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> The blockchain is for censorship resistance. The blockchain is for having an immutable[1] log of transactions that does not require trust in the peer that yo

by throwaway2016a 9y ago

> The blockchain is for censorship resistance. The blockchain is for having an immutable[1] log of transactions that does not require trust in the peer that you are making a transaction with. Off the top of my head... - Bank transactions - Security audit logs - Securities (stocks) - Corporate governance - Actual government - Legitimate business transactions where you don't want to have to worry about charge backs or bounced checks The article also falls into the trap of thinking Bitcoin and Blockchain are anonymous. They are not. Some blockchains try to be more anonymous. Bitcoin is not one of them. [1] Yes, I know the blockchain can be forked which in theory makes transactions mutable. However, the barrier to take advantage of that is prohibitively high and highly visible (i.e. is hard to do in secret).

throwaway2016a 9y ago
Furthermore... James Hudon has as his profile in Twitter "Bitcoin Bandit"... and this is his first and only Medium post... what is the motivation here?
tedsanders 9y ago
Blockchain does not reduce the need for trust, in my opinion. If I order pizza from you and pay with Bitcoin, I still have to trust that you'll deliver the pizza. There is no way around the need for trust (though of course there are mechanisms such as laws, police, and judges that help reinforce trust in our society). The only trust that blockchain provides is trust that a counterparty won't go back and change the ledger showing that a pizza was ordered. This solves the double spending problem, but it doesn't solve all the other kinds of fraud.
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  Agreed. I should have been more specific. It reduces the need to trust the person initiating the transaction. That person still needs to trust the entity that is supposed to provide value in exchange for that transaction. Unless the blockchain supports contracts and you have a well coded contract.
sliken 9y ago
Well blockchains have a few problems: blockchains are extremely slow, the global bitcoin transactions could run on a raspberry pi if using a centralized technology and you need a large population of users, otherwise it's trivial to do to 51% attack So your use cases either hit the too slow problem, of if they use their own block chain the 51% problem. Most would be better off with a git repo with signed commits. That way 3rd parties could audit, you couldn't arbitrarily edit older transactions, and you wouldn't be limited by performance or the 51% problem.
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  The 51% problem is not relevant for private blockchains unless you allow the public to mine. In a secure system like a bank you could allow transaction to go through the network and trust a handful of well secured machines to do the actual mining. Alternatively you can piggy back of an existing blockchain where the 51% rule is less of a problem because of high hash rates. I agree, Bitcoin is painfully slow. But not all other blockchains are. Many have one minute solve times which is acceptable for many transactions and for low value transactions you might even be OK with accepting it as soon as it hits the mempool.
  - Avshalom 9y ago
    Trust is also irrelevant for private blockchains.
    - throwaway2016a 9y ago
      Trust is only irrelevant on a private blockchain if you can guarantee control of all systems within the network at all times. Which if you're a bank and you have many branches around the world that is no small feat. Also, you may be a private blockchain run by multiple organizations (multiple banks for instance). But for argument sake say trust-less is not a selling feature. Immutability is. And yes, immutability can be achieved with traditional database systems, enforcing it with cryptography adds another layer.

throwaway2016a 9y ago

Furthermore... James Hudon has as his profile in Twitter "Bitcoin Bandit"... and this is his first and only Medium post... what is the motivation here?

tedsanders 9y ago

Blockchain does not reduce the need for trust, in my opinion. If I order pizza from you and pay with Bitcoin, I still have to trust that you'll deliver the pizza. There is no way around the need for trust (though of course there are mechanisms such as laws, police, and judges that help reinforce trust in our society). The only trust that blockchain provides is trust that a counterparty won't go back and change the ledger showing that a pizza was ordered. This solves the double spending problem, but it doesn't solve all the other kinds of fraud.

throwaway2016a 9y ago
Agreed. I should have been more specific. It reduces the need to trust the person initiating the transaction. That person still needs to trust the entity that is supposed to provide value in exchange for that transaction. Unless the blockchain supports contracts and you have a well coded contract.

sliken 9y ago

Well blockchains have a few problems: blockchains are extremely slow, the global bitcoin transactions could run on a raspberry pi if using a centralized technology and you need a large population of users, otherwise it's trivial to do to 51% attack So your use cases either hit the too slow problem, of if they use their own block chain the 51% problem. Most would be better off with a git repo with signed commits. That way 3rd parties could audit, you couldn't arbitrarily edit older transactions, and you wouldn't be limited by performance or the 51% problem.

throwaway2016a 9y ago
The 51% problem is not relevant for private blockchains unless you allow the public to mine. In a secure system like a bank you could allow transaction to go through the network and trust a handful of well secured machines to do the actual mining. Alternatively you can piggy back of an existing blockchain where the 51% rule is less of a problem because of high hash rates. I agree, Bitcoin is painfully slow. But not all other blockchains are. Many have one minute solve times which is acceptable for many transactions and for low value transactions you might even be OK with accepting it as soon as it hits the mempool.
- Avshalom 9y ago
  Trust is also irrelevant for private blockchains.
  - throwaway2016a 9y ago
    Trust is only irrelevant on a private blockchain if you can guarantee control of all systems within the network at all times. Which if you're a bank and you have many branches around the world that is no small feat. Also, you may be a private blockchain run by multiple organizations (multiple banks for instance). But for argument sake say trust-less is not a selling feature. Immutability is. And yes, immutability can be achieved with traditional database systems, enforcing it with cryptography adds another layer.