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Hmm... a large contingent of people on HN claim blockchain is 100% worthless and no better than a centralized database. Then why is the Department of Justice sa

Hmm... a large contingent of people on HN claim blockchain is 100% worthless and no better than a centralized database. Then why is the Department of Justice saying: > At the outset, it bears emphasizing that distributed ledger technology, upon which all cryptocurrencies build, raises breathtaking possibilities for human flourishing. These possibilities are rightly being explored around the globe, from within academia and industry, and from within government — including our own. So what is it - our government is full of confused people, or HN is?

lawn 6y ago
Despite the hate on HN it should be obvious that cryptocurrencies aren't 100% worthless. For that there must be no valuable use case, but even the same people will also say there are illegal use cases, defeating their own point. (If you still want a legal use case then I suggest how WikiLeaks could still accept donations in Bitcoin when all other payment processors and banks blocked them.)
robertakarobin 6y ago
Why not both?
- williamtwild 6y ago
  Looking at the current administration I can say with 100% certainty that the US government is lacking in just about every way possible right now.
anamexis 6y ago
I mean, when it comes to the potential of a given technology, I think I know who I'll generally trust between HN consensus and the United States Department of Justice.
paulgb 6y ago
I haven't read the full report yet, but do they point out any examples? I think the main contention of many of us on HN is that blockchain as a technology (as opposed to Bitcoin as a store of value) is proposed for a lot of things, but examples that wouldn't be better served by a database are basically non-existent.
- qertoip 6y ago
  Exactly the point.
- zippoxer 6y ago
  > examples that wouldn't be better served by a database are basically non-existent. If you say so, then here's a question for you. Using only non-blockchain databases, can you build an exchange that is.. 1) Owned by no one, or owned by a community to which anyone can join. 2) Unstoppable. Can't be shutdown even if you cold murder the entire team. 3) Can't be regulated (will never do KYC/AML). 4) Permission-less: anyone can trade and/or provide the liquidity. 5) Open-source with indisputable proof that it *always* runs *exactly* and *only* the code it shows on GitHub. In other words, can you build Uniswap [1] with MySQL? [1] https://app.uniswap.org https://app.uniswap.org
  - paulgb 6y ago
    What's the real world problem that this solves, and is it actually solving that problem for anyone today or is it hypothetical?
    - vmception 6y ago
      24/7 global market with exposure to almost every asset class including new ones with billions of notional USD in liquidity and where people actually are, is that not good enough? I’m specifically referring to non-custodial decentralized exchanges and automated market maker systems like Uniswap, trading tokenized versions of things. Every asset class is 99% speculation, including national currencies. Weird when people look at crypto by this other fictional higher standard that no other asset class would achieve while dismissing speculation as a lesser non-use case, not saying you did but predicting someone else was about to.
      - hiq 6y ago
        If you use tokenized versions of things, don't most of the 5 benefits listed previously break down? If you have an entity selling some tokens representing GOOG on some blockchain, then this entity can (will) be regulated, is a central point of failure, and so on. This problem of interfacing a blockchain with the real world seems like a common theme that's swept under the rug, and I've never seen a convincing answer. What am I missing?
qertoip 6y ago
It is only politically correct to recognize blockchain / DLT potential when you need to bash cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, the reverse is true: decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Monero have potential to change the World. While "enterprise blockchain technology" is just pure BS - the needlessly over-distributed and over-complicated database that is inherently centrally controlled.
- jl2718 6y ago
  This report is not about ‘potential’. Happening status: is.
heavyset_go 6y ago
I think it is just evidence that true believers exist, and some of them work in government.
rsynnott 6y ago
The head of that government, an obese 74 year old with COVID, just declared himself to be "a perfect physical specimen" and "extremely young", so I think there's a decent case for the former. More seriously, if you've just spent the last year working on a policy document, you probably are not inclined to say "by the way, this is all nonsense, really"; makes _you_ look bad. This wouldn't be the first time a civil servant has praised something which turned out to be silly.
ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
Most people on HN have no idea what they're talking about. So I'll give you an idea: DLT (distributed ledger technology) is good for one reason: it's a consensus mechanism. You have a distributed architecture and you want different machines to agree on the same state, even when some of them are compromised. This is not just sexy for handling money (cryptocurrencies) but this is a long-standing problem in computer science. Consensus that doesn't care about compromise exist and is used all over the place in database replication (RAFT).
laretluval 6y ago
> our government is full of confused people I don't find this at all hard to believe.

lawn 6y ago

Despite the hate on HN it should be obvious that cryptocurrencies aren't 100% worthless. For that there must be no valuable use case, but even the same people will also say there are illegal use cases, defeating their own point. (If you still want a legal use case then I suggest how WikiLeaks could still accept donations in Bitcoin when all other payment processors and banks blocked them.)

robertakarobin 6y ago

Why not both?

williamtwild 6y ago
Looking at the current administration I can say with 100% certainty that the US government is lacking in just about every way possible right now.

anamexis 6y ago

I mean, when it comes to the potential of a given technology, I think I know who I'll generally trust between HN consensus and the United States Department of Justice.

paulgb 6y ago

I haven't read the full report yet, but do they point out any examples? I think the main contention of many of us on HN is that blockchain as a technology (as opposed to Bitcoin as a store of value) is proposed for a lot of things, but examples that wouldn't be better served by a database are basically non-existent.

qertoip 6y ago
Exactly the point.
zippoxer 6y ago
> examples that wouldn't be better served by a database are basically non-existent. If you say so, then here's a question for you. Using only non-blockchain databases, can you build an exchange that is.. 1) Owned by no one, or owned by a community to which anyone can join. 2) Unstoppable. Can't be shutdown even if you cold murder the entire team. 3) Can't be regulated (will never do KYC/AML). 4) Permission-less: anyone can trade and/or provide the liquidity. 5) Open-source with indisputable proof that it *always* runs *exactly* and *only* the code it shows on GitHub. In other words, can you build Uniswap [1] with MySQL? [1] https://app.uniswap.org https://app.uniswap.org
- paulgb 6y ago
  What's the real world problem that this solves, and is it actually solving that problem for anyone today or is it hypothetical?
  - vmception 6y ago
    24/7 global market with exposure to almost every asset class including new ones with billions of notional USD in liquidity and where people actually are, is that not good enough? I’m specifically referring to non-custodial decentralized exchanges and automated market maker systems like Uniswap, trading tokenized versions of things. Every asset class is 99% speculation, including national currencies. Weird when people look at crypto by this other fictional higher standard that no other asset class would achieve while dismissing speculation as a lesser non-use case, not saying you did but predicting someone else was about to.
    - hiq 6y ago
      If you use tokenized versions of things, don't most of the 5 benefits listed previously break down? If you have an entity selling some tokens representing GOOG on some blockchain, then this entity can (will) be regulated, is a central point of failure, and so on. This problem of interfacing a blockchain with the real world seems like a common theme that's swept under the rug, and I've never seen a convincing answer. What am I missing?

qertoip 6y ago

It is only politically correct to recognize blockchain / DLT potential when you need to bash cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, the reverse is true: decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Monero have potential to change the World. While "enterprise blockchain technology" is just pure BS - the needlessly over-distributed and over-complicated database that is inherently centrally controlled.

jl2718 6y ago
This report is not about ‘potential’. Happening status: is.

heavyset_go 6y ago

I think it is just evidence that true believers exist, and some of them work in government.

rsynnott 6y ago

The head of that government, an obese 74 year old with COVID, just declared himself to be "a perfect physical specimen" and "extremely young", so I think there's a decent case for the former. More seriously, if you've just spent the last year working on a policy document, you probably are not inclined to say "by the way, this is all nonsense, really"; makes _you_ look bad. This wouldn't be the first time a civil servant has praised something which turned out to be silly.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

Most people on HN have no idea what they're talking about. So I'll give you an idea: DLT (distributed ledger technology) is good for one reason: it's a consensus mechanism. You have a distributed architecture and you want different machines to agree on the same state, even when some of them are compromised. This is not just sexy for handling money (cryptocurrencies) but this is a long-standing problem in computer science. Consensus that doesn't care about compromise exist and is used all over the place in database replication (RAFT).

laretluval 6y ago

> our government is full of confused people I don't find this at all hard to believe.