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Blockchains: Past, Present and Future [video]

69 points by vram22 10y ago

dang 10y ago
Url changed from http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blockchains-at-google/ http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blo..., which points to this.
jph 10y ago
Great talk. I'm building blockchain mobile projects for ThoughtWorks, and I see the top value within areas of high-stakes security, for secure distributed ledgers that maintain consistency even if a party is unknowingly compromised.
- wslh 10y ago
  Could you give more details about the kind of blockchain projects are you involved in? Are you using public or private blockchains?
brighton36 10y ago
This guy understands blockchains like Deepak Chopra understands quantum physics. As pitched by William, there's no difference between a blockchain and a message passing system. (Which begs the question of why this matters)
- mpeg 10y ago
  There's a high degree of bullshit and opportunism around blockchains. Some people want to believe blockchains are a solution for everything because they are not technical. Like the guy in the video, when all you have is a hammer... If you understand the tech, it's just another data structure + consensus algorithm. Not everything needs to be decentralised, or to operate in a trustless network.
- mablap 10y ago
  I had never heard of that man before, but as soon as he started talking my bullshit radard beeped. He's talking to an audience of intelligent engineers like they've never heard of the blockchain. Come on give us some meat.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Obligatory "raises the question" nitpick :)
jeffreyrogers 10y ago
I'm very skeptical of the value of blockchains. It seems that people proposing them don't have any idea about when/why you'd use them over a more centralized system, and in many cases (e.g. financial applications) there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems).
- aminok 10y ago
  > there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems). Those regulations don't apply to peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions, just like they don't apply to physical cash transactions.
  - jeffreyrogers 10y ago
    They apply when you try to convert from a fiat currency to a digital currency and vice-versa. And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws. edit: there are also regulations that apply to physical cash transactions if they are over a certain amount.
    - aminok 10y ago
      Yes conversion is subject to regulation but I don't see how that prevents cryptocurrency/blockchain applications from being useful. >And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws. These laws will eventually be made obsolete, the same way obscenity laws were made obsolete by the internet.
  - mpeg 10y ago
    In the EU the e-money regulation applies to any kind of electronic cash transaction. If you become an Electronic Money Institution, in most cases you'll still have to follow KYC and AML laws. Bitcoin companies in the EU all do after certain thresholds.
negus 10y ago
tldr?
mablap 10y ago
because it [the blockchain] has legal implications, you have to look at it from a legal perspective as well, because its a transaction validation mechanism without anybody in the middle. So when these transactions are actually validated, they hold, they are true, and they are respected - and that is the legal aspect of it. That man is a "special advisor" to the Ethereum Foundation. (BTW, this was filmed on July 6 2016. Maybe he should have mentioned the DAO.) He then goes on to say that banks, not wanting the legal and business model innovations blockchains propose to affect the status quo, only see/use it as a technological innovation - implying this is bad. The blockchain is only one ledger. Once you write a line on the ledger, its just like any accounting ledger: you cannot erase the line above it. You just write a new line, and then you have a chain of history, and everything is recorded, and nothing can be erased. Absolutely clueless in his vision. Just another rich guy evangelizing the blockchain. His explanations are absolutely trivial, he should be going into the details, he's on the Google campus.
koevet 10y ago
Like the other commenting on this video, I felt the topic is addressed with a bit of superficiality. The guy talks about blockchains as if they were some kind of novel technology which is able to solve pretty much any problem. Still, I'd like to get deeper into understanding blockchains (I live in Switzerland and financial institutions around here are all excited around blockchains). The best technical resource I have found so far is this series of posts about understanding blockchains from a development perspective. http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/ http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/ Do you know any other developer-related resource worth looking at?
data37 10y ago
This guy has no clue about how it works. Only aware of all the hype around it and presenting the hype as facts. Does he understand about the blockchain size and the need to replicate it in every singe node? Does he understand why a blockchain can't be a database? or even an app platform?

69 points by vram22 10y ago

dang 10y ago

Url changed from http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blockchains-at-google/ http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blo..., which points to this.

jph 10y ago

Great talk. I'm building blockchain mobile projects for ThoughtWorks, and I see the top value within areas of high-stakes security, for secure distributed ledgers that maintain consistency even if a party is unknowingly compromised.

wslh 10y ago
Could you give more details about the kind of blockchain projects are you involved in? Are you using public or private blockchains?

brighton36 10y ago

This guy understands blockchains like Deepak Chopra understands quantum physics. As pitched by William, there's no difference between a blockchain and a message passing system. (Which begs the question of why this matters)

mpeg 10y ago
There's a high degree of bullshit and opportunism around blockchains. Some people want to believe blockchains are a solution for everything because they are not technical. Like the guy in the video, when all you have is a hammer... If you understand the tech, it's just another data structure + consensus algorithm. Not everything needs to be decentralised, or to operate in a trustless network.
mablap 10y ago
I had never heard of that man before, but as soon as he started talking my bullshit radard beeped. He's talking to an audience of intelligent engineers like they've never heard of the blockchain. Come on give us some meat.
ikeboy 10y ago
Obligatory "raises the question" nitpick :)

jeffreyrogers 10y ago

I'm very skeptical of the value of blockchains. It seems that people proposing them don't have any idea about when/why you'd use them over a more centralized system, and in many cases (e.g. financial applications) there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems).

aminok 10y ago
> there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems). Those regulations don't apply to peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions, just like they don't apply to physical cash transactions.
- jeffreyrogers 10y ago
  They apply when you try to convert from a fiat currency to a digital currency and vice-versa. And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws. edit: there are also regulations that apply to physical cash transactions if they are over a certain amount.
  - aminok 10y ago
    Yes conversion is subject to regulation but I don't see how that prevents cryptocurrency/blockchain applications from being useful. >And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws. These laws will eventually be made obsolete, the same way obscenity laws were made obsolete by the internet.
- mpeg 10y ago
  In the EU the e-money regulation applies to any kind of electronic cash transaction. If you become an Electronic Money Institution, in most cases you'll still have to follow KYC and AML laws. Bitcoin companies in the EU all do after certain thresholds.

negus 10y ago

tldr?

mablap 10y ago

because it [the blockchain] has legal implications, you have to look at it from a legal perspective as well, because its a transaction validation mechanism without anybody in the middle. So when these transactions are actually validated, they hold, they are true, and they are respected - and that is the legal aspect of it. That man is a "special advisor" to the Ethereum Foundation. (BTW, this was filmed on July 6 2016. Maybe he should have mentioned the DAO.) He then goes on to say that banks, not wanting the legal and business model innovations blockchains propose to affect the status quo, only see/use it as a technological innovation - implying this is bad. The blockchain is only one ledger. Once you write a line on the ledger, its just like any accounting ledger: you cannot erase the line above it. You just write a new line, and then you have a chain of history, and everything is recorded, and nothing can be erased. Absolutely clueless in his vision. Just another rich guy evangelizing the blockchain. His explanations are absolutely trivial, he should be going into the details, he's on the Google campus.

koevet 10y ago

Like the other commenting on this video, I felt the topic is addressed with a bit of superficiality. The guy talks about blockchains as if they were some kind of novel technology which is able to solve pretty much any problem. Still, I'd like to get deeper into understanding blockchains (I live in Switzerland and financial institutions around here are all excited around blockchains). The best technical resource I have found so far is this series of posts about understanding blockchains from a development perspective. http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/ http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/ Do you know any other developer-related resource worth looking at?

data37 10y ago

This guy has no clue about how it works. Only aware of all the hype around it and presenting the hype as facts. Does he understand about the blockchain size and the need to replicate it in every singe node? Does he understand why a blockchain can't be a database? or even an app platform?