9 ms·

Isn't he discussing cryptocurrencies in particular rather than blockchain in general? There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Correc

Isn't he discussing cryptocurrencies in particular rather than blockchain in general? There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm not an expert in blockchain by any means.

moocowtruck 9y ago
is there a spec for block chain? i'm confused by what people mean by block chain and the only thing i can find is this loosely written white paper
- icebraining 9y ago
  The original Bitcoin paper is essentially a description of the blockchain.
  - fruitzome 9y ago
    A blockchain is just 1 of the innovations that went into the bitcoin protocol. Finally people are seeing that a blockchain without POW or censorship resistance is bullshit. This is why bitcoin (cash) is more important than ever.
    - cglace 9y ago
      Is bitcoin really important? I think most people have no practical use for it.
      - fruitzome 9y ago
        2B+ people do not have access to banking or trade. They are poor because we do not trade with them. I couldn't pay someone in South Africa rural area for something worth $2 without bitcoin. Many other people are censored. Billions more have their wealth devalued via inflation. Bitcoin is a way for people to be free without any state taking their money (see Greece)
        dlp211 9y ago
        So these people are essentially poor and don't have access to trade and Banking, but they are going to have access to the blockchain, hardware wallets, and the various other technologies they need, and this will all happen before banks or mobile app payment systems are able to capture the market? Call me a skeptic.
        cachvico 9y ago
        Yes. The implication is that the 2B unbanked will get access to a cheap Android, and therefore ability to trade instantly with anyone anywhere with no fees, before the banana state fixes their massively corrupt government.
        acdha 9y ago
        > ability to trade instantly with anyone anywhere with no fees Neither of those statements has ever been true and in recent years they've been ludicrously untrue — affluent people in developed countries were complaining about the transaction costs and they're supposed to be transformative for people in a developing country?
        cachvico 9y ago
        Ethereum and Litecoin among others offer fast and cheap transactions today, and efforts are underway to solve this problem for Bitcoin (e.g. Lightning Network). There will likely be a trade-off or balance of trust against transaction speed and cost. We're still working out how to build it and so we're not there yet, but my belief holds; the banana governments are not going to disappear anytime soon.
        acdha 9y ago
        Fast and cheap are still not synonyms for instant and free but that’s at least possibly closer to one day being competitive with the existing mobile systems. Those existing systems are also useful for evaluating the claims that this avoids bad governments, which is to say that it’s limited to bypassing antiquated banks. A networked system can’t avoid a sovereign state unless that state is completely inept, at which point everyone will be using a neighboring currency or USD anyway.
  - untog 9y ago
    > There are many uses for blockchain outside of cryptocurrency > What is a good spec for blockchain? > Bitcoin
- ropeadopepope 9y ago
  Here's a decent writeup on the blockchain: https://infogalactic.com/info/Blockchain https://infogalactic.com/info/Blockchain
- EthanHeilman 9y ago
  There is no consensus definition of what a blockchain is. In fact the Satoshi whitepaper that introduced Bitcoin does not even use the word blockchain it talks about a hash chain of blocks a concept which predates Bitcoin by ~30 years. The real innovation of Bitcoin was to use PoW to both limit Sybil attacks and to make additions to the hash chain computationally expensive to revert. Often however when people talk about blockchains they are talking about systems which don't use PoW at all. Like end-to-end encryption or peer-to-peer networks blockchain describes a cloud of concepts and technologies. A better terminology would be DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology).
  - jason_slack 9y ago
    If so many companies are doing things for the blockchain, are they storing in the same blockchain as bitcoin or are companies creating more blockchains and needing miners to help mine, etc,
    - EthanHeilman 9y ago
      We are still very much in the experimental phase of the technology and companies are taking many different approaches. Some companies are using Ethereum as their blockchain so they don't have to build and operate one. Other companies are launching blockchains by which they mean a ledger created by a set of trusted validators running a BFT algorithm (see Distributed Systems). Systems built on a trusted set of validators don't need miners as they don't use PoW.
      - jason_slack 9y ago
        That makes sense. Thanks for explaining. They really just mean a ledger. Doesn't one lose the trust if the ledger is not distributed and verified by outsiders? Using a trusted set of validators, I assume is an internal operation. They aren't asking "Joe Nobody" off the street to become a trusted validator...
        EthanHeilman 9y ago
dozzie 9y ago
> There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Well, yes, but most of them (my pet peeve being voting) are as bullshit as cryptocurrency. Do you have an example that is not a bullshit?
- ojr 9y ago
  online poker will probably move towards blockchain and you can do things to prevent spam when people pay fees, theres virtually no adoption of blockhain tech, things move slower in an open source project so its understandable
  - dozzie 9y ago
    I don't know a thing about poker, so I'll take it at a face value, but the spam prevention idea is bullshit. It's not new, it wasn't new even twenty years ago, from what I remember. It wouldn't fly back then, and nothing substantial changed since then.
    - kthejoker2 9y ago
      Can you point me to some papers, books, etc to support this claim? Trying to understand the "block chain is BS" side of the argument, I'm fairly neutral but I rarely see any technical arguments against the concept.
      - paulgb 9y ago
        See Hashcash, which long predates the blockchain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
icebraining 9y ago
That's what people keep saying, but I'm yet to see one that is actually a blockchain (specifically, "private blockchains" are a nonsense concept, they're just merkel trees, like git uses), or isn't better solved by some other mechanism.
- bradfitz 9y ago
  Go just got native support for private blockchains today: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/980332627159744512 https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/980332627159744512 (https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/103862 https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/103862)
  - edwincheese 9y ago
    For those who are unaware, it is April first today.
jayd16 9y ago
If you call it a block chain, you're almost certainly referring to cryptocurrency or some kind of monetary policy. If you want to talk about something useful you were probably calling it something like a signed/verifiable log.
arisAlexis 9y ago
yes ofc. don't read much onto biased hate posts
pdpi 9y ago
In the strict sense? Git histories are blockchains, so there’s definitely a use. In the loose sense? People seem to conflate “blockchain” with “decentralised concensus”. At least nakamoto consensus doesn’t work outside of currency-like applications. PoS-based systems are probably bound by the same limitations there, too.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  I have never seen someone use “blockchain” to describe a structure which can be rewritten or tampered with. Git commit dags aren’t a blockchain by anyone’s definition, as far as I’m aware.
  - pdpi 9y ago
    Again — people tend to talk about Blockchain as a combination of the data structure and some sort of consensus algorithm but the term only properly refers to the data structure. The only difference between it and a git history is that git histories are dags instead of trees — The hash-of-parent-node structure is the exact same, except commits can have multiple parents. The tamper resistance of the data structure itself comes from the hashes: it serves as both a pointer and a checksum for the previous nodes.
asfgjadfgionoin 9y ago
>There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Name one.
- as300 9y ago
  Global computer and storage system
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    Git?
    - lojack 9y ago
      I didn’t realize git was Turing complete
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        "Turing complete" wasn't part of GP's suggestion; my reply therefore still applies. On top of that, Ethereum's "turing complete" relies on an unsafe, unproven and likely broken programming language. And I didn't realise the secrets I gave to my notary were out in the open. Hint: they're not, and that's legally enforceable. The blockchain is nothing because data is [legally] [1] nothing. You might as well just use public key cryptography and release your data over BitTorrent, like Wikileaks did. It'll get distributed based on supply & demand, and using BitTorrent is still cheaper & efficient than blockchain. [1] At least, in the EU.
        lojack 9y ago
        With the wonders of cryptography, you don't necessarily need to put secrets out in the open to notarize something on the blockchain. You can quite easily use a one way hash on the secret document, allowing you to verify the authenticity and the timestamp, but preventing someone from reversing the operation and seeing your secret information. Turing completeness was sort of assumed with "Global computer". Neither myself nor the poster mentioned Ethereum at all. He just mentioned "global computer" as one application of blockchain that isn't a cryptocurrency. I could have just as easily been talking about NEO, which uses a number of languages, including C# and Java. Further, while Ethereum does frequently use a new language (Solidity), it doesn't rely on it. Ethereum is a virtual machine, and the first implementation of the virtual machine was Solidity. Others have been made as well, its turing complete after all.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
This specific presentation seems to work perfectly even if you replace all occurrences of "cryptocurrency" with "blockchain" and vice versa.
xwvvvvwx 9y ago
All public blockchains require a cryptocurrency. The open nature of the protocols is only possible because of the built in system of financial incentives.

moocowtruck 9y ago

is there a spec for block chain? i'm confused by what people mean by block chain and the only thing i can find is this loosely written white paper

icebraining 9y ago
The original Bitcoin paper is essentially a description of the blockchain.
- fruitzome 9y ago
  A blockchain is just 1 of the innovations that went into the bitcoin protocol. Finally people are seeing that a blockchain without POW or censorship resistance is bullshit. This is why bitcoin (cash) is more important than ever.
  - cglace 9y ago
    Is bitcoin really important? I think most people have no practical use for it.
    - fruitzome 9y ago
      2B+ people do not have access to banking or trade. They are poor because we do not trade with them. I couldn't pay someone in South Africa rural area for something worth $2 without bitcoin. Many other people are censored. Billions more have their wealth devalued via inflation. Bitcoin is a way for people to be free without any state taking their money (see Greece)
      - dlp211 9y ago
        So these people are essentially poor and don't have access to trade and Banking, but they are going to have access to the blockchain, hardware wallets, and the various other technologies they need, and this will all happen before banks or mobile app payment systems are able to capture the market? Call me a skeptic.
        cachvico 9y ago
        Yes. The implication is that the 2B unbanked will get access to a cheap Android, and therefore ability to trade instantly with anyone anywhere with no fees, before the banana state fixes their massively corrupt government.
        acdha 9y ago
        > ability to trade instantly with anyone anywhere with no fees Neither of those statements has ever been true and in recent years they've been ludicrously untrue — affluent people in developed countries were complaining about the transaction costs and they're supposed to be transformative for people in a developing country?
        cachvico 9y ago
        Ethereum and Litecoin among others offer fast and cheap transactions today, and efforts are underway to solve this problem for Bitcoin (e.g. Lightning Network). There will likely be a trade-off or balance of trust against transaction speed and cost. We're still working out how to build it and so we're not there yet, but my belief holds; the banana governments are not going to disappear anytime soon.
        acdha 9y ago
        Fast and cheap are still not synonyms for instant and free but that’s at least possibly closer to one day being competitive with the existing mobile systems. Those existing systems are also useful for evaluating the claims that this avoids bad governments, which is to say that it’s limited to bypassing antiquated banks. A networked system can’t avoid a sovereign state unless that state is completely inept, at which point everyone will be using a neighboring currency or USD anyway.
- untog 9y ago
  > There are many uses for blockchain outside of cryptocurrency > What is a good spec for blockchain? > Bitcoin
ropeadopepope 9y ago
Here's a decent writeup on the blockchain: https://infogalactic.com/info/Blockchain https://infogalactic.com/info/Blockchain
EthanHeilman 9y ago
There is no consensus definition of what a blockchain is. In fact the Satoshi whitepaper that introduced Bitcoin does not even use the word blockchain it talks about a hash chain of blocks a concept which predates Bitcoin by ~30 years. The real innovation of Bitcoin was to use PoW to both limit Sybil attacks and to make additions to the hash chain computationally expensive to revert. Often however when people talk about blockchains they are talking about systems which don't use PoW at all. Like end-to-end encryption or peer-to-peer networks blockchain describes a cloud of concepts and technologies. A better terminology would be DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology).
- jason_slack 9y ago
  If so many companies are doing things for the blockchain, are they storing in the same blockchain as bitcoin or are companies creating more blockchains and needing miners to help mine, etc,
  - EthanHeilman 9y ago
    We are still very much in the experimental phase of the technology and companies are taking many different approaches. Some companies are using Ethereum as their blockchain so they don't have to build and operate one. Other companies are launching blockchains by which they mean a ledger created by a set of trusted validators running a BFT algorithm (see Distributed Systems). Systems built on a trusted set of validators don't need miners as they don't use PoW.
    - jason_slack 9y ago
      That makes sense. Thanks for explaining. They really just mean a ledger. Doesn't one lose the trust if the ledger is not distributed and verified by outsiders? Using a trusted set of validators, I assume is an internal operation. They aren't asking "Joe Nobody" off the street to become a trusted validator...
      - EthanHeilman 9y ago

dozzie 9y ago

> There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Well, yes, but most of them (my pet peeve being voting) are as bullshit as cryptocurrency. Do you have an example that is not a bullshit?

ojr 9y ago
online poker will probably move towards blockchain and you can do things to prevent spam when people pay fees, theres virtually no adoption of blockhain tech, things move slower in an open source project so its understandable
- dozzie 9y ago
  I don't know a thing about poker, so I'll take it at a face value, but the spam prevention idea is bullshit. It's not new, it wasn't new even twenty years ago, from what I remember. It wouldn't fly back then, and nothing substantial changed since then.
  - kthejoker2 9y ago
    Can you point me to some papers, books, etc to support this claim? Trying to understand the "block chain is BS" side of the argument, I'm fairly neutral but I rarely see any technical arguments against the concept.
    - paulgb 9y ago
      See Hashcash, which long predates the blockchain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

icebraining 9y ago

That's what people keep saying, but I'm yet to see one that is actually a blockchain (specifically, "private blockchains" are a nonsense concept, they're just merkel trees, like git uses), or isn't better solved by some other mechanism.

bradfitz 9y ago
Go just got native support for private blockchains today: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/980332627159744512 https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/980332627159744512 (https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/103862 https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/103862)
- edwincheese 9y ago
  For those who are unaware, it is April first today.

jayd16 9y ago

If you call it a block chain, you're almost certainly referring to cryptocurrency or some kind of monetary policy. If you want to talk about something useful you were probably calling it something like a signed/verifiable log.

arisAlexis 9y ago

yes ofc. don't read much onto biased hate posts

pdpi 9y ago

In the strict sense? Git histories are blockchains, so there’s definitely a use. In the loose sense? People seem to conflate “blockchain” with “decentralised concensus”. At least nakamoto consensus doesn’t work outside of currency-like applications. PoS-based systems are probably bound by the same limitations there, too.

umanwizard 9y ago
I have never seen someone use “blockchain” to describe a structure which can be rewritten or tampered with. Git commit dags aren’t a blockchain by anyone’s definition, as far as I’m aware.
- pdpi 9y ago
  Again — people tend to talk about Blockchain as a combination of the data structure and some sort of consensus algorithm but the term only properly refers to the data structure. The only difference between it and a git history is that git histories are dags instead of trees — The hash-of-parent-node structure is the exact same, except commits can have multiple parents. The tamper resistance of the data structure itself comes from the hashes: it serves as both a pointer and a checksum for the previous nodes.

asfgjadfgionoin 9y ago

>There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Name one.

as300 9y ago
Global computer and storage system
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Git?
  - lojack 9y ago
    I didn’t realize git was Turing complete
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      "Turing complete" wasn't part of GP's suggestion; my reply therefore still applies. On top of that, Ethereum's "turing complete" relies on an unsafe, unproven and likely broken programming language. And I didn't realise the secrets I gave to my notary were out in the open. Hint: they're not, and that's legally enforceable. The blockchain is nothing because data is [legally] [1] nothing. You might as well just use public key cryptography and release your data over BitTorrent, like Wikileaks did. It'll get distributed based on supply & demand, and using BitTorrent is still cheaper & efficient than blockchain. [1] At least, in the EU.
      - lojack 9y ago
        With the wonders of cryptography, you don't necessarily need to put secrets out in the open to notarize something on the blockchain. You can quite easily use a one way hash on the secret document, allowing you to verify the authenticity and the timestamp, but preventing someone from reversing the operation and seeing your secret information. Turing completeness was sort of assumed with "Global computer". Neither myself nor the poster mentioned Ethereum at all. He just mentioned "global computer" as one application of blockchain that isn't a cryptocurrency. I could have just as easily been talking about NEO, which uses a number of languages, including C# and Java. Further, while Ethereum does frequently use a new language (Solidity), it doesn't rely on it. Ethereum is a virtual machine, and the first implementation of the virtual machine was Solidity. Others have been made as well, its turing complete after all.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

This specific presentation seems to work perfectly even if you replace all occurrences of "cryptocurrency" with "blockchain" and vice versa.

xwvvvvwx 9y ago

All public blockchains require a cryptocurrency. The open nature of the protocols is only possible because of the built in system of financial incentives.