
Behind the scenes with Tezos, a new blockchain upstart - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/behind-the-scenes-with-tezos-a-new-blockchain-upstart
======
laxatives
All the complaints about the uncapped ICO aside, the biggest concern for me is
the compensation structure. Breitmans et al make out big immediately. So much
so that they have relatively small incentive to ensure the success of their
coin. They have also demonstrated that they are both toxic PR people and
incapable of responding to even the most innocuous line of questioning without
going into personal attacks or sarcasm.

Its too bad. I first heard about Tezos when one of their devs posted an
amazing interview question here on ycombinator that spun up an enormous
discussion that was being refreshed all day in my browser. But their
leadership is suspect. Their statements regarding their employment timelines
(fulltime vs parttime dev work, 1 year vs 4 years) doesn't really add up
either.

Hopefully they prove the FUD wrong, but I avoided the ICO because I can't
accept that kind of risk.

~~~
vikiomega9
Do you have a link to the question?

~~~
boxfish
Had the same question and did some digging. It appears to be this one by user
murbard2:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940675)

------
cryptotothemax
$200 million worth of cryptocurrency has been sent to the tax haven of
Guernsey. A foundation set up in Switzerland manages the funds. Founders
immediately take a cut of 8.5% of the donations received.

[https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-
terms.html#contribution-...](https://tezos.ch/pages/contribution-
terms.html#contribution-terms)

~~~
skrebbel
I'm totally outside the cryptocurrency world. Can anyone explain to me why
_anyone_ would invest in an organization like this? If what you say is true
then the thing is so clearly set up to just be a money grab and nothing else
that I'm baffled it works.

I don't understand why scams seem to work better with cryptocurrencies than
with "normal" money. A scam is still a scam right? What am I missing?

In practice, what kind of people invest in these kinds of things? Are they
VCs? Pension funds? Mobsters who need to whitewash?

~~~
tom_mellior
> Can anyone explain to me why anyone would invest in an organization like
> this?

In my case, because the "investment" is free and thus completely devoid of
risk. I bought Tezos using unused Bitcoin I had laying around. Even if it
turns out to be a total loss, all I lost was Bitcoin. I cannot lose "real"
money because I have bought Bitcoin cheap enough and sold enough to get my
Euro investment back.

The worst case that could happen would be Tezos completely tanking and Bitcoin
skyrocketing, which would make me a multi-millionaire with one million Euros
less than I could have had if I had not bought Tezos. I'm prepared to take
that risk.

~~~
mcbruiser3
> with one million Euros less

wow, you invested $1MM Euros worth of BTC into Tezos? is that right? did you
make all your money via investing in BTC?

~~~
tom_mellior
Also, I "made" my money the way most well-off people do: I inherited it.

~~~
mcbruiser3
OK, good for you. I hope my kids can say that someday.

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Animats
Tezos isn't even a tradeable altcoin yet.[1] Do they even have a public
blockchain? Right now, it just seems to be a site where you send them money
and they give you a receipt. What could possibly go wrong?

[1] [https://coinmarketcap.com/](https://coinmarketcap.com/)

~~~
beaner
Lots could go wrong, but Ethereum launched the same way and it's now got a
market cap of ~$20 billion.

~~~
dekz
Ethereum had multiple Proof of Concepts before their ICO.

~~~
kbody
Not advocating for either shitcoins, but Tezos has code and testnet
[https://github.com/tezos/tezos](https://github.com/tezos/tezos)

~~~
wheelerwj
"either shitcoins?"

~~~
kbody
Ethereum or Tezos

~~~
wheelerwj
as much as im a bitcoiner, calling ethereum a shitcoin or even hit ing that
its in the same ballpark as Texos is a gross injustice to ethereums
accomplishments this far and a massive embellishment of what tezos currently
is.

~~~
kbody
Not if you include all the puppeteering done by Joe Lubin and Consensys on
Ethereum "Foundation" and organized bumping with ICOs coordination. Business
aside, the tech is full of shortcuts and snakeoil. So far they haven't done
anything that wasn't debated by the cypherpunks of the 90s and deemed insecure
and irresponsible. Of course, many will claim that they did something, but
with that mentality, Bitcoin wouldn't still be alive and running till now.

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blueside
An uncapped fundraiser for yet another cryptocurrency? This reminds me a lot
of pump and dump penny stocks.

~~~
dmichulke
I have the same feeling.

However, keep in mind we're still far away from DotCom dimensions. NASDAQ back
then was some 3 trillion around the top, all cryptocurrencies together are now
85 bn.

So if you ask me, there will be a ~50x increase and many more ridiculous ICOs
until this thing comes crushing down.

------
patrickk
Here's the ETH contract address:
[https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0...](https://etherscan.io/address/0xb56d622ddf60ec532b5f43b4ff9b0e7b1ff92db3)
over 20,000 transactions in Ether alone.

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shishy
Another related article was posted a while ago here on HN, but I wanted to re-
share it here since it's relevant to the problem that this company tries to
solve (and, in case someone missed it):

[https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-
dis...](https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-blockchain-paradox-why-distributed-
ledger-technologies-may-do-little-to-transform-the-economy/)

The governance paradox was something I was thinking about (after reading the
article): though blockchain replaces these third-party enforces by
decentralizing the process, it doesn't fully remove the human element.

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spectrum1234
I feel I must nitpick and point out something many don't understand about
decentralization.

"...an event that would result in two separate bitcoins. The players in this
drama all have incentives to reach a consensus" \- Not true. Because of
competition from OTHER blockchains two separate bitcoins can be an optimal
play. The fact that bitcoin may NOT have consensus is a feature not a bug.
This is similar to open source.

------
murbard2
Original hn thread (2014)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8134182)

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DonbunEf7
Fixing the governance model is well and fine, but is the smart-contract
language up to the task as well? We are mainly looking for fixes to the
recursive-call plan interference bugs from Ethereum. It's not clear how to
create closely-held values either.

[https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf](https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/language.pdf)

------
Cieplak
I wonder who will be the first to posess a computer with enough quibits to
properly implement Shor's algorithm and steal all the bitcoin.

