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Comment by harryh | Hacker News Reader

This changes nothing. It was a publicity stunt that solved no actual problems and introduced tons of problems that didn't exist before. Except it didn't even do that because "regulators do not yet allow issuances via blockchain only, so we had to test it in parallel with the conventional issuance process."

It was a no-op.

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A lot of these things are seemingly no-ops because the tech has to be proven and withstood tests of legality. However some of these trust-less distributed systems are approaching a point where turning them into real systems in use is a matter of contractual agreement from a customer or peers involved and or the government. The disruption will be quite sudden once this happens.. assuming the tech moves faster than the bureaucracy, as is usually the case.

Calling it a no-op is pretty naive, any significant step towards allowing bearer tokens of more tradition securities has enormous value, and each step towards it has value as well.

It's a big deal imo, but a major blow for Bitcoin, because it's nowhere to be seen.

Have you ever purchased a bond? Ever wanted to sell one on the secondary market? Ever heard of the Securities Transfer Agents Medallion Program? You will if you try to trade bonds in the conventional way, which is a huge pain in the ass.

There is a lot of room for improvement by implementing the blockchain.

> You will if you try to trade bonds in the conventional way, which is a huge pain in the ass.

And that's a bunch of horsecrap. Do you buy stocks in your name too? No. Ordinary investors hold securities in street name with a brokerage.

I've bought corporates through Vanguard Brokerage Services, which actually doesn't have a great reputation for being friendly to buying individual securities. It's a click of the mouse and $2 per $1K face or half that if you have a large account. You can also call up the fixed income desk and do it over the phone. No problems.

They will use a private net so it's irrelevant to Bitcoin or Ethereum.

What happens when I buy a bond and then I accidentally lose my private key?

I don't think JP Morgan is going to give you the private key to your bond. This is a slightly more decentralized version of holding securities in street name. It's less painful than direct registration, it's publicly auditable, and faster to settle.

What happens when JP Morgan loses my private key?

I mean, I hear you. I 100% get why people are interested. I just don't see why it has to be a blockchain vs a centralized database that DTCC controls access to.

Databases are notoriously insecure.

Databases store all the money for basically everyone in the developed world. They seem to be working ok.

As opposed to bitcoin, where nobody has ever lost money ever.

Why not? Transactions will still be manually verified of course, but a private key is a pretty good signal that it was valid.

There are safeguards in place that must survive the rigors of external auditors.

And if those systems fail (as all systems will fail at some point) then....my bond is just gone? Poof? Like all those lost bitcoins.

There are a lot of reasons that bearer bonds are no longer issued in most jurisdictions. This is one of them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer_bond

I can't respond to this without violating an NDA. Sorry.

Eh. Bummer. I could totally be wrong about this, and I'm super curious since a lot of smart people seem to be into it. I just don't see the reasoning behind things.

Thanks for sharing what you could!

> I'm super curious since a lot of smart people seem to be into it.

Because trendy buzz.

It's not anonymous, so you just prove who you are.

To who? It's a de-centralized database.

Yes, but you have to associate identity with your public key. This is for bonds, not buying drugs.

Just transfer bonds into a new key pair. A costly hassle I am sure. Don't lose your key!

Yes, yes. To who am I going to prove my identity though? There's no one that, once I've done that, can go into the blockchain and fix things up.

This is why there are so many lost bitcoins that are 100% unrecoverable.

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