Quote from: cryptodoe on February 03, 2018, 02:49:52 PM

Makes Satoshi sound like John Kramer!

Mmm. Makes me think. How about a future vision of a "cryptofatwa" ? Remember Salman Rushdi, who had to hide because he had written a book that was to the disliking of some Islamic leaders in Iran, who pronounced a fatwa over him ? There was a call to kill Salman, and the "reward" must have been something akin to virgins in paradise or some other thing. Now, in as much as virgins in paradise sound like an attractive reward, you still have to be convinced in it before you think that going to kill a guy because someone said so, is a reasonable thing to do. Nevertheless, it scared the hell out of Salman Rushdi and the British government that tried to protect him. But one could still go and ask, with "convincing arguments" that the pronunciation of the fatwa be undone.

Let us fast-forward to our crypto paradise in a few decades, when crypto rules finance. Of course, an obvious application will be life insurance. if someone dies, automatically, smart contracts are put into work to pay the beneficiaries. There's no reason why this big part of finance should not be crypto-ized, right ? Now, consider the following: if, by sufficient atomic swaps, I can put together a fatwa contract on one or other crypto smart contract chain, so that a large amount of another crypto currency (say, bitcoin) will be given to the guy or girl that goes and kills a specified person ? The contract will be triggered by a minor life insurance contract on his real-world identity, to indicate that the target was killed. The potential murderer has to stake some amount of coins, together with a payment address to him, somewhere else on another smart contract, before he kills the victim, within a given time slot. If the victim's death is not acted through the oracle of the life insurance contract, the potential murderer has lost his funds, and these are added to the reward of the next candidate-murderer. So, there's a smart contract that runs a cryptofatwa on Joe Schmoe, and offers, say, 1000 BTC to his killer. If Jack proposes himself to the contract as the candidate murderer, he has to put, say, 100 BTC stake. This locks the contract (no other murderer can apply) for, say, 3 weeks. Jack submits in his payment also an address for his reward (his mother's address). If the contract observes that Joe Schmoe is dead before 3 weeks, it verses 1100 BTC to the address Jack provided ; if not, Jack lost his 100 BTC, and now the contract is open again, and the reward is now 1100 BTC. Maybe Jack simply needed more time: he can stake again. Or, Joe Schmoe may stake himself, to win 3 weeks of his life. And stake again, and again, and again. But for each 3 weeks he buys himself for 100 BTC, he augments the attractiveness of his killing ! Of course, it is maybe wiser to use ZCASH or monero or the like. The LN technology makes this possible once atomic swaps are implemented. Note that the contract remains valid, even if the police traces me, tortures me, hangs me, and burns me publicly on a stack in the middle of town. I launched it, but I cannot stop it. Even if I'm dead, it will keep running.

Once we have such crypto fatwa, the door is open to unlimited bribery. What if I ask a politician to vote against a crypto-limiting law, or a crypto fatwa will be launched against his daughter ? Ok, I can go to jail. Would the judge dare to convict me BTW ? Ok, I may even regret what I did. There's no stopping this thing.

Let us up the stakes a bit more: let us now have a self-propagating contract over all descendants of the victim. The crypto equivalent of what the Knights Templar did when he cursed the French king until the 13th generation. But with earthly rewards for the killer, or his family, not promises of virgins, paradise or whatever religious smoke and mirrors....

Is that good enough as a John Kramer story before bed time ? Grin