Digital trust isn’t about knowing who you’re dealing with, it’s about knowing they can’t cheat without consequences. Smart contracts, zero-knowledge proofs, and cryptographic signatures make betrayal detectable and costly.
Discussion
Trust is established by knowing who you are dealing with over time, no shortcuts, no magic. Digital does not change it.
I think the point that Max was stressing is “make betrayal detectable”; you can actually verify objectively if they fucked you over, and so they will lose market trust forever (as opposed to now where you cannot verify objectively what they say/possess)
If you don't know them personally they can generate a new private key and keep screwing you and others over. The “trust” gained by cryptographic means is at best meta-trust or para-trust. But it will never beat knowing the person, and the person knowing they are known and honest people can come over and knock on their door if they've f’ed up with real consequences.
I don’t get when you say “they can generate a new private key”. If they move the funds to the new address you can simply track it (prof of reserve topic)
Anyway I was listening to Alex B. on the “all in bitcoin” podcast. I think he was rightly saying how we sometimes underestimate the concept of reputation (he was talking about in cashu banks topic). Sure they can fuck you over and run with your money, but they’ll lose trust forever and all future profit (they are actually inventivized to not fuck you over). In time will emerge the Trusted ones.
For sure we can never have 100% trust and sleep like a baby, but it surely will get better as the incentives will change and companies will be incentived to act in more trustful manner (on top of the fact that it’s getting easier and easier to move around and choose a different company)
You’re being too optimistic and overlooking history and human nature. CoinJoin, new mints, and plausible deniability make tracking futile. If you don’t hold the keys, you don’t have the coins — and no incentive replaces the trust built by knowing who’s behind it, by name and address. That’s why “not your keys, not your coins” still holds.
Oh for sure man don’t get me wrong, for the main stash of course it’s self-custody.
Here i was talking in relation to other services (cashu banks, smart-contract, etc)
Circling back to the original claim of the post, if you don't identify by your real physical identity, I don't care how good the smart contracts and cryptography you're using are; I'm not trusting you.
Now worries I totally get it man, different ppl have different levels of trust they are ready to try out, peace and love 🤙🏼♥️