A blog post by Patrick McKenzie/patio11, a frequently cited here blogger/entrepreneur/SEO wiz/etc. about Stellar, a new currency exchange protocol. [EDIT: apparently not that new.] He explains it in the ELI5 (or, more accurately, ELIRW, explain-like-I’m-Ron-Weasley) way. With plenty of humor. Bonus: a comment from Eliezer.
Some quotes:
Harry Potter: [...] Stellarmus, I trust Ron Weasley with one Weasley!GBP.
Ron Weasley: Stellarmus, send Harry Potter a quid!
...
Harry Potter: Stellarmus, what currencies does Hermione Granger accept?
Stellarmus rattles off a long, long list.
Harry Potter: What on earth is a Tokyo!ABL?
Hermione Granger: It’s a claim against an online Magic: The Gathering exchange headquartered in Tokyo for one Alpha Black Lotus, which is a card that I’ve wanted for a while.
Ron Weasley: You’d trust a random company in Tokyo to send you magic cards?
Hermione Granger: They’re not magic cards, they’re Magic cards, and yes, I’d trust that company to hold Magic cards for me. Nothing else though. It would certainly be dreadfully stupid to say “Stellarmus, I trust The Company That Must Not Be Named for 50 million USD.”
Harry Potter: Why do I get the feeling you know more about this topic than I do?
Hermione Granger: Welcome to life, Harry Potter. I know more about every topic than you do.
(Note that this is Canon!Harry, not MoR!Harry, though the defense professor is a lot closer to MoR!Quirrell.)
...
Hermione Granger: I like you, Ron, but not enough to trust you with money. Save my life a few times first and maybe we’ll talk.
...
Harry Potter: Wait, why do Hogwarts faculty trust the Defense Professor when the first rule of wizardry is “Don’t trust the Defense Professor?”
Defense Professor: Because the Hogwarts faculty are fools. Trust is for the weak, anyhow. The only real currency is a totally trustless currency.
...
Defense Professor: Granger is, of course, trusting that The Adversary never controls Hogwarts, Gringotts, and the Ministry of Magic at the same time.
Ron Weasley: That seems pretty reasonable, though.
Defense Professor: You think a far-reaching conspiracy can’t simultaneously capture all your trusted institutions? I love the young and naive.
...
Defense Professor: [...] By the eldritch rites of Satoshi, transfer to my exchange’s account three infinitely divisible currency units. I’ll bounce a fraction of them off your toy network into something that the Stellarmus spell will trade for a ChoChang!JPY, swap that for a cryptocurrency with actual value, and turn you into a value pump.
[LINK] “Harry Potter And The Cryptocurrency of Stars”
A blog post by Patrick McKenzie/patio11, a frequently cited here blogger/entrepreneur/SEO wiz/etc. about Stellar, a new currency exchange protocol. [EDIT: apparently not that new.] He explains it in the ELI5 (or, more accurately, ELIRW, explain-like-I’m-Ron-Weasley) way. With plenty of humor. Bonus: a comment from Eliezer.
Some quotes:
Harry Potter: [...] Stellarmus, I trust Ron Weasley with one Weasley!GBP.
Ron Weasley: Stellarmus, send Harry Potter a quid!
...
Harry Potter: Stellarmus, what currencies does Hermione Granger accept?
Stellarmus rattles off a long, long list.
Harry Potter: What on earth is a Tokyo!ABL?
Hermione Granger: It’s a claim against an online Magic: The Gathering exchange headquartered in Tokyo for one Alpha Black Lotus, which is a card that I’ve wanted for a while.
Ron Weasley: You’d trust a random company in Tokyo to send you magic cards?
Hermione Granger: They’re not magic cards, they’re Magic cards, and yes, I’d trust that company to hold Magic cards for me. Nothing else though. It would certainly be dreadfully stupid to say “Stellarmus, I trust The Company That Must Not Be Named for 50 million USD.”
Harry Potter: Why do I get the feeling you know more about this topic than I do?
Hermione Granger: Welcome to life, Harry Potter. I know more about every topic than you do.
(Note that this is Canon!Harry, not MoR!Harry, though the defense professor is a lot closer to MoR!Quirrell.)
...
Hermione Granger: I like you, Ron, but not enough to trust you with money. Save my life a few times first and maybe we’ll talk.
...
Harry Potter: Wait, why do Hogwarts faculty trust the Defense Professor when the first rule of wizardry is “Don’t trust the Defense Professor?”
Defense Professor: Because the Hogwarts faculty are fools. Trust is for the weak, anyhow. The only real currency is a totally trustless currency.
...
Defense Professor: Granger is, of course, trusting that The Adversary never controls Hogwarts, Gringotts, and the Ministry of Magic at the same time.
Ron Weasley: That seems pretty reasonable, though.
Defense Professor: You think a far-reaching conspiracy can’t simultaneously capture all your trusted institutions? I love the young and naive.
...
Defense Professor: [...] By the eldritch rites of Satoshi, transfer to my exchange’s account three infinitely divisible currency units. I’ll bounce a fraction of them off your toy network into something that the Stellarmus spell will trade for a ChoChang!JPY, swap that for a cryptocurrency with actual value, and turn you into a value pump.