6 ms·

I'm pretty sure this is what most people actually want when they say they want a blockchain, they just don't know it yet. It's got all the useful database featu

by ajkjk 8y ago

I'm pretty sure this is what most people actually want when they say they want a blockchain, they just don't know it yet. It's got all the useful database features with none of the "well uh let's distribute it over people's computers and let people mine coins to support it" complexity, which adds nothing to 99% of usecases besides silly ICO potential.

magnamerc 8y ago
How can you make something like MakerDAO on a centralized ledger?
- ajkjk 8y ago
  Hey, I only said 99%.
  - magnamerc 8y ago
    True, and I agree that most ICOs are just money grabs trying to sell 'blockchain' for services that don't need one. But decentralized ledgers offer possibilities that weren't possible before, and I suspect that in the next ten years these applications will start to surface.
- Filligree 8y ago
  I have no need for what MakerDAO offers. Do you?
  - magnamerc 8y ago
    Yes, I do. I trade derivatives without the need of a broker. I can also lend DAI to anyone in the world through a smart contract.
    - lawrenceg 8y ago
      It's still too early for most people to understand how amazing the concept around MakerDAO and DAI actually is. They will, but it will take a bit of time.
      - siliconviking 8y ago
        Been hearing about it but must admit I don't fully understand it. Would you mind a sentence or two on why the concept is so amazing?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        cburgdorf 8y ago
        MakerDAO is basically a community run central bank on the Ethereum blockchain. You can lock away assets you own (currently only ETH but eventually even your house will work as a collateral). By locking away your collateral you can withdraw DAI which will be generated based on your collateral. This is comparable to how banks worked in the past where they only printed money for which they had gold as collateral. You need to at least have a collateralization of 150 %. If you fall below that, your collateral will be seized, the same amount of DAI that you own will be bought from the market and burned. The rest of your collateral minus 13 % liquidation fee will be send back to you. At any time you can pay back your loan in DAI or add more collateral. This mechanism keeps DAI stable at 1 USD. The entire mechanism runs entirely on the Ethereum blockchain. Know why is that cool? 1. You have a 100 % decentralized token that you can keep in any crypto wallet that supports ERC-20 token (Be your own bank) 2. You have a token that isn't volatile so it is safe to pay out salaries or buy groceries with it. Stablecoins that are pegged to Fiat money like the USD still have one centralized aspect though. The currency that they are pegged to is still controlled by centralized organs (e.g FED, European Central Bank etc). The cool thing is, this stuff is just getting started. MakerDAO is just a few month old and pegging to the USD is really just the beginning of a new era. In the long term, imagine you have a stablecoin that is pegged to the purchasing power of North America or Europe or any other region of the world. It's totally possible. The data feeds are the hardest part but there are solutions for that. Imagine having a currency that is pegged to the purchasing power of your region without any governmental control. This is where we are heading.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- cheeze 8y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing that you can. But most companies who want a ledger don't need a blockchain to accomplish it. In your case, you're talking about no trusted actors in a very decentralized system. We're talking about walmart tracking supply chain and whatnot. For a centralized ledger where you do have trusted actors, blockchain is a hilariously shitty solution.
  - magnamerc 8y ago
    I completely agree. It's almost like blockchains are only useful for trustless decentralized systems.
NathanKP 8y ago
Yeah in particular I think one of the things people are really going to appreciate about QLDB is that you can query it with SQL like expressions. Instantly familiar and almost drop-in replacement for many apps vs trying to build your own Blockchain ledger
sbuttgereit 8y ago
This. When I see something like this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-blockchain-to-improve-food-safety/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-... I just don't get it. I understand the motivation behind them wanting this sort of broad supply-chain tracking, but I don't see what "blockchain" actually solves for them that can't be more readily/efficiently solved in other ways. A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger, and a simple to develop to set of APIs seems far superior from a product perspective in a case like this rather than those solutions that will simply build this same thing on "blockchain" software. The only gap is an API which is domain specific (like for food supply chain). (And even this won't solve many of the trust issues in food supply chain, but it looks like it will offer the same useful traits of a blockchain only more simply). [edit for clarity]
- Alex3917 8y ago
  > A trusted third party What does an industry with thousands of different major players have to gain by coming together to give a single company a monopoly over their entire industry? And in fact, one of the biggest strengths of blockchain is that it provides a viable alternative to monopolies for various industries.
  - michaelmior 8y ago
    I don't think the parent was suggesting there be a single trusted third party.
    - darawk 8y ago
      > A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger This is overall great. QLDB is necessary for a lot of things, and it will be useful for a lot of the stupid 'blockchain' projects to be displaced by a better technical solution. Now cryptocurrencies and blockchains are exactly what they are: a decentralized version of this. I believe that decentralization has some use cases that are extremely important. Now it can stand on its own, without being conflated with verifiable ledgers.
  - 8y ago
adeptus 8y ago
Actually, I'm pretty sure most people don't have a clue when it comes to blockchain. Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. That's complete nonsense. Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Amazon puts out some spectacular products and innovation, but this one is laugh out loud material.
- davepeck 8y ago
  > Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. > Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Maybe none? I might be willing to bet that 99% of blockchains in use today could in fact just use AQLD or similar. And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world where trust can, and does, have to root out somewhere. So much of our society is built around this. Blockchains feel sort of alien in this world.
  - adeptus 8y ago
    >Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. No it can't. The second it is hacked and somebody alters the ledger, it is no longer immutable. Centralized security models eventually all get hacked. What you could however say is that the application you need to have immutable isn't super mission critical, and thus you can afford a very low probability - but not 0% of getting hacked. >And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world where trust can, and does, have to root out somewhere. So much of our society is built around this. And this is where you might be a bit out of touch. From China hacking US IP, from Banks world wide manipulating markets, gold, Libor, frequent global election fraud, government mis-spending of funds, corporate & government accounting fraud, Fukushima lies, Fakenews etc. The trust people have in institutions and governments world wide is in an accelerated decline. We are constantly asked to trust, and we are constantly let down. Properly decentralized blockchains are 'Trust machines'. They aren't alone going to solve all the issues I mentioned, but they do have the potential to increase trust in many processes related to these various issues. The key requirement is decentralization though. A blockchain managed by a single entity is nothing more than a dumbed down over-marketed database with limited use cases. Google: Decline in trust: https://www.google.com/search?ei=WEv_W6DfIe2x0PEPxe6AmA4&q=Decline+in+trust&oq=Decline+in+trust https://www.google.com/search?ei=WEv_W6DfIe2x0PEPxe6AmA4&q=D...
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
The biggest problem I see with it is putting all your eggs in one basket. One company could easily become untrustworthy without you realizing it. A lot of people trusted Enron before the scandal came out. That problem could potentially be mitigated by doing best-of-three or best-of-five with multiple trusted parties.

by ajkjk 8y ago

magnamerc 8y ago

How can you make something like MakerDAO on a centralized ledger?

ajkjk 8y ago
Hey, I only said 99%.
- magnamerc 8y ago
  True, and I agree that most ICOs are just money grabs trying to sell 'blockchain' for services that don't need one. But decentralized ledgers offer possibilities that weren't possible before, and I suspect that in the next ten years these applications will start to surface.
Filligree 8y ago
I have no need for what MakerDAO offers. Do you?
- magnamerc 8y ago
  Yes, I do. I trade derivatives without the need of a broker. I can also lend DAI to anyone in the world through a smart contract.
  - lawrenceg 8y ago
    It's still too early for most people to understand how amazing the concept around MakerDAO and DAI actually is. They will, but it will take a bit of time.
    - siliconviking 8y ago
      Been hearing about it but must admit I don't fully understand it. Would you mind a sentence or two on why the concept is so amazing?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - cburgdorf 8y ago
        MakerDAO is basically a community run central bank on the Ethereum blockchain. You can lock away assets you own (currently only ETH but eventually even your house will work as a collateral). By locking away your collateral you can withdraw DAI which will be generated based on your collateral. This is comparable to how banks worked in the past where they only printed money for which they had gold as collateral. You need to at least have a collateralization of 150 %. If you fall below that, your collateral will be seized, the same amount of DAI that you own will be bought from the market and burned. The rest of your collateral minus 13 % liquidation fee will be send back to you. At any time you can pay back your loan in DAI or add more collateral. This mechanism keeps DAI stable at 1 USD. The entire mechanism runs entirely on the Ethereum blockchain. Know why is that cool? 1. You have a 100 % decentralized token that you can keep in any crypto wallet that supports ERC-20 token (Be your own bank) 2. You have a token that isn't volatile so it is safe to pay out salaries or buy groceries with it. Stablecoins that are pegged to Fiat money like the USD still have one centralized aspect though. The currency that they are pegged to is still controlled by centralized organs (e.g FED, European Central Bank etc). The cool thing is, this stuff is just getting started. MakerDAO is just a few month old and pegging to the USD is really just the beginning of a new era. In the long term, imagine you have a stablecoin that is pegged to the purchasing power of North America or Europe or any other region of the world. It's totally possible. The data feeds are the hardest part but there are solutions for that. Imagine having a currency that is pegged to the purchasing power of your region without any governmental control. This is where we are heading.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
cheeze 8y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing that you can. But most companies who want a ledger don't need a blockchain to accomplish it. In your case, you're talking about no trusted actors in a very decentralized system. We're talking about walmart tracking supply chain and whatnot. For a centralized ledger where you do have trusted actors, blockchain is a hilariously shitty solution.
- magnamerc 8y ago
  I completely agree. It's almost like blockchains are only useful for trustless decentralized systems.

NathanKP 8y ago

Yeah in particular I think one of the things people are really going to appreciate about QLDB is that you can query it with SQL like expressions. Instantly familiar and almost drop-in replacement for many apps vs trying to build your own Blockchain ledger

sbuttgereit 8y ago

This. When I see something like this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-blockchain-to-improve-food-safety/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/walmart-is-betting-on-the-... I just don't get it. I understand the motivation behind them wanting this sort of broad supply-chain tracking, but I don't see what "blockchain" actually solves for them that can't be more readily/efficiently solved in other ways. A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger, and a simple to develop to set of APIs seems far superior from a product perspective in a case like this rather than those solutions that will simply build this same thing on "blockchain" software. The only gap is an API which is domain specific (like for food supply chain). (And even this won't solve many of the trust issues in food supply chain, but it looks like it will offer the same useful traits of a blockchain only more simply). [edit for clarity]

Alex3917 8y ago
> A trusted third party What does an industry with thousands of different major players have to gain by coming together to give a single company a monopoly over their entire industry? And in fact, one of the biggest strengths of blockchain is that it provides a viable alternative to monopolies for various industries.
- michaelmior 8y ago
  I don't think the parent was suggesting there be a single trusted third party.
  - darawk 8y ago
    > A trusted third party, with an immutable transaction ledger This is overall great. QLDB is necessary for a lot of things, and it will be useful for a lot of the stupid 'blockchain' projects to be displaced by a better technical solution. Now cryptocurrencies and blockchains are exactly what they are: a decentralized version of this. I believe that decentralization has some use cases that are extremely important. Now it can stand on its own, without being conflated with verifiable ledgers.
- 8y ago

adeptus 8y ago

Actually, I'm pretty sure most people don't have a clue when it comes to blockchain. Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. That's complete nonsense. Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Amazon puts out some spectacular products and innovation, but this one is laugh out loud material.

davepeck 8y ago
> Amazon can't claim it is both centralized and immutable. Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. > Also WTF is the point of a blockchain if you need to entrust your ledger data to a third party? Maybe none? I might be willing to bet that 99% of blockchains in use today could in fact just use AQLD or similar. And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world where trust can, and does, have to root out somewhere. So much of our society is built around this. Blockchains feel sort of alien in this world.
- adeptus 8y ago
  >Amazon can claim it is both centralized and immutable, provided you trust Amazon. No it can't. The second it is hacked and somebody alters the ledger, it is no longer immutable. Centralized security models eventually all get hacked. What you could however say is that the application you need to have immutable isn't super mission critical, and thus you can afford a very low probability - but not 0% of getting hacked. >And this is what it comes down to: most of us live in a world where trust can, and does, have to root out somewhere. So much of our society is built around this. And this is where you might be a bit out of touch. From China hacking US IP, from Banks world wide manipulating markets, gold, Libor, frequent global election fraud, government mis-spending of funds, corporate & government accounting fraud, Fukushima lies, Fakenews etc. The trust people have in institutions and governments world wide is in an accelerated decline. We are constantly asked to trust, and we are constantly let down. Properly decentralized blockchains are 'Trust machines'. They aren't alone going to solve all the issues I mentioned, but they do have the potential to increase trust in many processes related to these various issues. The key requirement is decentralization though. A blockchain managed by a single entity is nothing more than a dumbed down over-marketed database with limited use cases. Google: Decline in trust: https://www.google.com/search?ei=WEv_W6DfIe2x0PEPxe6AmA4&q=Decline+in+trust&oq=Decline+in+trust https://www.google.com/search?ei=WEv_W6DfIe2x0PEPxe6AmA4&q=D...

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

The biggest problem I see with it is putting all your eggs in one basket. One company could easily become untrustworthy without you realizing it. A lot of people trusted Enron before the scandal came out. That problem could potentially be mitigated by doing best-of-three or best-of-five with multiple trusted parties.