The interaction between recursive auctions and commitment devices is going to be the name of the game in crypto for the next 12-24 months. The reason is the following: 1. Current state of MEV/PBS calls for an increasingly modular manipulation of the order flow.
Basically, people who bid for blockspace will take bids from other actors, all the way down to single users deciding where to place their txs. A whole economic systems of service offerings and bidding will pop up.
Mar 26, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
@ITprofligate So: 1. all of our work with the EF is and/or will be made public. That's for sure.
About what I said, let me give a very simple example: Re-entrancy attacks. These are super well-known and have existed and being used since the very beginning.
@ITprofligate At the heart of the problem, and without summoning the intricacies of the EVM and whatnot, there is this handwavey fact:
"The intuitive model you have in mind for contract composition does not reflect what happens when a contract calls another contract in the EVM."
Nov 18, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
@ITprofligate I agree that better tools are needed, the whole infra is still in its infancy. Everyone knowing me a bit can say that I am quite a strong advocate of compositional and formal methods in crypto. Yet, I don't agree with the decentralization maximalism as I made clear in my tweets.
@ITprofligate There are perks in centralized exchanges. The most visible ones are privacy and efficiency, as I pointed out. But the most important ones should be regulatory. For instance, in many countries you are guaranteed by the law to get some money back if your bank fails.
Nov 18, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
TBF this was true of anyone in any business situation before Silicon Valley culture kicked in. If anything, it shows that things can change over time, especially if you have something for which demand is so strong that you can make the rules.
The internet first, and crypto then, has been something so mysterious to 'potential investors with money' that they basically had no alternative to deal with the t-shirt guys if they wanted to cash in profits. And so they did. This had also very bad consequences tho.
Nov 16, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
An anonymous friend whose name hash starts with 5e7b6b0bfcf9 told me something really insightful a few days ago: "Decentralization maximalists made things murkier: Blockchain is not just tech. It is the modern equivalent of written law."
Let me elaborate a bit on this.
Written law has changed also the way we behave and speak. In his example, when you shake the hand to the plumber you are performing an act that is akin to a contract. You are setting expectations, and establishing responsibilities and duties.
Nov 13, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
The most fucked up thing about this FTX business is that many people blaming SBF were idolizing him before. Some of them already 'changed' idol to CZ or whatnot. This tells me one thing:
THESE PEOPLE DON'T BLAME SBF BECAUSE HE WAS A CONMAN. THEY BLAME HIM BECAUSE HE GOT CAUGHT.
This really tells you that almost nothing will change. And indeed, the emperor has no clothes.
Everyone with some common sense know that there are two venues to affine your criminal skills: Prisons and hedge funds.
And indeed you can be sure that an overwhelming majority of...
Jan 5, 2022 • 16 tweets • 23 min read
STORY TIME!
Ok, so this work, in collaboration with @ququ7 and @puca_caterina just came out. I consider one of the best things I did so far, if not _the_ best, and it's just the tip of the iceberg! Let me explain very briefly what we tried to do. 1/n
@ququ7@puca_caterina As you may know, the categorical approaches to language are nothing new. They go back 50+ years ago with the work of Lambek, and literally exploded in crossing the quantum realm in more recent time, especially thanks to @coecke and his collaborators (which includes me!) 2/n
Jan 3, 2020 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
In blockchain theory, Szabo's law, named after pioneer Nick Szabo, says: “Do not implement changes to the blockchain protocol unless the changes are required for the purpose of technical maintenance.” Here I'll argue about how this is fundamentally right-wing philosophy. 1/n
One obvious consequence of the law is that smart contracts are not revertible, hence the law is often summarized as "code is law". So what happens if, say, an intentionally malicious contract is deployed to just con people? 2/n
