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> the technology is broken beyond fixability [citation needed] Crypto ideologues are a strawman. Anyone working on the actual tech agrees that blockchains are

by lima 6y ago

> the technology is broken beyond fixability [citation needed] Crypto ideologues are a strawman. Anyone working on the actual tech agrees that blockchains are useful if, and only if, you can't rely on a single party and need a decentralized, trustless append-only database. Otherwise, why bother with the extra complexity? That's the whole point of blockchains, after all. Technology choices are complex set of trade-offs, even within the blockchain space.

hobs 6y ago
Right, the problem is that almost no one needs those features and those are mostly anti-features for modern software.
packetlost 6y ago
Correct. The problem is there's virtually nothing that actually benefits from those things. A strong case case could be made for a truly decentralized global currency and maybe smart-contracts, but not "a store of value" or "revolutionizing supply chain bookkeeping".
- mikegreenberg 6y ago
  Note that both use cases (decentralized global currency and smart contracts) rely on altruism which cannot be guaranteed by human actors but is entirely deterministic within the chaos of humanity (with a sufficient number of honest actors) using a blockchain. That is the value prop: distributed consensus with "quick" convergence toward an agreed upon truth.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Transactions between banks need clearing and settling. Many systems run on a periodict (like half an hour) net settlement, some are even slower. Blockchain is a perfect firt for those usecases. There is a reason JP morgan is developing quorum
  - jeltz 6y ago
    Or they could just start doing real time settlement, something which the banks are working on.
  - acdha 6y ago
    There are two distinct classes of system pushed under the label “blockchain”: the kind like Bitcoin are enormously complicated by trying to be used between untrusted parties. The systems which are potential viable are much less expensive because all of the parties in their system are known and trusted at least to be subject to contract law. All a bank needs is public key encryption and Merkle trees, and while that might be branded as a blockchain for marketing purposes that doesn’t make it the same.
oblio 6y ago
Blockchain is like NoSQL. NoSQL was a nice buzzword to bunch up web caches and log processing tools for analytics, especially for the creepy-spying-ads corps. The blockchain niches seem to be much, much smaller than what it's sold for. Once the dust settles (~5 years from now) it's likely that not much will be left behind an all this money spent on it will have been wasted. Heck, NoSQL databases have wider applicability than blockchain and few people consider them a major technological revolution, let alone a social or economical one.

by lima 6y ago

hobs 6y ago

Right, the problem is that almost no one needs those features and those are mostly anti-features for modern software.

packetlost 6y ago

Correct. The problem is there's virtually nothing that actually benefits from those things. A strong case case could be made for a truly decentralized global currency and maybe smart-contracts, but not "a store of value" or "revolutionizing supply chain bookkeeping".

mikegreenberg 6y ago
Note that both use cases (decentralized global currency and smart contracts) rely on altruism which cannot be guaranteed by human actors but is entirely deterministic within the chaos of humanity (with a sufficient number of honest actors) using a blockchain. That is the value prop: distributed consensus with "quick" convergence toward an agreed upon truth.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Transactions between banks need clearing and settling. Many systems run on a periodict (like half an hour) net settlement, some are even slower. Blockchain is a perfect firt for those usecases. There is a reason JP morgan is developing quorum
- jeltz 6y ago
  Or they could just start doing real time settlement, something which the banks are working on.
- acdha 6y ago
  There are two distinct classes of system pushed under the label “blockchain”: the kind like Bitcoin are enormously complicated by trying to be used between untrusted parties. The systems which are potential viable are much less expensive because all of the parties in their system are known and trusted at least to be subject to contract law. All a bank needs is public key encryption and Merkle trees, and while that might be branded as a blockchain for marketing purposes that doesn’t make it the same.

oblio 6y ago

Blockchain is like NoSQL. NoSQL was a nice buzzword to bunch up web caches and log processing tools for analytics, especially for the creepy-spying-ads corps. The blockchain niches seem to be much, much smaller than what it's sold for. Once the dust settles (~5 years from now) it's likely that not much will be left behind an all this money spent on it will have been wasted. Heck, NoSQL databases have wider applicability than blockchain and few people consider them a major technological revolution, let alone a social or economical one.