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The “block” in blockchain is due to it being a byzantine fault tolerant replicated state machine. If it were centralised there would be no need for a block. Tha

by zadler 8y ago

The “block” in blockchain is due to it being a byzantine fault tolerant replicated state machine. If it were centralised there would be no need for a block. That may be the main distinguishing characteristic. Git is another example of an application running on a hash chain, but it doesn’t have blocks because it doesn’t require a slow / costly consensus process.

bigiain 8y ago
Feels a bit like that's a post-facto argument to me. It sounds like the Surity thing had "blocks" consisting of a week's worth of documents which got chained together and had their hash published irrevocably every week. Without the subsequent invention and popularity of the specific implementation of the bitcoin blockchain - I don't think the slow/costly consensus "feature" could be considered a requirement to distinguish between "hash chains" and "block chains" like that. (But I'm regularly on the losing side of nomenclature arguments - I'm still pissed at all the people who've decided they should call my non-autonomous quadcopters "drones"...)
- jobigoud 8y ago
  > I'm still pissed at all the people who've decided they should call my non-autonomous quadcopters "drones" Apparently we should call them quadpters because it's based on helicopter for which the ethymology is not heli + copter, but helico + pter, like in helicoidal and pterodactyl.
  - taejo 8y ago
    Or tetrapter, to stick with Greek roots (though I'm personally fine with heteroradicalism!)
  - bigiain 8y ago
    From now on, I'm shall call them "spinning dinosaurs"! "Hey mister! Is that your drone?" "No kid, it's not a drone, it's a spinning dinosaur..."
- bittcto 8y ago
  The entire point of Bitcoin is the distributed trustless consensus mechanism. Read the Nakamoto white paper, it’s all about double spending. A chain of hashed data dates back to Merkle himself, that’s what a Merkle tree is. The entire point of bitcoin is distributed independent truth and that’s the entire point of a Blockchain.
maxerickson 8y ago
The bitcoin whitepaper used the word "block" in the sense of "some data under a given hash". https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf It didn't use the word block in the sense of "to stop people from forging history".
- bittcto 8y ago
  The entire point of Bitcoin is the distributed trustless consensus mechanism. Read the Nakamoto white paper, it’s all about double spending. A chain of hashed data dates back to Merkle himself, that’s what a Merkle tree is. The entire point of bitcoin is distributed independent truth and that’s the entire point of a Blockchain.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Your copy pasta is somewhat less effective when I linked the whitepaper to make my point.

by zadler 8y ago

bigiain 8y ago

Feels a bit like that's a post-facto argument to me. It sounds like the Surity thing had "blocks" consisting of a week's worth of documents which got chained together and had their hash published irrevocably every week. Without the subsequent invention and popularity of the specific implementation of the bitcoin blockchain - I don't think the slow/costly consensus "feature" could be considered a requirement to distinguish between "hash chains" and "block chains" like that. (But I'm regularly on the losing side of nomenclature arguments - I'm still pissed at all the people who've decided they should call my non-autonomous quadcopters "drones"...)

jobigoud 8y ago
> I'm still pissed at all the people who've decided they should call my non-autonomous quadcopters "drones" Apparently we should call them quadpters because it's based on helicopter for which the ethymology is not heli + copter, but helico + pter, like in helicoidal and pterodactyl.
- taejo 8y ago
  Or tetrapter, to stick with Greek roots (though I'm personally fine with heteroradicalism!)
- bigiain 8y ago
  From now on, I'm shall call them "spinning dinosaurs"! "Hey mister! Is that your drone?" "No kid, it's not a drone, it's a spinning dinosaur..."
bittcto 8y ago
The entire point of Bitcoin is the distributed trustless consensus mechanism. Read the Nakamoto white paper, it’s all about double spending. A chain of hashed data dates back to Merkle himself, that’s what a Merkle tree is. The entire point of bitcoin is distributed independent truth and that’s the entire point of a Blockchain.

maxerickson 8y ago

The bitcoin whitepaper used the word "block" in the sense of "some data under a given hash". https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf It didn't use the word block in the sense of "to stop people from forging history".

bittcto 8y ago
The entire point of Bitcoin is the distributed trustless consensus mechanism. Read the Nakamoto white paper, it’s all about double spending. A chain of hashed data dates back to Merkle himself, that’s what a Merkle tree is. The entire point of bitcoin is distributed independent truth and that’s the entire point of a Blockchain.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Your copy pasta is somewhat less effective when I linked the whitepaper to make my point.