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> increasingly a literally meaningless marketing buzzword Agree, "blockchain" is getting more diluted. To me, it still has enough information content to be u

by trentmc 10y ago

> increasingly a literally meaningless marketing buzzword Agree, "blockchain" is getting more diluted. To me, it still has enough information content to be useful. Just because different people have different definitions doesn't mean the information content is zero. People may agree on the broad ideas and disagree about the specifics. And as discussed in another comment, definitions are nonetheless useful to help summarize a set of properties, help communication, and more. For example, I think most people would agree a blockchain needs to have the property of having a consensus mechanism. Versus say a file system which typically doesn't.

davidgerard 10y ago
Right. So what about your system is "blockchain" that, say, rsynced git repos (Merkle trees! Globally-identified hashes!) wouldn't be by that definition?
- trentmc 10y ago
  IPFS is very close to what you describe (Merkle trees! Globally-identified hashes!) but it doesn't claim to be a blockchain because it doesn't have a consensus mechanism, let alone a way to prevent double spends. And that's ok! It's designed for different problems, like file system style blob storage. It's not about "whether something is a blockchain", it's about "what's the right tool for the job"? I see value in complementary decentralized pieces of file systems, databases, processing, and more.
  - davidgerard 10y ago
    IPFS is very close to BitTorrent entirely using magnet: links, which does indeed have something close to a consensus mechanism (everything is checksummed to the hilt). > It's not about "whether something is a blockchain" It arguably is when you call your post "Blockchains for Artificial Intelligence".
    - trentmc 10y ago
      > have something close to a consensus mechanism For this context it's really about whether or not it can prevent double spends. Currently, it can't. Though its protocol stack has a place for consensus algorithms to achieve CAP-style strong consistency; and the IPFS team is working on consistency algorithms. > It arguably is when ... Point taken. The post is about things that many people consider to be blockchains or at least blockchain-like; BigchainDB, Ethereum, and others are in that category.

by trentmc 10y ago

davidgerard 10y ago

Right. So what about your system is "blockchain" that, say, rsynced git repos (Merkle trees! Globally-identified hashes!) wouldn't be by that definition?

trentmc 10y ago
IPFS is very close to what you describe (Merkle trees! Globally-identified hashes!) but it doesn't claim to be a blockchain because it doesn't have a consensus mechanism, let alone a way to prevent double spends. And that's ok! It's designed for different problems, like file system style blob storage. It's not about "whether something is a blockchain", it's about "what's the right tool for the job"? I see value in complementary decentralized pieces of file systems, databases, processing, and more.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  IPFS is very close to BitTorrent entirely using magnet: links, which does indeed have something close to a consensus mechanism (everything is checksummed to the hilt). > It's not about "whether something is a blockchain" It arguably is when you call your post "Blockchains for Artificial Intelligence".
  - trentmc 10y ago
    > have something close to a consensus mechanism For this context it's really about whether or not it can prevent double spends. Currently, it can't. Though its protocol stack has a place for consensus algorithms to achieve CAP-style strong consistency; and the IPFS team is working on consistency algorithms. > It arguably is when ... Point taken. The post is about things that many people consider to be blockchains or at least blockchain-like; BigchainDB, Ethereum, and others are in that category.