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Yeah, I'm quite skeptical of it as well. If I'm being really charitable to it, then it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted

Yeah, I'm quite skeptical of it as well. If I'm being really charitable to it, then it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted intermediary. That said, it's unclear what practical value that has outside of purely digital applications like cryptocurrency. When you roll it into things in the real world (e.g., supply chains, health records, etc.) then you necessarily have to trust the data sources and sensors, at which point what good is a blockchain?

prostoalex 8y ago
> it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted intermediary At the expense of time. So most real-world use cases (securities trading, vehicular networks, payments) fail when you introduce a 10-minute delay required for distributed confirmation. For time-insensitive examples you've provided - supply chain and health records - the use cases work better, but who will dedicate the resources and mine the blocks to ensure that specific blockchain's survival?
easymodex 8y ago
Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court battle and your yacht and so on. Solution: blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company.
- Moodles 8y ago
  You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?
  - tom_ 8y ago
    It doesn't. You go to court like normal people.
  - the_snooze 8y ago
    Exactly. How does the real world's state get accurately put into a blockchain? My big beef with all the blockchain hype is that this doesn't seem to be addressed. They say "trustless" and "secure" and "transparent" all the time, but those assurances only exist within the very limited confines of the data structure itself. As soon as you hook it into real-world data, then those assurances only guarantee that fraud is accurately carried out.
  - easymodex 8y ago
    How is this not a problem if the court system is filled to the brim with situation that could have been solved with smart contracts in place. As for the yacht it's easy, the ownership is transfered from your address to the buyers address on the government's blockchain. :)
    - Moodles 8y ago
      hey everyone lets record every transaction from everyone on a big government database so we can solve trade disputes if someone steals my yacht and crashes it.
    - the_snooze 8y ago
      Let's say I'm the buyer and this happens. There's now a record on the government blockchain that says I own a yacht. Does that mean I physically have possession of the yacht now? How do we assure that what's in the blockchain is an accurate reflection of who actually has physical possession of the boat?
- creeble 8y ago
  But you still lose your yacht because it's not in the blockchain.
- Leace 8y ago
  > blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company. The DAO issue [0] clearly showed that "code is law" doesn't really work. It's people writing cryptocurrency software and running the nodes that are "the law". [0]: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-fork-return-dao-investor-funds/ https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-f...
- briatx 8y ago
  But code isn't law. You would have to rewrite parts of the legal system to support blockchain tokens as representing actual ownership, and there's strong reasons why you would never want to, such as loss of private keys, forgetting of passwords, or security vulnerabilities, or user error leading to complete asset loss. Otherwise you have a synchronization problem between the upcoming blockchain token system and the existing government deed registry, and of course the government registry would take preference, and has a history of working just fine for lower cost. This video is an excellent overview of this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmXIgLEAIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmXIgLEAIE I haven't seen blockchain systems as being more secure or more trustworthy. I see them being overhyped, subject to lax and magical thinking, and full of theft of coins due to hacks and scams.
  - easymodex 8y ago
    "and has a history of working just fine for lower cost." Citation needed. Also we are just talking opinions here, a lot of things seem impossible until they are actually here and in our everyday lives.
    - briatx 8y ago
      Maybe you should try watching the video I already cited, specifically this part: https://youtu.be/YxmXIgLEAIE?t=1404 https://youtu.be/YxmXIgLEAIE?t=1404 You might learn something.
- yifanl 8y ago
  If you and the buyer already have physical contact, you don't need a trustless system, you take him to court or vice versa if one party is unhappy with the transaction. The blockchain can't (or at the very least shouldn't) overwrite legal infrastructure.
Moodles 8y ago
Indeed I have conjectured multiple times that I think the only application of blockchains is in cryptocurrency. Introducing any physical asset like a yacht or a banana in Laos or a diamond in Africa really doesn't make sense: you can't literally put those physical things in the blockchain.
- gibsons77 8y ago
  I agree. You would need an oracle in order to put physical things on the blockchain, and that is subject to incorrect data or tampering. It's non-trivial, but not technically impossible.
  - vec 8y ago
    Yes, but if you have a mechanism (either technical or institutional) that you trust to attach real-world goods to your blockchain in a sufficiently correct and tamper-resistant manner, why not just let that mechanism manage your ledger directly and skip the blockchain entirely?
    - neospice 8y ago
      Those seem like two separate problems to me. The oracle reliably reports to the blockchain while the blockchain ensures that the historical record is tamper-proof.
      - UncleMeat 8y ago
        But why can you trust the oracle to report correctly but not to maintain the record?
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  > you can't literally put those physical things in the blockchain You can not otherwise too, right? A blockchain holds interactions/transactions not the data itself. Most blockchains are incredibly small in size. For example, the size of the entire Bitcoin blockchain is 215.84 GB [0]. [0] https://bitinfocharts.com https://bitinfocharts.com
hef19898 8y ago
Which is exactly the point I still try to get my head around when it comes to supply chains. First, for blockchain to work you need trustable sources. Problem is, when the aource is trustworthy, what added benefit comes from a blockchain? Second, having a, theoretically uninterrupted blockchain from the first raw material to, say, a car would provide way to much insight into supply chains. I pretty sure companies do not want that. Finally, and that is IMHO the haedest point to practically solve, you need to make 100 percent sure that the physical and information flow in your supply chain are never ever seperated. One single separation and your whole blockchain is worthless. And that risk is so incredibly high in the real world it's almost laughable. So, to make sure a given blockchain matches the physical product you need a trustworthy party to assure that. And then, what value does blockchain add? Someday someone a lot smarter than me will find a use case. At which I will say how damn obvious it is.
- abraham_lincoln 8y ago
  Have you worked in manufacturing with ERP systems and BoM transactions? I could see how this would be useful for medical device manufacturing, especially something like a pacemaker.
  - hef19898 8y ago
    Indeed I did. Thing is, I see how blockchain could help existing processes. I just don't see the revolution yet. Which puzzles me, since on the one side I see the potential but on the other hand I still fail to see a real use case. And that introgues me quite a lot.
- qnmaster 8y ago
  It's not an end-all for supply chains, but that doesn't make it useless. It still prevents forgery of old records. If someone signs something, they can't later go back and change it or claim they didn't.

prostoalex 8y ago

> it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted intermediary At the expense of time. So most real-world use cases (securities trading, vehicular networks, payments) fail when you introduce a 10-minute delay required for distributed confirmation. For time-insensitive examples you've provided - supply chain and health records - the use cases work better, but who will dedicate the resources and mine the blocks to ensure that specific blockchain's survival?

easymodex 8y ago

Say you initiate a contract to sell a yacht for 1 million $. You and your buyer go to a notary where all 3 of you sign the contract and all the proper procedures. You give the buyer the yacht and he says he will transfer you the money tomorrow. Meanwhile the buyer and the notary strike a shady deal to screw you over and make new contracts that say you sold it for 1k$. It's 2 against 1 and you will lose a costly court battle and your yacht and so on. Solution: blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company.

Moodles 8y ago
You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?
- tom_ 8y ago
  It doesn't. You go to court like normal people.
- the_snooze 8y ago
  Exactly. How does the real world's state get accurately put into a blockchain? My big beef with all the blockchain hype is that this doesn't seem to be addressed. They say "trustless" and "secure" and "transparent" all the time, but those assurances only exist within the very limited confines of the data structure itself. As soon as you hook it into real-world data, then those assurances only guarantee that fraud is accurately carried out.
- easymodex 8y ago
  How is this not a problem if the court system is filled to the brim with situation that could have been solved with smart contracts in place. As for the yacht it's easy, the ownership is transfered from your address to the buyers address on the government's blockchain. :)
  - Moodles 8y ago
    hey everyone lets record every transaction from everyone on a big government database so we can solve trade disputes if someone steals my yacht and crashes it.
  - the_snooze 8y ago
    Let's say I'm the buyer and this happens. There's now a record on the government blockchain that says I own a yacht. Does that mean I physically have possession of the yacht now? How do we assure that what's in the blockchain is an accurate reflection of who actually has physical possession of the boat?
creeble 8y ago
But you still lose your yacht because it's not in the blockchain.
Leace 8y ago
> blockchain smart contracts where code is law, more secure, trustworthy and transparent than any individual, bank, government or company. The DAO issue [0] clearly showed that "code is law" doesn't really work. It's people writing cryptocurrency software and running the nodes that are "the law". [0]: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-fork-return-dao-investor-funds/ https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-f...
briatx 8y ago
But code isn't law. You would have to rewrite parts of the legal system to support blockchain tokens as representing actual ownership, and there's strong reasons why you would never want to, such as loss of private keys, forgetting of passwords, or security vulnerabilities, or user error leading to complete asset loss. Otherwise you have a synchronization problem between the upcoming blockchain token system and the existing government deed registry, and of course the government registry would take preference, and has a history of working just fine for lower cost. This video is an excellent overview of this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmXIgLEAIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxmXIgLEAIE I haven't seen blockchain systems as being more secure or more trustworthy. I see them being overhyped, subject to lax and magical thinking, and full of theft of coins due to hacks and scams.
- easymodex 8y ago
  "and has a history of working just fine for lower cost." Citation needed. Also we are just talking opinions here, a lot of things seem impossible until they are actually here and in our everyday lives.
  - briatx 8y ago
    Maybe you should try watching the video I already cited, specifically this part: https://youtu.be/YxmXIgLEAIE?t=1404 https://youtu.be/YxmXIgLEAIE?t=1404 You might learn something.
yifanl 8y ago
If you and the buyer already have physical contact, you don't need a trustless system, you take him to court or vice versa if one party is unhappy with the transaction. The blockchain can't (or at the very least shouldn't) overwrite legal infrastructure.

Moodles 8y ago

Indeed I have conjectured multiple times that I think the only application of blockchains is in cryptocurrency. Introducing any physical asset like a yacht or a banana in Laos or a diamond in Africa really doesn't make sense: you can't literally put those physical things in the blockchain.

gibsons77 8y ago
I agree. You would need an oracle in order to put physical things on the blockchain, and that is subject to incorrect data or tampering. It's non-trivial, but not technically impossible.
- vec 8y ago
  Yes, but if you have a mechanism (either technical or institutional) that you trust to attach real-world goods to your blockchain in a sufficiently correct and tamper-resistant manner, why not just let that mechanism manage your ledger directly and skip the blockchain entirely?
  - neospice 8y ago
    Those seem like two separate problems to me. The oracle reliably reports to the blockchain while the blockchain ensures that the historical record is tamper-proof.
    - UncleMeat 8y ago
      But why can you trust the oracle to report correctly but not to maintain the record?
denzil_correa 8y ago
> you can't literally put those physical things in the blockchain You can not otherwise too, right? A blockchain holds interactions/transactions not the data itself. Most blockchains are incredibly small in size. For example, the size of the entire Bitcoin blockchain is 215.84 GB [0]. [0] https://bitinfocharts.com https://bitinfocharts.com

hef19898 8y ago

Which is exactly the point I still try to get my head around when it comes to supply chains. First, for blockchain to work you need trustable sources. Problem is, when the aource is trustworthy, what added benefit comes from a blockchain? Second, having a, theoretically uninterrupted blockchain from the first raw material to, say, a car would provide way to much insight into supply chains. I pretty sure companies do not want that. Finally, and that is IMHO the haedest point to practically solve, you need to make 100 percent sure that the physical and information flow in your supply chain are never ever seperated. One single separation and your whole blockchain is worthless. And that risk is so incredibly high in the real world it's almost laughable. So, to make sure a given blockchain matches the physical product you need a trustworthy party to assure that. And then, what value does blockchain add? Someday someone a lot smarter than me will find a use case. At which I will say how damn obvious it is.

abraham_lincoln 8y ago
Have you worked in manufacturing with ERP systems and BoM transactions? I could see how this would be useful for medical device manufacturing, especially something like a pacemaker.
- hef19898 8y ago
  Indeed I did. Thing is, I see how blockchain could help existing processes. I just don't see the revolution yet. Which puzzles me, since on the one side I see the potential but on the other hand I still fail to see a real use case. And that introgues me quite a lot.
qnmaster 8y ago
It's not an end-all for supply chains, but that doesn't make it useless. It still prevents forgery of old records. If someone signs something, they can't later go back and change it or claim they didn't.