9 ms·

Blockchain Is a Semantic Wasteland

67 points by hunglee2 8y ago

tomrod 8y ago
I see the author's point of view. Hype can be bad, but if there is value there the hype cycle does wear down: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- eksemplar 8y ago
  I work in public sector digitisation. We’ve spent a lot of money on blockchain proof of concepts, sales meetings and general hype. My colleagues in banking have spent even more. All those resources have been a complete waste so far, and they’ve entirely been spent on blockchain because of hype. That is extremely bad, because all those resources could have been thrown at something useful. For whatever reason blockchain has been extremely resilient to reality. It’s almost been a decade, and we’ve yet to see anything purposeful come our way. It’s still on Gartners list for 2019 though, so I guess we’ll spent another year burning money.
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  > Hype can be bad, but if there is value there the hype cycle does wear down That is, if something called the "Hype Cycle" even exists. The Hype Cycle is a canonical example of survivorship bias and post hoc rationalization [0]. It is pretty much a compelling narrative not a reflection of technological evolution. [0] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-from-20-years-hype-cycles-michael-mullany/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-from-20-years-hype-...
- lottin 8y ago
  If.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    Exactly.
coldcode 8y ago
"A blockchain is a chain of blocks" is my new favorite definition. It's not a magic bean that solves all problems. It's just a tiny part of what makes Bitcoin function.
- lisper 8y ago
  A big part of what makes Bitcoin function the way it does today is that there are a lot of people who believe that it's a magic bean. If enough people believe that something has value then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  - emerged 8y ago
    It's hard to find someone who isn't neck deep in at least one ideology. The increased connectivity of the world seems to ensure we all find that niche which hits all our predispositions well enough we come to Believe in them completely.
robertAngst 8y ago
Jumping on a blockchain thread to ask this question- Can anyone imagine ANY uses for a centralized blockchain? IOTA uses tangle, but the idea is the same. Storing immutable data. I understand Bitcoin, people commit currency fraud. Bitcoin is decentralized. Trustless currency sounds fantastic. I do not understand these data coins that are centralized. It isnt trustless, and at this point, why not store in a write only sql database?
- lisper 8y ago
  > Can anyone imagine ANY uses for a centralized blockchain? Sure. A centralized chain can be used for anything that a decentralized one can be used for (with one exception [1]), you just have to trust the provider. [1] The exception is that a decentralized chain cannot be used to fairly distribute rewards to the participants in a decentralized protocol. That makes it harder to use a centralized chain as money because you need a separate mechanism for controlling the money supply than the one that maintains the ledger. In a distributed chain, the same mechanism serves both purposes.
  - jdshutt 8y ago
    If you can trust the provider, why use an expensive blockchain instead of an inexpensive database?
    - lisper 8y ago
      Because the amount of trust required is significantly reduced if the provider uses a block chain. Without a block chain you need to trust that the provider will not change transactions retroactively. With a block chain you only need to trust that the provider will not censor transactions.
- zanny 8y ago
  > why not store in a write only sql database? Probably because the project wouldn't have seen funding without "blockchain" in the proposal title.
- 8y ago
ravenstine 8y ago
I like to tell people that I could build them a blockchain in less than an hour. Of course, ordinary people including people who invest in cryptocurrencies don't believe this because they don't understand what a blockchain is at all. Upon firing up Codepen and making a simple blockchain, the concept immediately seems less cool to them. To me, the whole blockchain aspect of cryptocurrencies and related technology isn't particularly interesting, but the idea of automated consensus is. You can tell if someone actually knows a thing or two if they aren't just slobbering over "the blockchain."
- sparkzilla 8y ago
  You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things can happen.
  - jf- 8y ago
    The problem is no one can think of one. As is often repeated here, there doesn’t seem to be any use case for blockchain that is superior to other technology, other than a cryptocurrency. And even they are rife with problems.
    - ravenstine 8y ago
      Well, we do use a blockchain whenever we use Git. Of course, nobody thinks that's cool or revolutionary since that's not sticking it to the man or getting anyone rich. Don't get me wrong, I actually do think the idea of cryptocurrency is really fascinating and that it's worthwhile to try to find new ways to apply blockchains, but as you say, they currently solve a very limited number of problems.
    - lawn 8y ago
      I propose voting. You turn your mobile phone into a voting booth. The only thing you need is to verify your identity on your phone. In Sweden we have a national system called BankID which is in use everywhere, so this is solvable. Then you can publish your votes on the blockchain so they're immutable and publicly verifiable. This has some benefits over traditional voting: * You can vote from your phone * Votes can be counted instantly in real time * Votes can be independently verified * You can verify that your vote is counted correctly and included You should also be able to make your identity private using zero knowledge proofs so you can verify your own vote but everyone else can not track any individual vote. Voting via your phone would save huge amounts of time and energy compared to paper voting and it would make holding these votes much easier. It would avoid situations like in the Bush/Gore election where votes were invalid, not counted properly and counted too late. I believe this would be a superior voting scheme if implemented properly and adopted on a national level.
camgunz 8y ago
The tweet from the article is correct: "blockchain" is only popular because Bitcoin is an extremely profitable pyramid scheme / money laundering service. There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing technology. We have: - databases - distributed databases - distributed hash tables - cryptographic signing - authentication I've heard all kinds of ideas that are just bad. Verifiable check in systems (use an app and a database), services were actually delivered (scan a barcode and use a database) supply chain tracking (scan a barcode and use a database). Do you need Sybil resistance from proof of work because your consensus system is public and trustless? Cool Bitcoin is your jam. Just try to avoid building an unusable currency this go around, although I can't imagine a single additional use for it, and to date no one else can either. Oh and also try and avoid broiling our planet with your energy use. Earth backup system is not yet online.
- lawn 8y ago
  > There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing technology. Repeating for the N:th time on HN. * Porn * Donations to wikileaks * Pot * Sending money to Venezuela * Leaving Venezuela with your wealth intact * Payments without giving all transaction info third parties (PayPal, VISA, etc) * Digital payments for the unbanked These are all served better by cryptocurrencies than other alternatives. A common counterargument is fees are very high on Bitcoin. This is true but it's only an argument against Bitcoin not cryptocurrencies in general. See Bitcoin Cash for example.
  - tim333 8y ago
    Not sure about digital payments for the unbanked. Are there any real cases of someone unbanked paying for something with crypto? I guess I can see how it could happen in theory.
    - UncleEntity 8y ago
      I would if it were easier/cheaper than going to the corner store and buying a Visa Gift Card to make online purchases.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I am not an expert, I just took the edX blockchain for business last year and have experimented with the Pact contract language (lisp like, it is implemented in Haskell) and Exonum. I like the term Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and my interest is in permissioned (private) systems for use in business, potentially tied into AI (my placeholder site: http://hyperledgerai.com http://hyperledgerai.com). This is on my free time, and in my free time I have become more interested in neural networks combined with symbolic AI code.
floatboth 8y ago
you, sobbing: "you can't just point at every thing using a merkle tree and call them blockchains" me, pointing at git: "blockchain" — https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824 https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824
decentralised 8y ago
Good article. Although I'm not completely in agreement with the author, the point is valid and we do need better taxonomy because not everything that uses a blockchain requires highlighting that component over the any other technology it also may rely on. As for non-public (consortium, enterprise, centralised, etc) blockchains, here I have a very different opinion based on my own work experience, and would point to the Energy Web Foundation's (https://energyweb.org/ https://energyweb.org/) consortium network as a prime example or to the work being done on Plasma (https://www.learnplasma.org/en/ https://www.learnplasma.org/en/) which allows for private chains to inhering the security properties of a root public chain like Ethereum, and makes extensive use of cryptoeconomics for trust minimisation.

67 points by hunglee2 8y ago

I see the author's point of view. Hype can be bad, but if there is value there the hype cycle does wear down: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Gartner_...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
eksemplar 8y ago
I work in public sector digitisation. We’ve spent a lot of money on blockchain proof of concepts, sales meetings and general hype. My colleagues in banking have spent even more. All those resources have been a complete waste so far, and they’ve entirely been spent on blockchain because of hype. That is extremely bad, because all those resources could have been thrown at something useful. For whatever reason blockchain has been extremely resilient to reality. It’s almost been a decade, and we’ve yet to see anything purposeful come our way. It’s still on Gartners list for 2019 though, so I guess we’ll spent another year burning money.
denzil_correa 8y ago
> Hype can be bad, but if there is value there the hype cycle does wear down That is, if something called the "Hype Cycle" even exists. The Hype Cycle is a canonical example of survivorship bias and post hoc rationalization [0]. It is pretty much a compelling narrative not a reflection of technological evolution. [0] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-from-20-years-hype-cycles-michael-mullany/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-lessons-from-20-years-hype-...
lottin 8y ago
If.
- tomrod 8y ago
  Exactly.

coldcode 8y ago

"A blockchain is a chain of blocks" is my new favorite definition. It's not a magic bean that solves all problems. It's just a tiny part of what makes Bitcoin function.

lisper 8y ago
A big part of what makes Bitcoin function the way it does today is that there are a lot of people who believe that it's a magic bean. If enough people believe that something has value then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- emerged 8y ago
  It's hard to find someone who isn't neck deep in at least one ideology. The increased connectivity of the world seems to ensure we all find that niche which hits all our predispositions well enough we come to Believe in them completely.

robertAngst 8y ago

Jumping on a blockchain thread to ask this question- Can anyone imagine ANY uses for a centralized blockchain? IOTA uses tangle, but the idea is the same. Storing immutable data. I understand Bitcoin, people commit currency fraud. Bitcoin is decentralized. Trustless currency sounds fantastic. I do not understand these data coins that are centralized. It isnt trustless, and at this point, why not store in a write only sql database?

lisper 8y ago
> Can anyone imagine ANY uses for a centralized blockchain? Sure. A centralized chain can be used for anything that a decentralized one can be used for (with one exception [1]), you just have to trust the provider. [1] The exception is that a decentralized chain cannot be used to fairly distribute rewards to the participants in a decentralized protocol. That makes it harder to use a centralized chain as money because you need a separate mechanism for controlling the money supply than the one that maintains the ledger. In a distributed chain, the same mechanism serves both purposes.
- jdshutt 8y ago
  If you can trust the provider, why use an expensive blockchain instead of an inexpensive database?
  - lisper 8y ago
    Because the amount of trust required is significantly reduced if the provider uses a block chain. Without a block chain you need to trust that the provider will not change transactions retroactively. With a block chain you only need to trust that the provider will not censor transactions.
zanny 8y ago
> why not store in a write only sql database? Probably because the project wouldn't have seen funding without "blockchain" in the proposal title.
8y ago

ravenstine 8y ago

I like to tell people that I could build them a blockchain in less than an hour. Of course, ordinary people including people who invest in cryptocurrencies don't believe this because they don't understand what a blockchain is at all. Upon firing up Codepen and making a simple blockchain, the concept immediately seems less cool to them. To me, the whole blockchain aspect of cryptocurrencies and related technology isn't particularly interesting, but the idea of automated consensus is. You can tell if someone actually knows a thing or two if they aren't just slobbering over "the blockchain."

sparkzilla 8y ago
You could probably make a simple social network in an hour too. It doesn't make you Facebook. Once the tech matches a market need, though, interesting things can happen.
- jf- 8y ago
  The problem is no one can think of one. As is often repeated here, there doesn’t seem to be any use case for blockchain that is superior to other technology, other than a cryptocurrency. And even they are rife with problems.
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    Well, we do use a blockchain whenever we use Git. Of course, nobody thinks that's cool or revolutionary since that's not sticking it to the man or getting anyone rich. Don't get me wrong, I actually do think the idea of cryptocurrency is really fascinating and that it's worthwhile to try to find new ways to apply blockchains, but as you say, they currently solve a very limited number of problems.
  - lawn 8y ago
    I propose voting. You turn your mobile phone into a voting booth. The only thing you need is to verify your identity on your phone. In Sweden we have a national system called BankID which is in use everywhere, so this is solvable. Then you can publish your votes on the blockchain so they're immutable and publicly verifiable. This has some benefits over traditional voting: * You can vote from your phone * Votes can be counted instantly in real time * Votes can be independently verified * You can verify that your vote is counted correctly and included You should also be able to make your identity private using zero knowledge proofs so you can verify your own vote but everyone else can not track any individual vote. Voting via your phone would save huge amounts of time and energy compared to paper voting and it would make holding these votes much easier. It would avoid situations like in the Bush/Gore election where votes were invalid, not counted properly and counted too late. I believe this would be a superior voting scheme if implemented properly and adopted on a national level.

camgunz 8y ago

The tweet from the article is correct: "blockchain" is only popular because Bitcoin is an extremely profitable pyramid scheme / money laundering service. There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing technology. We have: - databases - distributed databases - distributed hash tables - cryptographic signing - authentication I've heard all kinds of ideas that are just bad. Verifiable check in systems (use an app and a database), services were actually delivered (scan a barcode and use a database) supply chain tracking (scan a barcode and use a database). Do you need Sybil resistance from proof of work because your consensus system is public and trustless? Cool Bitcoin is your jam. Just try to avoid building an unusable currency this go around, although I can't imagine a single additional use for it, and to date no one else can either. Oh and also try and avoid broiling our planet with your energy use. Earth backup system is not yet online.

lawn 8y ago
> There are no use cases that aren't (already) better served by existing technology. Repeating for the N:th time on HN. * Porn * Donations to wikileaks * Pot * Sending money to Venezuela * Leaving Venezuela with your wealth intact * Payments without giving all transaction info third parties (PayPal, VISA, etc) * Digital payments for the unbanked These are all served better by cryptocurrencies than other alternatives. A common counterargument is fees are very high on Bitcoin. This is true but it's only an argument against Bitcoin not cryptocurrencies in general. See Bitcoin Cash for example.
- tim333 8y ago
  Not sure about digital payments for the unbanked. Are there any real cases of someone unbanked paying for something with crypto? I guess I can see how it could happen in theory.
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    I would if it were easier/cheaper than going to the corner store and buying a Visa Gift Card to make online purchases.

mark_l_watson 8y ago

I am not an expert, I just took the edX blockchain for business last year and have experimented with the Pact contract language (lisp like, it is implemented in Haskell) and Exonum. I like the term Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and my interest is in permissioned (private) systems for use in business, potentially tied into AI (my placeholder site: http://hyperledgerai.com http://hyperledgerai.com). This is on my free time, and in my free time I have become more interested in neural networks combined with symbolic AI code.

floatboth 8y ago

you, sobbing: "you can't just point at every thing using a merkle tree and call them blockchains" me, pointing at git: "blockchain" — https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824 https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/946886702932557824

decentralised 8y ago

Good article. Although I'm not completely in agreement with the author, the point is valid and we do need better taxonomy because not everything that uses a blockchain requires highlighting that component over the any other technology it also may rely on. As for non-public (consortium, enterprise, centralised, etc) blockchains, here I have a very different opinion based on my own work experience, and would point to the Energy Web Foundation's (https://energyweb.org/ https://energyweb.org/) consortium network as a prime example or to the work being done on Plasma (https://www.learnplasma.org/en/ https://www.learnplasma.org/en/) which allows for private chains to inhering the security properties of a root public chain like Ethereum, and makes extensive use of cryptoeconomics for trust minimisation.