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That's a complete waste of tax payer money. Per the article this money will be used to actually find a use of blockchain, rather than funding existing ideas for
by Someone1234 9y ago
That's a complete waste of tax payer money. Per the article this money will be used to actually find a use of blockchain, rather than funding existing ideas for how blockchain could improve "security, efficiency, and turn-around-times for government services."
In other words, NYC is blowing $200M to chase a fad that they nor many in the press even seem to grasp. This is one of those schemes they look back on with shame and embarrassment.
I'm still waiting on the edge of my seat for the other uses for blockchain than pseudo currency. But I've been on the edge of my seat for three years now, and other than perhaps DNS I've not heard much.
Most of the proposals ignore the fact that the ledger gets larger and more costly [by design] which limits the growth potential. That's why nothing has ever come on tap (except currency/investments where increased cost is a benefit, not a drawback).
- CPLX 9y agoRead the press release again, NYC isn't spending $200MM on blockchain, that would literally be insane. They're just doing some of the usual EDC stuff, announcing some partnerships, opening some kind of coworking space for blockchain people or similar, the usual.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoI’m a blockchain bear, but I think this is a sensible move. Once the whole thing crashes we’ll have entrepreneurial engineers who have relocated to New York City.
- CPLX 9y agoYup. Brooklyn has become a genuine hub and destination for engineering talent interested in working on blockchain stuff. I'm pretty sure the whole blockchain thing as a category is a bubble at best and mostly scams at worst, but that still doesn't stop this general trend from likely having positive consequences for the area longterm.
- claytonjy 9y agoA couple weeks ago I saw an RFP (request for proposal) from a small midwestern town looking for blockchain solutions: > The purpose of this process is to solicit proposals from qualified vendors to provide a technology solution leveraging blockchain technology to overcome information sharing barriers, facilitate continuity of care, flag at-risk individuals, and serve as a communication and referral mechanism to appropriate services I wonder how widespread this is?
- Max_aaa 9y agoHow can this even be solved by the "blockchain"?
- Someone1234 9y agoIt cannot. It is a traditional "big data" problem that involves a large amount of data collection, merging, and analysis. Blockchain's distributed ledger offers no value-add here. Making it just a glorified Merkle Tree, but that doesn't even seem like the most appropriate way to handle this type of data set.
- Arnavion 9y ago(Nit: A blockchain is not a Merkle tree.)
- Someone1234 9y agoIf you remove the distributed ledge, that's how blocks are stored.
- Arnavion 9y agoThe contents of the blocks of the Bitcoin blockchain (and other cryptocurrency blockchains) happen to be Merkle trees (of transactions, in Bitcoin's case). Blockchains as a data structure are unrelated to Merkle trees.
- lawn 9y agoLike usual with these hyped technologies people use them and search for a problem. That said I take issue with "pseudo currency". In many ways it's a better currency. An ever increasing ledger isn't that big of a deal either as technology improves and not everyone needs to store the whole ledger.
- nbeleski 9y agoIt is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. To be honest, it would even be hard to classify it as a currency. It is not a currency, neither a store of value. The blockchain technology is also not really technologically relevant.
- lawn 9y ago> It is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. Oh yeah? * Donations to wikileaks. Paypal froze their account and there are tons of examples where they have done this without good cause. * Legal businesses like marijuana sellers, porn, escort services and gambling platforms have had trouble using and keeping payment services. Some have been forced to only accept cash payments as they couldn't accept credit cards. * A way to accept irreversible payments digitally. Credit card charge back fraud is a big problem. * Credit card companies take a 5-10% fee. Cryptocurrencies are much cheaper (see Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin is not a good example). * Send money to remote countries, for example to countries in war, Argentina or North Korea. Western Union is slow, expensive and cannot be used to send everywhere. With cryptocurrencies all you need is internet (sometimes a VPN as well).