleast. (Apart from mining
centralization, and users prone to upgrading, bitcoin is pretty close to
decentralised and looks to improve in future with physical limits being
reached with mining chips and people increasingly opting for immutable code
alongwith the immutable chain it calculates on (once all aspects of
fungibility like anonymity is solved, users might stop upgrading at all).)

\---

settle.network is just git.

All of private blockchains, federated sidechains, colored coins, so-called-
smart-contracts-on-eth, premined coins, proof-of-stake coins, etc etc are just
PKIs.

[0]
[https://www.google.co.in/search?q=how+to+check+if+a+token+is...](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=how+to+check+if+a+token+is+erc20)

~~~
decentralised
Did you read the very first result on that search?

~~~
blunte
Not getting into this discussion, but a slight reminder - Google can and does
serve different search results to different people (or even different browsers
on the same computer).

~~~
kang
I know and I deliberately put a google search query instead of a specific
link, because I read all the google links and this cannot be done decentrally.

------
em3rgent0rdr
> "Currencies operate on a centralized trust graph. This sentence is almost
> tautological..."

Not the case with physical currencies such as precious metals...

~~~
spolu
That's an interesting thought. I'm not sure I would consider a precious metal
a currency because its value is driven by its intrinsic value more than trust.
But I do agree that they can be used "as" a currency that is indeed entirely
decentralized. Their use online would require trusting services that store
them and allow their transfer between accounts which, quite interestingly,
maps quite well to the mint model proposed in Settle.

~~~
mobiletelephone
Most precious metals are worth more than their industrial applications. I
suppose you could say that their value is derived from trust in the stability
of their market prices.

~~~
jstanley
If they're worth more than their industrial applications, how can it be
economical to use them for their industrial applications?

If gold-plated contacts cost more than they're worth, nobody would make any as
it would have a negative ROI.

I agree that the market cap of gold is higher than it would be if industrial
applications were the only source of demand. But given that gold _is_ used for
industrial applications, it must not cost more than it is worth for those
applications. Hope that makes sense.

~~~
skewart
If they're the best material for the job then manufacturers will pay the
inflated luxury-good prices. People selling gold are selling it at market
price, regardless of what their buyers do with it. Just because something only
adds X amount of value, however that's defined, doesn't mean that one will be
able to buy it for at or less than X.

~~~
jstanley
I was asserting the opposite: if it adds less than X amount of value, nobody
would buy it for X.

That it sells for X proves that it adds at least X amount of value.

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gabhubert
interesting decentralising primitive since fiat currency basically "is" trust.

~~~
decentralised
Well, not if we are talking about "super-dollars" or other high quality
forgeries.

For argument sake, imagine the most sketchy character you can conjure in your
mind and let's say he ask you to change a 50 in 10s. Would you trade him 5 of
your 10s for one of his 50?

