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I feel its become very fashionable to dismiss the simpler applications of the tech because of how unrealistically its been applied. It's so easy to do too. Look
by Uptrenda 8y ago
I feel its become very fashionable to dismiss the simpler applications of the tech because of how unrealistically its been applied. It's so easy to do too. Look at the insane valuations, the fraud, and hype cooked up by marketers, and the whole thing looks very stupid. But its a mistake to let this get in the way of critical thinking.
There is a reason why the topic is brought up so often and its because among all that garbage there is genuine potential. It requires education, and R & D to unlock most of it. But at some point we'll have straight-forward tools that can be applied to solve a variety of common problems.
I predict the end result won't look any where near as exciting as it is today. It's likely going to end up being a flexible and boring set of auditing tools. But that's still going to improve the transparency and efficiency of many organizations. And give how archaic some of the processes around businesses are today -- those changes are still going to look revolutionary in their context.
- davidgerard 8y agoThe obviously convincing argument would be - after ten years - "something to show for it all." That is, something that blockchain is clearly and obviously the use case for. "Potential" goes only so far. Eventually you need kinetic.
- airstrike 8y agoInterstellar BBS log
- wefarrell 8y agoBuying and selling illicit products on the internet.
- smt88 8y agoOr in-person. Any criminal transactions, really (drugs, weapons, people, etc.)
- bigiain 8y ago> Where cash is still a better alternative. I suspect not too many drug dealers or gun runners want to wait around 20 mins staring at their phone (with a traceable internet connection) for 2 confirmations before declaring the deal "done"...
- smt88 8y agoI've read that it's done more like escrow. The buyer creates a new wallet, the seller verifies the amount in the wallet, and then the buyer hands over the keys when the merchandise is transferred.
- bigiain 8y agoThat's smart. The seller still needs to make sure the buyer can't get a transaction transferring the coins back into a wallet under their control confirmed before the seller can move them out. (I'm now vaguely curious about how the financial transactions on shipping container sized sales of guns/drugs work. But I'm not about to Google _that_...)
- darawk 8y agoProgrammable money is not a thing to show?
- davidgerard 8y agoso far its overwhelming use case has been selling people questionable ICO tokens, so you'll excuse me if I'm not convinced by the observable outputs
- chris_wot 8y agoIf you could tell me even one application of this technology outside of cryptocurrency, I'd genuinely be interested.
- hschoenburg 8y agoDNS -> https://handshake.org https://handshake.org
- IncRnd 8y agoHave you considered the downside of an attack against such a DNS system? That is a severe drawback to handshake that limits trust in such a system. This exemplifies the argument you are trying to refute, that using a blockchain as a solution is often poor design.
- mhluongo 8y agoCare to explain that hand-wavy downside?
- tastroder 8y agoThe link you posted doesn't even aim for replacing DNS, by the abstract and landing page it seems to be an experimental setup to replace the root zone which has been signed for nearly 10 years now. DNSSEC is a thing. Don't really see what's hand-wavy about your parent comment tbh, the link you posted doesn't seem to address common scenarios like 51% attacks or even why our current system is flawed. The only tangible thing I can find in there is that they don't like trusting verisign - which is fine but really a weird narrative to demonstrate why the world needs that particular implementation.
- mhluongo 8y agoI didn't post the link. I'm just asking for details about an unspecified attack in your comment, or really any pointed criticism at all (:
- acdha 8y ago> It requires education, and R & D to unlock most of it. But at some point we'll have straight-forward tools that can be applied to solve a variety of common problems. We’ve been hearing this for a decade – it’ll change the world, if you don’t agree it’s because you don’t understand it well enough – and yet we don’t have a single example of it being competitive, much less compelling. One of the common comparisons is the internet or, more specifically the web, but those really just highlight how inappropriate those comparisons are. In both cases, within a few years there were multiple examples of real problems being solved and businesses seeing profits from adoption (not just speculation) — and that despite far greater barriers to adoption.
- darawk 8y agoYou think that dis-intermediating banks for electronic funds transfer is not an application?
- acdha 8y agoOkay, let’s see: how does that benefit me in real, tangible terms? What risks does it have - for example, do users take on responsibility for fraud risk?
- darawk 8y ago> Okay, let’s see: how does that benefit me in real, tangible terms? It allows you to store and transfer value in situations where you either cannot obtain, or do not trust your available banking relationships. You also have much, much lower fees for international remittance. > What risks does it have - for example, do users take on responsibility for fraud risk? It has two primary risks: - Transaction finality. This is a positive and a negative, of course. - Risk that you improperly handle your private key and have your funds stolen.
- killjoywashere 8y agoSo, if, say you own some underutilized hydropower in China it's a good way to exfiltrate value from that economy and turn it into some slightly less volatile asset, like Ferarris or beach real estate in Florida?
- dreamcompiler 8y agoMaybe if the transaction rate can be increased by a few orders of magnitude. The biggest problem is that decentralized systems tend over time toward recentralization. That pressure will not go away, and it can only be fought against if there is no friction in the decentralized system.