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I keep a small collection of applications where I think blockchain applications actually make sense. So far, most involve things where transparency in a distrib

I keep a small collection of applications where I think blockchain applications actually make sense. So far, most involve things where transparency in a distributed network is very important: 1. Running a lottery over the Internet. There are a lot of people who would be happy to buy a share in a typical national lottery as long as they could be sure they were not getting cheated. I don't care if e.g. 10% of the money goes to fund schools, as long as it's fair and transparent. 2. Internet gambling. If I bet on something, I want the odds to accurately reflect the bets of all the players, and I want to be able to get my money out if I win. 3. A currency for use in online advertising. A lot of the money that advertisers pay mysteriously disappears into the hands of middlemen before it gets to the sites that host the ads. There is also a lot of fraud. Having a transparent and accountable system would make it more effective for people who are not parasites. Anything else?

pjmorris 6y ago
Compliance and regulatory audits (e.g. ISO certification, SOC 2, the list goes on) seem like a candidate to me. There is typically a standard set by one organization, that has to be complied with by (multiple departments within) another organization, and verified by an auditor external to the first two organization (as well as to auditors within each of the organizations.) A database managed by any of the three players wouldn't be trusted by the others, so it seems like a candidate for multi-party distributed trust.
- qaq 6y ago
  and you specifically need proof of work to solve this?
  - scsilver 6y ago
    Does it make audits, faster, cheaper, more comprehensive, and more accessible by stakeholders? If so, thats the killer app.
    - Jasper_ 6y ago
      How would it?
    - qaq 6y ago
      It's orthogonal to all of the above
    - eli 6y ago
      no?
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  A central database with records signed by each of the organizations would solve the problem. Those records are independent of each other (my compliance status is independent of your compliance status) so do you no have the need for a consensus algorithm across all of the parties.
pluc 6y ago
I've seen proposals for Digital Governments platforms using blockchain-based democracy that sounded promising.. but because blockchain space is saturated with fintech people, these projects most of the time get run into the ground when colliding with crypto/ico/tokenization philosophies.
Tenoke 6y ago
Decentralized exchanges (e.g. uniswap) - users provide all the liquidity, get all the profit, has guarantees etc. Currently eth has high fees (this wasnt the case until recently and wont be in the future with layer 2) so it might look less great but it already has huge traction especially for smaller coins who you'd otherwise have to trade through tiny exchanges that are harder to trust. Similar for non-currency exchanges (like synthetix) which provide a comparable ways to trade near-arbitrary assets, though admittedly that is less proven to be a clear winner so far.
qaq 6y ago
And where does proof of work comes into play here?
tialaramex 6y ago
> Internet gambling. If I bet on something, I want the odds to accurately reflect the bets of all the players, and I want to be able to get my money out if I win. I can't see why a blockchain would help here. I don't like risk, but I do have recent experience with Internet "gambling" because the previous President of the United States of America persuaded his followers to bet that he'd actually won an election he lost, so I was able to make money answering trivia questions like "Did Donald Trump win the US presidential election in November?" (No). Although there were some conventional bookies offering this bet, most of the money (as I understand it) went on exchanges, there were hundreds of millions of dollars in the exchange I used. On an exchange they're matching bids against offers, as you would on a stock market, you can either propose odds yourself or you can take the best existing odds somebody else has proposed on the other side of the bet. As with the stock market, when things are liquid enough it's possible to establish a small range of odds in which matches will occur right now, and over time that range changes. It seemed to me that this offers everything you'd want, the assurance you'll get your money comes down to the institution offering the exchange, and its regulators, but it seems to me this would also be a problem for a hypothetical "blockchain" gambling system.
- honest_guy 6y ago
  > but it seems to me this would also be a problem for a hypothetical "blockchain" gambling system. It depends what form of gambling you're referring to. A blockchain based roulette smart contract could provide absolute transparency to anyone placing a bet. The exact process which determines the outcome is known, and it cannot be changed. The assurance that you get your money is the smart contract. A smart contract based prediction market, such as Augur, can offer similar transparency. You have the assurance that, should the market be resolved in your favour, you will get your money. The main concern is the governance structure which determines the outcomes.
Jasper_ 6y ago
Internet gambling has the problem that you have to trust the "oracle" deciding the dice rolls. You give all your money to an anonymous address that promises you'll get your money back. You still need trust.
- kerng 6y ago
  In code we trust, and code is law. The good thing smart contracts are inspectable, so there is at least the open source aspect to help mitigate concerns.
  - Jasper_ 6y ago
    How do you perform validatable RNG in a smart contract, without an untrustable oracle service? The problem with smart contracts is that they can't deal with outside interfaces. The only gambling smart contract I'm aware of is the Mayweather/McGregor one, which broke because the API they used to report the win changed from reporting 'w' for win and 'l' for loss to 'W' for win and 'L' for loss, and nobody could update it. Thankfully the author was trustable, after all, and put a refund method in it, otherwise it that money would have been gone forever. [0] So, the use cases have been tried and they've all failed. [0] https://www.removeddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6w5wcn/important_update_mayweathermcgregor_smart_contract/ https://www.removeddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6w5wcn/impor...
    - charcircuit 6y ago
      By having the users themselves provide the random input. For example there could be a two player game where each person provides a number and if the sum of those numbers is even player 1 wins and if it's odd player 2 wins. To prevent the second person who submits a number from cheating, both players instead commit to their number by first sending a hash of it. Once both people have submitted their hash, then they both reveal the number they committed to and those get added together. If you fail to reveal your number within a reasonable amount of time, then you lose.
  - this_user 6y ago
hertzrat 6y ago
Do people with gambling addictions really deserve a public record of all their behaviour to exist for people (including coworkers, family, and future employers) to read for all time, including your descendants?
lm28469 6y ago
> where I think blockchain applications actually make sense. Blockchain (may) make sense for these applications but did you stop to think if the applications themselves made sense ? Lotteries, internet gambling and internet advertising are three cancers in my book, I have no interest in solving their problems.
snarf21 6y ago
Sorry, but none of these need or can use a blockchain. 1) Powerball seems fine and well. How do you make sure that the records on this blockchain were put there legitimately? (if you use crypto, you are saying crypto is the only use case) How do you generate a winner fairly? 2) Again, how do you make sure all the bets are on this chain? How do you know that all the bets are on the chain legitimately? How do you get the money in and out of this chain? (if you use crypto, you are saying crypto is the only use case) How do you fairly reflect the outcome so people get paid appropriately? 3) You are saying that you just want an ad network that is focused on making the minimum amount of money. The bigger problem with online ads is that most are never even viewed by real people. People don't need a blockchain to chase the $$. Either the advertisers sees results or not and then they stop paying. If a hoster doesn't make any $$, they try a different service to make more. They absolutely don't want to track money from the advertiser through X stops for each ad.

pjmorris 6y ago

Compliance and regulatory audits (e.g. ISO certification, SOC 2, the list goes on) seem like a candidate to me. There is typically a standard set by one organization, that has to be complied with by (multiple departments within) another organization, and verified by an auditor external to the first two organization (as well as to auditors within each of the organizations.) A database managed by any of the three players wouldn't be trusted by the others, so it seems like a candidate for multi-party distributed trust.

qaq 6y ago
and you specifically need proof of work to solve this?
- scsilver 6y ago
  Does it make audits, faster, cheaper, more comprehensive, and more accessible by stakeholders? If so, thats the killer app.
  - Jasper_ 6y ago
    How would it?
  - qaq 6y ago
    It's orthogonal to all of the above
  - eli 6y ago
    no?
warkdarrior 6y ago
A central database with records signed by each of the organizations would solve the problem. Those records are independent of each other (my compliance status is independent of your compliance status) so do you no have the need for a consensus algorithm across all of the parties.

pluc 6y ago

I've seen proposals for Digital Governments platforms using blockchain-based democracy that sounded promising.. but because blockchain space is saturated with fintech people, these projects most of the time get run into the ground when colliding with crypto/ico/tokenization philosophies.

Tenoke 6y ago

Decentralized exchanges (e.g. uniswap) - users provide all the liquidity, get all the profit, has guarantees etc. Currently eth has high fees (this wasnt the case until recently and wont be in the future with layer 2) so it might look less great but it already has huge traction especially for smaller coins who you'd otherwise have to trade through tiny exchanges that are harder to trust. Similar for non-currency exchanges (like synthetix) which provide a comparable ways to trade near-arbitrary assets, though admittedly that is less proven to be a clear winner so far.

qaq 6y ago

And where does proof of work comes into play here?

tialaramex 6y ago

> Internet gambling. If I bet on something, I want the odds to accurately reflect the bets of all the players, and I want to be able to get my money out if I win. I can't see why a blockchain would help here. I don't like risk, but I do have recent experience with Internet "gambling" because the previous President of the United States of America persuaded his followers to bet that he'd actually won an election he lost, so I was able to make money answering trivia questions like "Did Donald Trump win the US presidential election in November?" (No). Although there were some conventional bookies offering this bet, most of the money (as I understand it) went on exchanges, there were hundreds of millions of dollars in the exchange I used. On an exchange they're matching bids against offers, as you would on a stock market, you can either propose odds yourself or you can take the best existing odds somebody else has proposed on the other side of the bet. As with the stock market, when things are liquid enough it's possible to establish a small range of odds in which matches will occur right now, and over time that range changes. It seemed to me that this offers everything you'd want, the assurance you'll get your money comes down to the institution offering the exchange, and its regulators, but it seems to me this would also be a problem for a hypothetical "blockchain" gambling system.

honest_guy 6y ago
> but it seems to me this would also be a problem for a hypothetical "blockchain" gambling system. It depends what form of gambling you're referring to. A blockchain based roulette smart contract could provide absolute transparency to anyone placing a bet. The exact process which determines the outcome is known, and it cannot be changed. The assurance that you get your money is the smart contract. A smart contract based prediction market, such as Augur, can offer similar transparency. You have the assurance that, should the market be resolved in your favour, you will get your money. The main concern is the governance structure which determines the outcomes.

Jasper_ 6y ago

Internet gambling has the problem that you have to trust the "oracle" deciding the dice rolls. You give all your money to an anonymous address that promises you'll get your money back. You still need trust.

kerng 6y ago
In code we trust, and code is law. The good thing smart contracts are inspectable, so there is at least the open source aspect to help mitigate concerns.
- Jasper_ 6y ago
  How do you perform validatable RNG in a smart contract, without an untrustable oracle service? The problem with smart contracts is that they can't deal with outside interfaces. The only gambling smart contract I'm aware of is the Mayweather/McGregor one, which broke because the API they used to report the win changed from reporting 'w' for win and 'l' for loss to 'W' for win and 'L' for loss, and nobody could update it. Thankfully the author was trustable, after all, and put a refund method in it, otherwise it that money would have been gone forever. [0] So, the use cases have been tried and they've all failed. [0] https://www.removeddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6w5wcn/important_update_mayweathermcgregor_smart_contract/ https://www.removeddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6w5wcn/impor...
  - charcircuit 6y ago
    By having the users themselves provide the random input. For example there could be a two player game where each person provides a number and if the sum of those numbers is even player 1 wins and if it's odd player 2 wins. To prevent the second person who submits a number from cheating, both players instead commit to their number by first sending a hash of it. Once both people have submitted their hash, then they both reveal the number they committed to and those get added together. If you fail to reveal your number within a reasonable amount of time, then you lose.
- this_user 6y ago

hertzrat 6y ago

Do people with gambling addictions really deserve a public record of all their behaviour to exist for people (including coworkers, family, and future employers) to read for all time, including your descendants?

lm28469 6y ago

> where I think blockchain applications actually make sense. Blockchain (may) make sense for these applications but did you stop to think if the applications themselves made sense ? Lotteries, internet gambling and internet advertising are three cancers in my book, I have no interest in solving their problems.

snarf21 6y ago

Sorry, but none of these need or can use a blockchain. 1) Powerball seems fine and well. How do you make sure that the records on this blockchain were put there legitimately? (if you use crypto, you are saying crypto is the only use case) How do you generate a winner fairly? 2) Again, how do you make sure all the bets are on this chain? How do you know that all the bets are on the chain legitimately? How do you get the money in and out of this chain? (if you use crypto, you are saying crypto is the only use case) How do you fairly reflect the outcome so people get paid appropriately? 3) You are saying that you just want an ad network that is focused on making the minimum amount of money. The bigger problem with online ads is that most are never even viewed by real people. People don't need a blockchain to chase the $$. Either the advertisers sees results or not and then they stop paying. If a hoster doesn't make any $$, they try a different service to make more. They absolutely don't want to track money from the advertiser through X stops for each ad.