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>To me "true blockchain technology" in the bitcoin sense of the design is open, permission-less and only has a few real applications. Beyond cryptocurrencies?

by simias 9y ago

>To me "true blockchain technology" in the bitcoin sense of the design is open, permission-less and only has a few real applications. Beyond cryptocurrencies? Go on, I'm all ears. I'm always amazed by how often I hear that claim (on HN and elsewhere) and yet nobody seems in a rush to be specific about it. The only other use case for blockchains I'm aware of that makes sense to me is some sort of IP protection scheme (mentioned in the article too). If you make a discovery you can write down "$me has discovered this and that", hash it and put it into the blockchain. Later you can use it to prove that you actually had that information at that date without needing any trusted peer or institution. But even then it only works if the chain can't be attacked you still need the currency aspect to motivate miners (or shareholders in a PoW scheme) to protect the chain.

endorphone 9y ago
As someone in the finance industry, a very beneficial use would be book of records / security holdings, which is currently such a precarious stack of crazy, with a massive barrier to entry. And it is making inroads but slowly given inertia and glacial pace of change (where the industry is most people sharing CSVs). The same thing for property transactions, insurance policies, etc etc etc. "But that's just a write-only distributed database....with a layer of asymmetric cryptography". Yeah... It is aggravating when some in the industry try to champion everything as a silver bullet, but it is just as flawed when many instantly veer to being anti-that thing just because. As an aside, proof-of- schemes are not necessary in many/most alternative blockchain scenarios. The egregious inefficiency of platforms like Bitcoin is not relevant for most other uses.
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  > As someone in the finance industry, a very beneficial use would be book of records / security holdings, which is > currently such a precarious stack of crazy, with a massive barrier to entry For some that entry barrier might be a feature :-)
- simias 9y ago
  >"But that's just a write-only distributed database....with a layer of asymmetric cryptography". Yeah... Glad we got that out of the way. >It is aggravating when some in the industry try to champion everything as a silver bullet, but it is just as flawed when many instantly veer to being anti-that thing just because. I disagree, it's not "just because". We're not talking about whether or not Rust or your Javascript framework du jour has a future. We're talking about a highly speculative bubble where people are dumping millions because they believe that the technology has a future. If Rust fails I'll have one more useless programming skill and a few codebases to rewrite. If cryptocurrencies collapse people are going to lose their homes. The whole "blockchain tech is here to stay" argument plays into that. I've heard some close friends use it to justify their investments in cryptocurrencies. Surely if everything is going to run on blockchains 10 years from now then surely at least one of the cryptocurrencies in my portfolio is going to be worth a ton then, right? Maybe let me rephrase my question in an other way: if somebody had asked you 10 years ago to solve the problem you're describing, what would you have replied? "I'm sorry I don't think that technology exists" or "you need some kind of write-only distributed database with a layer of asymmetric cryptography"? So no, it's not just me being a contrarian naysayer, there are real consequences to all this bullshit and pixie dust surrounding cryptocurrencies. I mean look at the replies for this joke tweet somebody linked elsewhere in the thread: https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/932649133256597505 https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/93264913325659750... Note the number of defensive tweets claiming the author doesn't know what they're talking about and how the blockchain is actually great: >Maybe learn how the technology works before pretending to be a snarky expert. This doesn't make you look smart. >very funny, but blockchain has some interesting use cases that might make some cros domain and cross org stuff better. >No one will need/want Blockchain is today's version of no one will need more than 640k RAM. >Blockchain has applications far beyond just coining it. >That’s a pretty short sighted way of thinking. Block chain based voting is a really good idea. Because apparently block chain voting is something that exists. I like this one too: > give me an actual current non hypothetical real world use case. Reply: > I'd be more inclined to answer this publicly if I were not actively working on a related project that I am not at liberty to discuss openly I could go and and on and on. I've gone through pages of this and the only actual use case I see mentioned is: >Might be useful for monitoring chain of custody for secure documents. Not that that’s a huge use case. Which I assume is related to the use case I mentioned in my previous comment. In my experience these types of replies are common on every public discussion of anything criticizing bitcoins or cryptocurrencies. So yeah, I don't think the bullshit is on my side, and neither is the burden of proof.
kodablah 9y ago
I have a need to store a series of verifiable messages in a decentralized way across many actors who I cannot trust. Say like a distributed, less-active subreddit. I would accept any BFT-like consensus mechanism library that's not a blockchain, but I can't really find any, so I might turn to a blockchain. If there were an embeddable, decentralized/distributed database (performance not a requirement) that handles adversarial users, I'd use that. Suggestions welcome because I don't know everything that's out there (preferably C/C++ or Rust or anything I can statically link).
- simias 9y ago
  I hope you enjoy paying a few dollars for every message and wait for at least 10 minutes before your message makes its way into a block. Or you could use PGP.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    Huh? I'm not using the bitcoin chain. I'm just embedding something like tendermint in my desktop app I'm distributing. Why does that cost money and why does it take 10 minutes? Also, I don't understand how PGP helps with things like storage or distribution.
    - simias 9y ago
      Email is decentralized (well, it can be, these days most people use one of the big providers but it's still compatible with 3rd party servers). IRC is also sort-of decentralized and works through a federation of servers. And I wasn't talking about bitcoin specifically either, I'm just doubtful that you could have: - A completely untrusted distributed "blockchain" style DB - Which would be fast and scale well enough to enable instant-messaging-style applications - While being almost completely free to use Currently Bitcoin can process a few thousand transactions per block, every 10 minutes. In 2015 reddit averaged about 2 million comments every day: https://redditblog.com/2015/12/31/reddit-in-2015/ https://redditblog.com/2015/12/31/reddit-in-2015/ Of course you may say that you don't want to create reddit, just a small chat with friends but it doesn't matter: your blockchain is only as secure as its worth so if you want trust-less security your only solution is to plug yourself on an existing blockchain OMNI-style. Then if you want your messages to end up on the chain you need to pay more than the competition.
cableshaft 9y ago
Use cases for blockchain technology include claims management (medical, auto, life, etc), fraud prevention, supply chains, provider and healthcare data. Four use cases, given in a bit more detail below, and that's just what my company (although not my department) is working on: https://www.blogs.conduent.com/2017/12/05/the-possibilities-of-blockchain-use-cases-for-b2b-b2c-and-government-services/ https://www.blogs.conduent.com/2017/12/05/the-possibilities-... https://www.blogs.conduent.com/2018/01/29/how-blockchain-could-revolutionize-the-healthcare-industry/ https://www.blogs.conduent.com/2018/01/29/how-blockchain-cou...
dsacco 9y ago
> Beyond cryptocurrencies? Go on, I'm all ears. I'm always amazed by how often I hear that claim (on HN and elsewhere) and yet nobody seems in a rush to be specific about it. A Byzantine fault-tolerant, distributed NTP protocol that does not rely on a trusted third party. That is a concrete, legitimate use case for a blockchain that meaningfully improves through a trustless, permissionless and decentralized system. For example, this could augment Google's RoughTime NTP protocol.[1] More abstractly, blockchains resolve many hard problems in cryptographic protocols that would otherwise require trusted third parties. There has been nontrivial academic attention for this particular possibility, including support from DARPA and the NSF.[2] Now you have heard someone making this claim and being specific about it on HN. ________________ 1. https://www.imperialviolet.org/2016/09/19/roughtime.html https://www.imperialviolet.org/2016/09/19/roughtime.html 2. https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/935.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/935.pdf
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  Are you specifically talking about recording times onto a new blockchain, or do you mean something like a timestamp based on block IDs?
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Recording signed time attestations onto a blockchain, establishing BFT consensus of the current time, using the blockchain consesus as an authoritative source for the current time.
    - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
      That would be a very interesting alternative to the current NTP infrastructure.

endorphone 9y ago
The discussion about whether or not blockchain technology is useful has literally nothing to do with cryptocurrency bubbles. Further, I gave specific examples, and you reply with a joke tweet (which, as an aside, no one has any duty or obligation wasting their time replying to, and is the sort of thing that yields an insular bubble of groupthink) and then more hand waving. Neat. The rest of us are just busy building solutions as the industry evolves.
- jmull 9y ago
  > The discussion about whether or not blockchain technology is useful has literally nothing to do with cryptocurrency bubbles. These seem very closely related at this point. A cryptocurrency bubble seems to be the primary use of blockchain tech so far, and the eye-popping amount of money seemingly involved appears to be the primary driver of interest in the technology. You can hardly think about one without the other. E.g., suppose you had a great use for blockchain -- say, your book of record/holdings -- along with a great plan to develop and roll a system based on it that had nothing to do with cryptocurrencies. You'd still have to account for what you plan to do if (when) enough money has been lost on cryptocurrencies that blockchain becomes a dirty word that will kill your system if it because associated with it. Beyond any technical differences, your non-blockchain competitors won't have to convince potential participants that their system's architecture isn't actually some tricky way to rip them off.
- simias 9y ago
  >The discussion about whether or not blockchain technology is useful has literally nothing to do with cryptocurrency bubbles. You really think people would be talking about "blockchains" if bitcoins wasn't worth thousands of dollars? Is there currently any notable application of this technology beyond cryptocurrencies? >Further, I gave specific examples That you immediately dismissed yourself as "just a write-only distributed database....with a layer of asymmetric cryptography". >you reply with a joke tweet (which, as an aside, no one has any duty or obligation wasting their time replying to It's true, but they did reply nonetheless, wouldn't have hurt to actually come up with a decent argument while they were at it. Still, it's really a common pattern in bitcoin discussions in my experience (just say that the author doesn't know what they're talking about without coming with any counterargument). You can find plenty of examples in the comments of this very much non-joke article: https://medium.com/@thedrbits/why-i-also-find-iota-deeply-alarming-99d4f2da3282 https://medium.com/@thedrbits/why-i-also-find-iota-deeply-al... I could probably come up with other examples but I don't have any duty or obligation to waste my time doing that so... > then more hand waving. Who's waving hands at whom in this scenario? >The rest of us are just busy building solutions as the industry evolves. Godspeed. I don't have any problem with that. I just wish the discussion around these technologies revolved more around technical arguments than ambiguous terminology.
  - endorphone 9y ago
    People have been talking about blockchains for many years (and in the financial space there are massive orgs all working together on concrete implementations. Change takes time). The fevered anti-blockchain pitch, on the other hand, has picked up in lockstep with the cryptocurrency hype. If you can't separate them that's a failing. It's a bit like the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, with people who woke up to cryptocurrency hype thinking that everyone became aware simultaneous with them. That you immediately dismissed yourself as "just a write-only distributed database....with a layer of asymmetric cryptography". That is the literal definition of a blockchain. In these sorts of arguments people are so desperate to shoot down "Bitcoin" that we end up with a No True Scotsman situation where everyone completely loses sight of the technology.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > You really think people would be talking about "blockchains" if bitcoins wasn't worth thousands of dollars? Is there currently any notable application of this technology beyond cryptocurrencies? Academic cryptographers and computer scientists specializing in Byzantine fault-tolerant distributed systems have been working on blockchain technology for several years now - since one Bitcoin was worth merely hundreds of dollars. To put this gently: you're being very snarky and combative in this thread, but you do not appear to be familiar with the basic academic literature and engineering that has gone into very legitimate blockchain technology research. Obviously there has been an influx of uninformed, trend-following funding recently, but it's a serious mistake to conflate those parties with the totality of work in the field. In fact, I gave two specific examples in a reply to another of your comments.
- ryanjshaw 9y ago
  I'm also in the finance industry. I'll give a concrete example of where I see blockchain technologies helping in my space, regulatory reporting of OTC derivatives transactions: 1. Regulators need to accept transaction reports, volume is in the hundreds of millions/reports/day so they don't have the technical competency to accept reports themselves 2. 3rd parties ("trade repositories") currently provide this infrastructure but regulators are learning that aggregating data across multiple trade repositories with different implementations is very difficult (particularly where dual-sided reporting across different trade repositories occur!); financial institutions are also ending up having to pay far more than cost to comply with regulations because the trade repositories are profit-driven enterprises 3. A private blockchain (e.g. Quorum and/or maybe Hyperledger's PoEL) solves these problems cleanly: a. regulators have confidence that market participants are playing by the rules and not manipulating (or submitting) reports after the fact. For those who don't know, there's a lot of incentive to 'fix missing reports' -- consider e.g. Merrill Lynch being fined 34.5m GBP for not reporting just 2 years worth of transactions [1]; how would a 'distributed database' give regulators confidence when that kind of 'incentive money' is involved in retro-fitting reports? b. market participants are happy because their highly confidential reporting data can delivered to regulators via simple access controls (even after the fact!) and infrastructure costs are fairly split across market participants in proportion to volume, and the industry effectively "self-regulates" itself (rather than trusting 3rd parties), which is generally an attribute of preferred solutions in the finance industry [1] https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-fines-merrill-lynch-failing-report-transactions https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-fines-merrill...
ryanjshaw 9y ago
With respect, it's difficult to follow what you are really saying. A few notes: * Block chain voting does exist; here's an example of it actively distributing real funds to real projects: https://www.dashcentral.org/budget https://www.dashcentral.org/budget * The fact that cryptocurrency prices are volatile does not allow one to draw any kind of inference that either blockchain-based solutions or cryptocurrencies have no future. Was the .com bubble proof that Internet was a waste of time? * I give a solid use case I'm currently exploring in a comment further down the thread; there are plenty of people out there smarter than I am, so if I have a real use case you can be sure some of those smarter people will come up with something equally valid * Finally, why are you trying to hard to prove a negative, and what makes you think you are able to foresee the future of a technology better than all the other immensely skilled technologists out there? You can't. Wait a couple years and if you're right you'll get to smirk at all the early adopters. If you're wrong, good luck with the job hunt. If that seems like a rational set of trade-offs to you, all the best.