3 ms·
What do you need a blockchain for? Blockchains are necessary when you need: Proof of publication Trustless time stamping Trustless transaction execution.
by DINKDINK 8y ago
What do you need a blockchain for? Blockchains are necessary when you need:
Proof of publication
Trustless time stamping
Trustless transaction execution.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoTrustless time stamping seems to be a good thing to have for notarising.
- confounded 8y agoIsn’t trusting the notary the whole point?
- toomanybeersies 8y agoQuis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen?
- DINKDINK 8y agoIf one needs proof of existence features, bitcoin already delivers this trustlessly at scale: https://opentimestamps.org/ https://opentimestamps.org/ You merkle hash effectively limitless data into a single bitcoin transaction. No need to spin up a new (and likely inefficient blockchain) to do notary tasks.
- leumas 8y agoYou would use it to add a dimension of time to the signatures. This allows for revoking/replacing keys while still keeping past messages valid. At work we've ben implementing a system like this where an identity is made up of a hierarchy of keys. Let's say you have 2 key pairs as part of your identity. You sign a message with key 2 and publish it on the blockchain at block height H. Then at some point in the future, you lose the private part of key 2 or it becomes compromised. So now you sign a message with key 1 that says "replace key 2 with key 3 from this point on" and you publish it to the blockchain. Now, any messages signed with key 2 before the replacement can still be deemed valid, but any future messages signed with the compromised key will not be valid.