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> Keeping track of an asset without a centralized authority? Question was: "And in what applications are blockchains superior to centralized applications?" Y

> Keeping track of an asset without a centralized authority? Question was: "And in what applications are blockchains superior to centralized applications?" You really did not answer the question. What is the application where it is superior to track the asset without central authority? (I come up with criminal money transfers. I hope someone comes up with something else because I do not think that is too solid a foundation to build a sustainable technology...)

seibelj 8y ago
No fees to middlemen, enabling micro-payments at scale (obviously need to drastically reduce blockchain fees, but that is an area of active development). Elimination of charge-backs and a huge amount of fraud, especially in industries that have an abnormally high level of fraud. Borderless payments. The highest density of wealth storage ever invented. Completely different threat model for theft with its own pros and cons. Everyone immediately jumps to the criminal aspects. The existing financial system has absolutely no problem handling all the crime, the blockchain did not invent money laundering.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/19/danske-bank-chief-resigns-over-money-laundering-scandal https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/19/danske-bank...
- tigershark 8y ago
  1) you pay fees to middleman to make a transaction. 2) micropayments are ridiculously slow and low volume compared to any other payment system. 3) We have all seen that chargeback are possible and already occurred, with the small side effect that also all the other legitimate transactions were rollbacked, as with the dao huge fuckup. 4) There are plenty of frauds involving bitcoins. 5) borderless payments have been possible for ages, and are not dependent on a Chinese network of miners.
  - icelancer 8y ago
    1) They are pretty small for most cryptocurrencies. 2) This is false if you understand that Visa/MC do not settle instantly, rather 24-48 hours down the line and their instantaneous consumer network is not identical to that settlement layer. Similar to BTC's blockchain + Lightning network. 3) This is not really a thing outside of Ethereum, but yes, it was a very bad decision. 4) There are plenty of frauds using USD. Way more than BTC. Like, a lot. 5) I'm not sure what this random bit of racism against China has anything to do with anything, but the network's locations of nodes doesn't have much to do with nationality preference.
    - PretzelPirate 8y ago
      To clarify: Ethereum didn’t roll back any legitimate transactions (or any transactions at all) when restoring the DAO funds, which conflicts with the original #3 point you responded to.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        Having the dev of the network reversing transactions makes a mockery of “decentralized” and “trust-less”. More hilariously is that there is a branch of Ethereum that still contains the DAO hack transactions, Ethereum Classic . It’s generally assumed that that branch is run by the DAO hacker, which is kind of hilarious to me.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > No fees to middlemen Except for all the fees to middlemen?
- roymurdock 8y ago
  There are fees with bitcoin - the transactions that leave higher fees for the miners get processed quicker. If you don't include fees with your transaction it could take hours to be bundled into a verified block. People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" (vs. speculators). Getting around borders/currency controls is valuable because it's hard to do/illegal, and Bitcoin makes it easier. The rest of the things you listed such as "highest density of wealth storage every invented" and "completely different threat model" are not use cases, and are not inherently good/bad, just different (and actually usually bad when optimizing for verification speed/efficiency and transaction clearance over chargebacks/fraud) PS did you get hired into the crypto/blockchain world, or just more optimistic after doing research? I remember us being in agreement / you being skeptical about it before
  - icelancer 8y ago
    > People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" (vs. speculators). Getting around borders/currency controls is valuable because it's hard to do/illegal, and Bitcoin makes it easier. This is definitely false. I buy a lot of things that are completely legal using cryptocurrency and find it to be pretty painless. I am a small-time miner and use the profits to buy computer gear from Newegg or resellers who want BTC and get a pretty huge discount on Amazon gear. I have zero problem spending all of my cryptocurrency on valid electronics if I desire.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    > There are fees with bitcoin - the transactions that leave higher fees for the miners get processed quicker. If you don't include fees with your transaction it could take hours to be bundled into a verified block. As I said, the fee issue is being worked on (scaling, layer 2 networks) but that's a potential of the technology. > People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" I simply disagree, if you want me to enumerate all the use cases that aren't criminal I can, but google can help. > The rest of the things you listed such as "highest density of wealth storage every invented" and "completely different threat model" are not use cases, and are not inherently good/bad, just different (and actually usually bad when optimizing for verification speed/efficiency and transaction clearance over chargebacks/fraud) Yes, it is a different sort of tradeoff, that may be useful in some cases. It's novel. > PS did you get hired into the crypto/blockchain world, or just more optimistic after doing research? I remember us being in agreement / you being skeptical about it before I have posted a lot on cryptocurrency, I have been in the industry for a while, but I am not universally optimistic about all things crypto. But overall I am bullish.
awt 8y ago
Uninflatable store of value.
- nemo846 8y ago
  I.E. it will only deflate from accidental losses. Deflation brings its own problems.
  - awt 8y ago
    It should also deflate as the economy grows. Wrt the problems of deflation, it may or may not cause some, but it doesn't really matter because people who don't want to participate in Bitcoin don't have to. They can still choose to use inflationary stores of value.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    Deflationary "problems" are largely strawmen. We've never had such deflationary money systems to know how it plays out long term. In the end, people still need to eat and drink, and they're going to pay to meet those needs no matter how much it costs them. Most of the complaints about deflation are from the Keynesian economists, who for them, it is a major problem. How are they going to pay back all that interest they keep accumulating if people aren't continuously spending?
stale2002 8y ago
Central authorities can engage in censorship. So if you want to be safe from censorship, a decentralized Leger is better. If you do not care about censorship resistance, then you should count yourself lucky and very privileged. There are billions of people in the world who are currently living under repressive governments.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  All of your transactions being public and traceable forever once your wallet is de-anonymized is the least censorship resistant money ever. If you’re worried about your government, then you can’t beat physical cash.

seibelj 8y ago

No fees to middlemen, enabling micro-payments at scale (obviously need to drastically reduce blockchain fees, but that is an area of active development). Elimination of charge-backs and a huge amount of fraud, especially in industries that have an abnormally high level of fraud. Borderless payments. The highest density of wealth storage ever invented. Completely different threat model for theft with its own pros and cons. Everyone immediately jumps to the criminal aspects. The existing financial system has absolutely no problem handling all the crime, the blockchain did not invent money laundering.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/19/danske-bank-chief-resigns-over-money-laundering-scandal https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/19/danske-bank...

tigershark 8y ago
1) you pay fees to middleman to make a transaction. 2) micropayments are ridiculously slow and low volume compared to any other payment system. 3) We have all seen that chargeback are possible and already occurred, with the small side effect that also all the other legitimate transactions were rollbacked, as with the dao huge fuckup. 4) There are plenty of frauds involving bitcoins. 5) borderless payments have been possible for ages, and are not dependent on a Chinese network of miners.
- icelancer 8y ago
  1) They are pretty small for most cryptocurrencies. 2) This is false if you understand that Visa/MC do not settle instantly, rather 24-48 hours down the line and their instantaneous consumer network is not identical to that settlement layer. Similar to BTC's blockchain + Lightning network. 3) This is not really a thing outside of Ethereum, but yes, it was a very bad decision. 4) There are plenty of frauds using USD. Way more than BTC. Like, a lot. 5) I'm not sure what this random bit of racism against China has anything to do with anything, but the network's locations of nodes doesn't have much to do with nationality preference.
  - PretzelPirate 8y ago
    To clarify: Ethereum didn’t roll back any legitimate transactions (or any transactions at all) when restoring the DAO funds, which conflicts with the original #3 point you responded to.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Having the dev of the network reversing transactions makes a mockery of “decentralized” and “trust-less”. More hilariously is that there is a branch of Ethereum that still contains the DAO hack transactions, Ethereum Classic . It’s generally assumed that that branch is run by the DAO hacker, which is kind of hilarious to me.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> No fees to middlemen Except for all the fees to middlemen?
roymurdock 8y ago
There are fees with bitcoin - the transactions that leave higher fees for the miners get processed quicker. If you don't include fees with your transaction it could take hours to be bundled into a verified block. People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" (vs. speculators). Getting around borders/currency controls is valuable because it's hard to do/illegal, and Bitcoin makes it easier. The rest of the things you listed such as "highest density of wealth storage every invented" and "completely different threat model" are not use cases, and are not inherently good/bad, just different (and actually usually bad when optimizing for verification speed/efficiency and transaction clearance over chargebacks/fraud) PS did you get hired into the crypto/blockchain world, or just more optimistic after doing research? I remember us being in agreement / you being skeptical about it before
- icelancer 8y ago
  > People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" (vs. speculators). Getting around borders/currency controls is valuable because it's hard to do/illegal, and Bitcoin makes it easier. This is definitely false. I buy a lot of things that are completely legal using cryptocurrency and find it to be pretty painless. I am a small-time miner and use the profits to buy computer gear from Newegg or resellers who want BTC and get a pretty huge discount on Amazon gear. I have zero problem spending all of my cryptocurrency on valid electronics if I desire.
- seibelj 8y ago
  > There are fees with bitcoin - the transactions that leave higher fees for the miners get processed quicker. If you don't include fees with your transaction it could take hours to be bundled into a verified block. As I said, the fee issue is being worked on (scaling, layer 2 networks) but that's a potential of the technology. > People, myself included, jump to the criminal aspects because those are the only real world applications that are currently creating value for Bitcoin "users" I simply disagree, if you want me to enumerate all the use cases that aren't criminal I can, but google can help. > The rest of the things you listed such as "highest density of wealth storage every invented" and "completely different threat model" are not use cases, and are not inherently good/bad, just different (and actually usually bad when optimizing for verification speed/efficiency and transaction clearance over chargebacks/fraud) Yes, it is a different sort of tradeoff, that may be useful in some cases. It's novel. > PS did you get hired into the crypto/blockchain world, or just more optimistic after doing research? I remember us being in agreement / you being skeptical about it before I have posted a lot on cryptocurrency, I have been in the industry for a while, but I am not universally optimistic about all things crypto. But overall I am bullish.

awt 8y ago

Uninflatable store of value.

nemo846 8y ago
I.E. it will only deflate from accidental losses. Deflation brings its own problems.
- awt 8y ago
  It should also deflate as the economy grows. Wrt the problems of deflation, it may or may not cause some, but it doesn't really matter because people who don't want to participate in Bitcoin don't have to. They can still choose to use inflationary stores of value.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Deflationary "problems" are largely strawmen. We've never had such deflationary money systems to know how it plays out long term. In the end, people still need to eat and drink, and they're going to pay to meet those needs no matter how much it costs them. Most of the complaints about deflation are from the Keynesian economists, who for them, it is a major problem. How are they going to pay back all that interest they keep accumulating if people aren't continuously spending?

stale2002 8y ago

Central authorities can engage in censorship. So if you want to be safe from censorship, a decentralized Leger is better. If you do not care about censorship resistance, then you should count yourself lucky and very privileged. There are billions of people in the world who are currently living under repressive governments.

village-idiot 8y ago
All of your transactions being public and traceable forever once your wallet is de-anonymized is the least censorship resistant money ever. If you’re worried about your government, then you can’t beat physical cash.