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Why don't you trust the Government to track it if you trust the Government to enforce it? That is, why do you need "trustless" if you need to trust someone furt

Why don't you trust the Government to track it if you trust the Government to enforce it? That is, why do you need "trustless" if you need to trust someone further down the line anyway?

fiatjaf 9y ago
You don't need the government, you need the society at all. These things can be done in a lot of ways, all them compatible with a trusted ledger that keeps track unambiguously of who owns what. Notary services were for a long time independent of the State, they may still be in some countries and places. This is indeed something in which a global decentralized trusted ledger can help.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  See my "property ownership == enforcement" comment above. If you yourself are enforcing your monopoly over your property - you can stick a sign outside your front door saying "trespassers will be shot" and be done with it. If it's a militia, have them do whatever they think is reasonable notice. If you're depending on your local community, stick it on a community noticeboard. The question is, exactly why do you need a trustless ledger in order to post notice that you're willing to enforce your monopoly? What problem, precisely, does a blockchain solve?
  - darawk 9y ago
    You don't need to solve every problem to solve some problems. Blockchains don't address enforcement for real property. They do address everything else. And everything else is a big deal.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      I don't think they do address everything else - or rather, I believe that if you have to trust an entity for enforcement, you have a perfect avenue for everything else along with that. A blockchain is specifically designed for situations you have no trust in anything (except that 51% of mining power is not colluding in a specific way) - the rest of the time, there are much cheaper and simpler solutions.
      - darawk 9y ago
        The blockchain solves the problem of assignment and transference of property rights. Right now that process in many places is slow, expensive, error prone, and corruption prone. Blockchains completely eliminate that, full stop. Yes, you still need the authorities for enforcement, so obviously blockchains do not create some utopia where everything works perfectly, but they do solve big, real problems.
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    Shallow thinking.
DennisP 9y ago
In my nice first-world country I do trust the government to track it. But in many third-world countries, deed registers are prone to forgery and bribery, and it's not uncommon for people to discover they suddenly don't own their land. I've seen economists argue that this is a major factor limiting economic growth in those countries. Probably some of those countries would like to fix this, and for them, a blockchain might make sense...say with multiple government entities cross-signing property transfers, rather than requiring all property owners to hold their own keys.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  > it's not uncommon for people to discover they suddenly don't own their land The thing is, the same Government could generally just storm in with guns and say "this is ours now". A known-good register doesn't solve the issue unless you have a separate mechanism of enforcing the register... in which case the solution is filing your deed with the people you trust to enforce it, not using a blockchain. Also: if you had multiple Government entities cross-signing property transfers, they could just make the lot of it public the normal way, no blockchain necessary. Irrevocability comes from people making copies of the list of transfers.
  - Torgo 9y ago
    If you're interested, this is called triple-ledger accounting, you just have to keep all the receipts. This has the advantage that you can keep transactions private until the point that it needs to be made public.
Torgo 9y ago
There are all kinds of problems that unforgeable append-only public ledgers make less crap while not solving the fundamental problem that people are at the center of all people-related transactions. For instance I can bribe a notary to backdate a notarization. Can't bribe a blockchain. This is good. There are lots of things like this.
adridadou 9y ago
I think that the devil is in the details. Imagine this situation. Someone comes, takes your home and says "this is mine!". Now you have to go to your government and prove that the person stole from you because it is yours. Some governments are efficient at providing this proof, some aren't. Some countries in Africa have a huge problem with this. Where ppl go to other people's houses and sell them even though it is not theirs. And because it takes up to two years for someone to prove the ownership, sure the government will enforce the ownership eventually but two years is a long time. I've seen pictures of houses where the owner sprayed "This house is not for sale" to avoid this issue. Now imagine a system where proving ownership is fast, nearly free and very hard to forge. The incentive to cheat the system is much smaller than before. Using a blockchain to handle proof of ownership is a great way to have a secure and nearly free. Sometimes it is not about being able or not but how cheap / expensive it is and how slow / fast the process is.

Why don't you trust the Government to track it if you trust the Government to enforce it? That is, why do you need "trustless" if you need to trust someone further down the line anyway?

fiatjaf 9y ago

You don't need the government, you need the society at all. These things can be done in a lot of ways, all them compatible with a trusted ledger that keeps track unambiguously of who owns what. Notary services were for a long time independent of the State, they may still be in some countries and places. This is indeed something in which a global decentralized trusted ledger can help.

vertex-four 9y ago
See my "property ownership == enforcement" comment above. If you yourself are enforcing your monopoly over your property - you can stick a sign outside your front door saying "trespassers will be shot" and be done with it. If it's a militia, have them do whatever they think is reasonable notice. If you're depending on your local community, stick it on a community noticeboard. The question is, exactly why do you need a trustless ledger in order to post notice that you're willing to enforce your monopoly? What problem, precisely, does a blockchain solve?
- darawk 9y ago
  You don't need to solve every problem to solve some problems. Blockchains don't address enforcement for real property. They do address everything else. And everything else is a big deal.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    I don't think they do address everything else - or rather, I believe that if you have to trust an entity for enforcement, you have a perfect avenue for everything else along with that. A blockchain is specifically designed for situations you have no trust in anything (except that 51% of mining power is not colluding in a specific way) - the rest of the time, there are much cheaper and simpler solutions.
    - darawk 9y ago
      The blockchain solves the problem of assignment and transference of property rights. Right now that process in many places is slow, expensive, error prone, and corruption prone. Blockchains completely eliminate that, full stop. Yes, you still need the authorities for enforcement, so obviously blockchains do not create some utopia where everything works perfectly, but they do solve big, real problems.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Shallow thinking.

DennisP 9y ago

In my nice first-world country I do trust the government to track it. But in many third-world countries, deed registers are prone to forgery and bribery, and it's not uncommon for people to discover they suddenly don't own their land. I've seen economists argue that this is a major factor limiting economic growth in those countries. Probably some of those countries would like to fix this, and for them, a blockchain might make sense...say with multiple government entities cross-signing property transfers, rather than requiring all property owners to hold their own keys.

vertex-four 9y ago
> it's not uncommon for people to discover they suddenly don't own their land The thing is, the same Government could generally just storm in with guns and say "this is ours now". A known-good register doesn't solve the issue unless you have a separate mechanism of enforcing the register... in which case the solution is filing your deed with the people you trust to enforce it, not using a blockchain. Also: if you had multiple Government entities cross-signing property transfers, they could just make the lot of it public the normal way, no blockchain necessary. Irrevocability comes from people making copies of the list of transfers.
- Torgo 9y ago
  If you're interested, this is called triple-ledger accounting, you just have to keep all the receipts. This has the advantage that you can keep transactions private until the point that it needs to be made public.

Torgo 9y ago

There are all kinds of problems that unforgeable append-only public ledgers make less crap while not solving the fundamental problem that people are at the center of all people-related transactions. For instance I can bribe a notary to backdate a notarization. Can't bribe a blockchain. This is good. There are lots of things like this.

adridadou 9y ago

I think that the devil is in the details. Imagine this situation. Someone comes, takes your home and says "this is mine!". Now you have to go to your government and prove that the person stole from you because it is yours. Some governments are efficient at providing this proof, some aren't. Some countries in Africa have a huge problem with this. Where ppl go to other people's houses and sell them even though it is not theirs. And because it takes up to two years for someone to prove the ownership, sure the government will enforce the ownership eventually but two years is a long time. I've seen pictures of houses where the owner sprayed "This house is not for sale" to avoid this issue. Now imagine a system where proving ownership is fast, nearly free and very hard to forge. The incentive to cheat the system is much smaller than before. Using a blockchain to handle proof of ownership is a great way to have a secure and nearly free. Sometimes it is not about being able or not but how cheap / expensive it is and how slow / fast the process is.