Reflections on Trusting ``Trustlessness'' in the era of ``Crypto'' Blockchains (Guest Post)

 

I trust Evangelos Georgiadis to do a guest post on Trust and Blockchain. 

Today we have a guest post by Evangelos Georgiadis on Trust. It was written before Lance's post on trust here but it can be viewed as a followup to it. 

And now, here's E.G:

==========================================================

Trust is a funny concept, particularly in the realm of blockchains and "crypto".

Do you trust the consensus mechanism of a public blockchain?

Do you trust the architects that engineered the consensus mechanism?

Do you trust the software engineers that implemented the code for the consensus mechanism?

Do you trust the language that the software engineers used?

Do you trust the underlying hardware that that the software is running?

Theoretical Computer Science provides tools for some of this. But then the question becomes

Do you trust the program verifier?

Do you trust the proof of security?

I touch on these issues in: 

                   Reflections on Trusting ‘Trustlessness’ in the era of ”Crypto”/Blockchains

 which is here. Its only 3 pages so enjoy!