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After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. These days I see lots companies telling me, they put their "supply chai

After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. These days I see lots companies telling me, they put their "supply chain on blockchain" and while I understand what they probably want to tell me ("you can't tamper with where our stuff comes from") I don't see the point in that. If you've got trust issues with your subcontractors you should fix those and not "seal" the willingly wrong information in a blockchain. Maybe we should just declare blockchain a "failed technology".

mirekrusin 6y ago
I think it's being declared "failed technology" at least once a month since inception, no?
- martin_a 6y ago
  Not sure, but we should act more like that then.
- boh 6y ago
  I mean it "works", but so do steam powered cars. The problem is most people don't actually use it, just trade it. The space used to mostly involve people who actually wanted to decentralize currencies, now it's almost exclusively "hodl $$$$$ to the moon etc". This article is articulating what's been clear to many people who really believed in the promise of decentralized currency: crypto in its current iteration has essentially failed. Time to try something else.
  - touristtam 6y ago
    Nevermind article like this one then: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/jp-morgan-microsoft-ethereum-quorum-blockchain/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/jp-morgan-microso...
    - boh 6y ago
      Exactly. Nevermind this article because Bitcoin and a blockchain from JP Morgan have nothing in common (also JP's enthusiasm for blockchains have been steadily waning and their earlier attempts are already dead on the vine). People have no interest in the tech, just gainz, bcs blockchain finance, consensus, future, JP Morgan and whatever word cloud pumpers want to use to get you excited don't actually reflect realities. If you have so much faith in the tech, start using it for real-world transactions, which you can do right now. If you're just hodling with some vague assumptions of moon money, you're not supporting the actual purpose of crypto. But let's be honest, most people aren't really supporting it or have any interest in actually using it, that's why crypto has been failing (even though it technically "works").
  - mirekrusin 6y ago
    Maybe you're hearing only "hodl" because those people are loud? Just like Vitalik doesn't give a shit about making money on speculation, so do many people working around this tech, a lot don't hold anything in crypto or purely symbolic amounts, trading takes a lot of time, energy and can drain emotionally very quickly, with more than 80% of new traders loosing money after 1 year not everybody is interested in it. To put it in other words - crypto trading is different kind of hobby than programming. Many people are interested in what kind of systems can be built and don't give much crap about monetizing it or worry about how many people are using it. It's a bit like getting upset at Fabrice Bellard because he created quickjs that "nobody is using" - it's completely missing the point.
baq 6y ago
i guess the whole point of tracking containers on blockchain was that you don't have to trust middlemen to do the right thing anymore.
- martin_a 6y ago
  "shit in, shit out" is still the working principle. I don't see why the middlemen should make true statements, if that's not in his interest after all. Instead he will just enter wrong information, which will then become "correct" information, "because it's on the blockchain!!11".
- Lazare 6y ago
  I've read some detailed discussions from people in the industry explaining how blockchains don't help. And I've read some very high level, breezy assertions from people outside the industry asserting that blockchains can help (although they never spell out how, exactly). As far as I can tell: 1. There's a pretty big issue with containers having the wrong contents (eg, counterfeit items loaded initially, or contraband added during transit). Current solutions are focused around physical security, seals, locks, etc., but it's fairly easy to bypass and forge these physical measures. 2. There's no real issue with tracking containers. We don't always know what's actually in them, but we know really well where they are and what's meant to be in them. 3. There's some efforts to try and replace the electronic systems for tracking where they are and what should be in them with blockchains. But as above, that's the bit that's currently working fine. Not needing to trust middlemen is a good goal, I just don't see how tracking containers on blockchains reduces my need to trust middlemen. When Customs seizes the container at the border and finds someone has added 100kg of cocaine to the container, how does the blockchain prove who jimmied the lock open and then replaced the tamper seals?
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    And, more importantly, a blockchain provides a trustless data store. Why can't I just trust myself to keep the data?
  - teus 6y ago
    This, a thousand times _this_! I've worked in shipping for decades. There is no problem with BOLs magically changing with no traceability (which blockchain could solve, I guess, if that problem existed?). There is no problem with checking that the seal on a box at arrival is the same seal that was on the box when it departed. The only viable purpose I've heard for blockchain is quasi-anonymous decentralized trust negotiation. This purpose doesn't match any real-world use case in shipping. A shipper doesn't want to ship product from an anonymous untrusted producer and no carrier wants to carry goods from an anonymous untrusted shipper. Blockchain won't stop companies from misdeclaring hazardous (but otherwise legal) goods[1], it won't stop traffickers from misdeclaring illegal goods (or smuggling illegal goods among legal goods)[2], it won't stop trucks from running overweight[3], it won't stop ships from being misloaded[4]... --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hyundai_Fortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hyundai_Fortune [2] https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9295962/cork-cocaine-valued-at-eu12-million-found-in-fruit-container/ https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9295962/cork-cocaine-valu... [3] this sort of thing doesn't usually make the news so I don't have a link [4] https://www.shippingandfreightresource.com/one-apus-container-stack-collapse-update-31st-dec/ https://www.shippingandfreightresource.com/one-apus-containe...
Gatsky 6y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-idUSKBN240048 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-id...
- martin_a 6y ago
  > to digitise a sector that still uses millions of paper documents So, they now use blockchain where sending documents as a PDF would have been sufficient... I'm so proud! edit: Read the article! That's truely their main selling point. Formerly it was done on/with paper, now it's "on the blockchain". This is another great example why we don't need blockchain.
  - Gatsky 6y ago
    What’s the point of a PDF when a fax would be sufficient?
- robjan 6y ago
  The problem is that the purpose of the Blockchain is to achieve distributed trustless consensus. Any time the Blockchain interacts with the physical world you need to introduce a centralised trusted entity (the oracle problem)
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Cryptokitties is actually great
- Tepix 6y ago
  They left Ethereum due to the high gas prices, didn't they? How many MAU do they have?
gh55 6y ago
Putting supply chain on a blockchain isn't about verifying the authenticity of the goods. Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc.
- teus 6y ago
  > Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc. Can you explain this in greater detail? I don't wish to be a naysayer, but I don't understand how those concepts are blockchain-specific. Goods being re-sold/diverted while in transit was a regular occurrence prior to the existence of blockchain technologies. What is being brought to the table that is new?
  - gh55 6y ago
    All actors having better access to these tools and others, more open markets. Someone with knowledge of new tools can build services aimed at various market participants, without needing much capital etc. Goods were sold before the Internet, too.
rubyfan 6y ago
I think a big part of this is that old tech companies like IBM, Oracle and probably every big management consulting trying to hype the technology up. You see consultants recommend taking on big challenges, sort of like snake oil applying it to all kinds of nonsensical scenarios around finance, insurance, supply chain, regulatory reporting, etc. Contrary to general perception it’s not a new data transfer cure all that will actually solve problems of sharing data between organizations. It also doesn’t replace hard work required to make a new industry standard. It’s barely useful in either of those but that’s the common misconception I usually hear from nontechnical people who seem to be excited about blockchain. Are we just trapped in a hype cycle that will inevitably end or does Bitcoin growth spell forever renewing waves of hype?
koonsolo 6y ago
I think the decentralized web pieces are starting to fall in place: decentralized file storage, decentralized domain names, decentralized communities and streaming, decentralized payments, etc. I wouldn't declare it "failed technology" just yet.
- loceng 6y ago
  Did Filecoin actually gain any traction?
  - toss1 6y ago
    Seems they recently launched late last year [0], some of the miners went on strike seeing the actual mining deal worse than they expected in several ways [1], and current price is going up a bit in the last few days, but consistently down vs BTC [2]. They may be having some success on their original purpose, having just passed 2.5 billion GB on the network, i.e., 2.5 exabytes, and 1300 miners, 200+ projects and 5900+ GitHub contributors [3]. [0] https://www.coindesk.com/filecoin-mainnet-now-live https://www.coindesk.com/filecoin-mainnet-now-live [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/filecoin-miners-start-a-strike-fil-validators-claim-the-projects-economic-model-is-not-working/ https://news.bitcoin.com/filecoin-miners-start-a-strike-fil-... [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/filecoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/filecoin/ [3] https://siliconangle.com/2021/02/16/filecoins-decentralized-storage-reaches-2-5-billion-gigabytes-capacity/ https://siliconangle.com/2021/02/16/filecoins-decentralized-...
    - loceng 6y ago
      Do you know if they list the price of storing/accessing 1 GB on Filecoin compared to say AWS? It's obvious that people who own Bitcoin would want to use the system in order to show usefulness, demand, however I'm wondering if there's any use of people who aren't financially incentivized (like early adopters who have the most to gain).
      - toss1 6y ago
        Good question, but IDK. Current price is around $37/Filecoin, falling from $45 earlier in the week, but I have no idea what one Filecoin buys in terms of storage. Let me know if you find out more, and I'll do the same
rawtxapp 6y ago
I know someone who got a 7 figure loan backed by cryptocurrency collateral in a matter of minutes using makerdao. The best part? They didn't even had to provide their name. This is the future folks, I highly recommend that you actually try some of these projects before writing them off.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  You do realize it’s law and not technical incapability that prevents financial institutions from lending like this, right?
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    I mean I don't care why they can't, right? These financial systems are so old, corrupt and broken, you have to pretty much start from scratch in my opinion.
  - 177tcca 6y ago
    It is technical incapability of some financial institutions to set this up inside of their regulated position. Other freely operating entities across the globe are not in the same position.
    - tootie 6y ago
      It's an interesting thought. Any online brokerage, lender or retail banker could probably set up an anonymous verification of asset ownership without going through background checks or credit agencies. You just need 2-party consent and verification, not a whole blockchain. The trick is not proving you own a thing, it's that you need to prove you haven't used it as collateral for anyone else or don't hold outstanding debts somewhere else. Blockchain will be completely useless for solving that. A universal identity (ie SSN) is the only option.
  - ike77 6y ago
    I don't think law would prevent a fully collateralized loan on the basis of borrower/lender risks. AML seems a non issue too, as the loan only moves the question. KYC remains one big problem but there are many startups providing those services and they are slowly gaining acceptance in courts. Don't be impressed if a few years (and maybe even months) from now you start to see classical banks trading mortgages onchain.
zionic 6y ago
>After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. Why are uniswap/none of these DeFi/DEx'es "not useful"? https://defipulse.com/ https://defipulse.com/
miedpo 6y ago
I mean... there are a few. Brave (the browser) uses blockchain in their privacy protecting ad technology. Skynet uses a blockchain to allow users to share their extra computer storage space for a CDN. And I'm sure there are a few others. It's just that the amount of use cases send legitimate applications using them are... limited. Most of the ones I'd consider valid uses have a substance-full technical goal, like the two I mentioned above.
- martin_a 6y ago
  > Brave (the browser) uses blockchain in their privacy protecting ad technology. uBlock Origin works fine based on txt-files. Not sure how blockchain could improve this.
  - TheMblabla 6y ago
    Iirc the idea behind brave is to create a sustainable alternative to the ad/data collection of big tech. They use blockchain to enable microtransactions for content.
    - martin_a 6y ago
      So, we are back to flattr, PayPal recurring payments or whatnot again. $localNewspaper not go through the hassle of dealing with payments through blockchain technology.
      - miedpo 6y ago
        Not really. Some people do that. Most just leave it on auto-contribute which means you'd get paid per view. It's also not terribly hard to get verified so you get paid. As long as someone is reasonably familiar with technology, I think it'd be pretty easy for them. Haven't tried it for myself though (but the guide is up there so you can see it for yourself if your curious).
mountainb 6y ago
Full supply chain documentation takes a long time to put together. If the application could generate the full supply chain documentation for an item with a certain serial number, that would be very useful. It is also very common for suppliers and various intermediaries to have bad document management practices that get further muddled by digital file issues (e.g. people just generating documents from their software that may be different from the real invoice). The issue with that is that not everyone involved wants transparency or wants to know, because you can get discounts from illegal or merely hinky behavior such as through gray market imports. There are good reasons as to why a lot of people involved in bringing products to customers want to see no evil / hear no evil / speak no evil. There's room here for the law to push people into adopting better technology than what is currently used. This is another case in which the paper tech is better for fraud, negligence, and crime than the blockchain tech. It is also more forgiving because it prevents participants in the supply chain from becoming aware of fraud further up the chain, so it prevents them from taking on liability. Transparency sounds great until you learn it means that you have to pay more for the same units because the crime / lax practices that lubed the system up is now infeasible.
- castlecrasher2 6y ago
  Dumb this down for me, because it's unclear how blockchain would solve the issues you bring up.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
    Blockchain is just a ledger. So "the Blockchain" does not make anything significantly better. Its in fact ridiculously expensive. The idea is that everytime sweat shop X finishes sewing sequins on a dress, they can scan the RFID tag on the dress with their smartphone, and the ledger gets updated, and then Walmart can prepare for that dress, the shipping company can print out labels etc. Its a good idea. Industries are supposed to work this out, create their own cheaper blockchains that just need some sort of simple KYC to get started, then its as cheap as email to add your little bit to the supply chain. I dont know of any successful implementations Edit: no blockchain will solve the grey market problems. Everything will have to be made genuninely on the chain. Which starts to lead to probelsm with if you cannot get permission to write to the chain ... etc etc
UShouldBWorking 6y ago
I love that HN has been calling blockchain a failure for 10 years now. I wish that I could make heads or tails of your arguments against it but you seem to just take the worst aspects of it to make a point. The killer app is cash, everything else is a distraction. I think hn guys just happen to get paid a lot of money in a stable fiat currency so the system works great for you. Everyone else is looking for an alternative.
Geee 6y ago
There is Sia/Skynet which I think is really cool. Sia is the decentralized storage layer and Skynet provides file-sharing and HTTP-access through webportals. It's actually working and can compete with AWS S3 in terms of security, performance and price, while being completely decentralized. Check out https://siasky.net https://siasky.net and the Skynet App Store: https://siasky.net/hns/skyapps/#/apps/all https://siasky.net/hns/skyapps/#/apps/all
slickrick216 6y ago
Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean it’s not useful. People called computers useless for a long time too. Some still do.
snurk 6y ago
https://kleros.io https://kleros.io
splintercell 6y ago
> If you've got trust issues with your subcontractors you should fix those and not "seal" the willingly wrong information in a blockchain. In first world countries, yes. In third world countries, no.

mirekrusin 6y ago

I think it's being declared "failed technology" at least once a month since inception, no?

martin_a 6y ago
Not sure, but we should act more like that then.
boh 6y ago
I mean it "works", but so do steam powered cars. The problem is most people don't actually use it, just trade it. The space used to mostly involve people who actually wanted to decentralize currencies, now it's almost exclusively "hodl $$$$$ to the moon etc". This article is articulating what's been clear to many people who really believed in the promise of decentralized currency: crypto in its current iteration has essentially failed. Time to try something else.
- touristtam 6y ago
  Nevermind article like this one then: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/jp-morgan-microsoft-ethereum-quorum-blockchain/ https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/05/03/jp-morgan-microso...
  - boh 6y ago
    Exactly. Nevermind this article because Bitcoin and a blockchain from JP Morgan have nothing in common (also JP's enthusiasm for blockchains have been steadily waning and their earlier attempts are already dead on the vine). People have no interest in the tech, just gainz, bcs blockchain finance, consensus, future, JP Morgan and whatever word cloud pumpers want to use to get you excited don't actually reflect realities. If you have so much faith in the tech, start using it for real-world transactions, which you can do right now. If you're just hodling with some vague assumptions of moon money, you're not supporting the actual purpose of crypto. But let's be honest, most people aren't really supporting it or have any interest in actually using it, that's why crypto has been failing (even though it technically "works").
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  Maybe you're hearing only "hodl" because those people are loud? Just like Vitalik doesn't give a shit about making money on speculation, so do many people working around this tech, a lot don't hold anything in crypto or purely symbolic amounts, trading takes a lot of time, energy and can drain emotionally very quickly, with more than 80% of new traders loosing money after 1 year not everybody is interested in it. To put it in other words - crypto trading is different kind of hobby than programming. Many people are interested in what kind of systems can be built and don't give much crap about monetizing it or worry about how many people are using it. It's a bit like getting upset at Fabrice Bellard because he created quickjs that "nobody is using" - it's completely missing the point.

baq 6y ago

i guess the whole point of tracking containers on blockchain was that you don't have to trust middlemen to do the right thing anymore.

martin_a 6y ago
"shit in, shit out" is still the working principle. I don't see why the middlemen should make true statements, if that's not in his interest after all. Instead he will just enter wrong information, which will then become "correct" information, "because it's on the blockchain!!11".
Lazare 6y ago
I've read some detailed discussions from people in the industry explaining how blockchains don't help. And I've read some very high level, breezy assertions from people outside the industry asserting that blockchains can help (although they never spell out how, exactly). As far as I can tell: 1. There's a pretty big issue with containers having the wrong contents (eg, counterfeit items loaded initially, or contraband added during transit). Current solutions are focused around physical security, seals, locks, etc., but it's fairly easy to bypass and forge these physical measures. 2. There's no real issue with tracking containers. We don't always know what's actually in them, but we know really well where they are and what's meant to be in them. 3. There's some efforts to try and replace the electronic systems for tracking where they are and what should be in them with blockchains. But as above, that's the bit that's currently working fine. Not needing to trust middlemen is a good goal, I just don't see how tracking containers on blockchains reduces my need to trust middlemen. When Customs seizes the container at the border and finds someone has added 100kg of cocaine to the container, how does the blockchain prove who jimmied the lock open and then replaced the tamper seals?
- StavrosK 6y ago
  And, more importantly, a blockchain provides a trustless data store. Why can't I just trust myself to keep the data?
- teus 6y ago
  This, a thousand times _this_! I've worked in shipping for decades. There is no problem with BOLs magically changing with no traceability (which blockchain could solve, I guess, if that problem existed?). There is no problem with checking that the seal on a box at arrival is the same seal that was on the box when it departed. The only viable purpose I've heard for blockchain is quasi-anonymous decentralized trust negotiation. This purpose doesn't match any real-world use case in shipping. A shipper doesn't want to ship product from an anonymous untrusted producer and no carrier wants to carry goods from an anonymous untrusted shipper. Blockchain won't stop companies from misdeclaring hazardous (but otherwise legal) goods[1], it won't stop traffickers from misdeclaring illegal goods (or smuggling illegal goods among legal goods)[2], it won't stop trucks from running overweight[3], it won't stop ships from being misloaded[4]... --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hyundai_Fortune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hyundai_Fortune [2] https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9295962/cork-cocaine-valued-at-eu12-million-found-in-fruit-container/ https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9295962/cork-cocaine-valu... [3] this sort of thing doesn't usually make the news so I don't have a link [4] https://www.shippingandfreightresource.com/one-apus-container-stack-collapse-update-31st-dec/ https://www.shippingandfreightresource.com/one-apus-containe...

Gatsky 6y ago

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-idUSKBN240048 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bhp-ironore-blockchain-id...

martin_a 6y ago
> to digitise a sector that still uses millions of paper documents So, they now use blockchain where sending documents as a PDF would have been sufficient... I'm so proud! edit: Read the article! That's truely their main selling point. Formerly it was done on/with paper, now it's "on the blockchain". This is another great example why we don't need blockchain.
- Gatsky 6y ago
  What’s the point of a PDF when a fax would be sufficient?
robjan 6y ago
The problem is that the purpose of the Blockchain is to achieve distributed trustless consensus. Any time the Blockchain interacts with the physical world you need to introduce a centralised trusted entity (the oracle problem)

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Cryptokitties is actually great

Tepix 6y ago
They left Ethereum due to the high gas prices, didn't they? How many MAU do they have?

gh55 6y ago

Putting supply chain on a blockchain isn't about verifying the authenticity of the goods. Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc.

teus 6y ago
> Its about being able to buy and sell the goods at any time, hedge out price risk, etc. Can you explain this in greater detail? I don't wish to be a naysayer, but I don't understand how those concepts are blockchain-specific. Goods being re-sold/diverted while in transit was a regular occurrence prior to the existence of blockchain technologies. What is being brought to the table that is new?
- gh55 6y ago
  All actors having better access to these tools and others, more open markets. Someone with knowledge of new tools can build services aimed at various market participants, without needing much capital etc. Goods were sold before the Internet, too.

rubyfan 6y ago

I think a big part of this is that old tech companies like IBM, Oracle and probably every big management consulting trying to hype the technology up. You see consultants recommend taking on big challenges, sort of like snake oil applying it to all kinds of nonsensical scenarios around finance, insurance, supply chain, regulatory reporting, etc. Contrary to general perception it’s not a new data transfer cure all that will actually solve problems of sharing data between organizations. It also doesn’t replace hard work required to make a new industry standard. It’s barely useful in either of those but that’s the common misconception I usually hear from nontechnical people who seem to be excited about blockchain. Are we just trapped in a hype cycle that will inevitably end or does Bitcoin growth spell forever renewing waves of hype?

koonsolo 6y ago

I think the decentralized web pieces are starting to fall in place: decentralized file storage, decentralized domain names, decentralized communities and streaming, decentralized payments, etc. I wouldn't declare it "failed technology" just yet.

loceng 6y ago
Did Filecoin actually gain any traction?
- toss1 6y ago
  Seems they recently launched late last year [0], some of the miners went on strike seeing the actual mining deal worse than they expected in several ways [1], and current price is going up a bit in the last few days, but consistently down vs BTC [2]. They may be having some success on their original purpose, having just passed 2.5 billion GB on the network, i.e., 2.5 exabytes, and 1300 miners, 200+ projects and 5900+ GitHub contributors [3]. [0] https://www.coindesk.com/filecoin-mainnet-now-live https://www.coindesk.com/filecoin-mainnet-now-live [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/filecoin-miners-start-a-strike-fil-validators-claim-the-projects-economic-model-is-not-working/ https://news.bitcoin.com/filecoin-miners-start-a-strike-fil-... [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/filecoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/filecoin/ [3] https://siliconangle.com/2021/02/16/filecoins-decentralized-storage-reaches-2-5-billion-gigabytes-capacity/ https://siliconangle.com/2021/02/16/filecoins-decentralized-...
  - loceng 6y ago
    Do you know if they list the price of storing/accessing 1 GB on Filecoin compared to say AWS? It's obvious that people who own Bitcoin would want to use the system in order to show usefulness, demand, however I'm wondering if there's any use of people who aren't financially incentivized (like early adopters who have the most to gain).
    - toss1 6y ago
      Good question, but IDK. Current price is around $37/Filecoin, falling from $45 earlier in the week, but I have no idea what one Filecoin buys in terms of storage. Let me know if you find out more, and I'll do the same

rawtxapp 6y ago

I know someone who got a 7 figure loan backed by cryptocurrency collateral in a matter of minutes using makerdao. The best part? They didn't even had to provide their name. This is the future folks, I highly recommend that you actually try some of these projects before writing them off.

ethanbond 6y ago
You do realize it’s law and not technical incapability that prevents financial institutions from lending like this, right?
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  I mean I don't care why they can't, right? These financial systems are so old, corrupt and broken, you have to pretty much start from scratch in my opinion.
- 177tcca 6y ago
  It is technical incapability of some financial institutions to set this up inside of their regulated position. Other freely operating entities across the globe are not in the same position.
  - tootie 6y ago
    It's an interesting thought. Any online brokerage, lender or retail banker could probably set up an anonymous verification of asset ownership without going through background checks or credit agencies. You just need 2-party consent and verification, not a whole blockchain. The trick is not proving you own a thing, it's that you need to prove you haven't used it as collateral for anyone else or don't hold outstanding debts somewhere else. Blockchain will be completely useless for solving that. A universal identity (ie SSN) is the only option.
- ike77 6y ago
  I don't think law would prevent a fully collateralized loan on the basis of borrower/lender risks. AML seems a non issue too, as the loan only moves the question. KYC remains one big problem but there are many startups providing those services and they are slowly gaining acceptance in courts. Don't be impressed if a few years (and maybe even months) from now you start to see classical banks trading mortgages onchain.

zionic 6y ago

>After all those years, there's still not a single useful blockchain application around. Why are uniswap/none of these DeFi/DEx'es "not useful"? https://defipulse.com/ https://defipulse.com/

miedpo 6y ago

I mean... there are a few. Brave (the browser) uses blockchain in their privacy protecting ad technology. Skynet uses a blockchain to allow users to share their extra computer storage space for a CDN. And I'm sure there are a few others. It's just that the amount of use cases send legitimate applications using them are... limited. Most of the ones I'd consider valid uses have a substance-full technical goal, like the two I mentioned above.

martin_a 6y ago
> Brave (the browser) uses blockchain in their privacy protecting ad technology. uBlock Origin works fine based on txt-files. Not sure how blockchain could improve this.
- TheMblabla 6y ago
  Iirc the idea behind brave is to create a sustainable alternative to the ad/data collection of big tech. They use blockchain to enable microtransactions for content.
  - martin_a 6y ago
    So, we are back to flattr, PayPal recurring payments or whatnot again. $localNewspaper not go through the hassle of dealing with payments through blockchain technology.
    - miedpo 6y ago
      Not really. Some people do that. Most just leave it on auto-contribute which means you'd get paid per view. It's also not terribly hard to get verified so you get paid. As long as someone is reasonably familiar with technology, I think it'd be pretty easy for them. Haven't tried it for myself though (but the guide is up there so you can see it for yourself if your curious).

mountainb 6y ago

Full supply chain documentation takes a long time to put together. If the application could generate the full supply chain documentation for an item with a certain serial number, that would be very useful. It is also very common for suppliers and various intermediaries to have bad document management practices that get further muddled by digital file issues (e.g. people just generating documents from their software that may be different from the real invoice). The issue with that is that not everyone involved wants transparency or wants to know, because you can get discounts from illegal or merely hinky behavior such as through gray market imports. There are good reasons as to why a lot of people involved in bringing products to customers want to see no evil / hear no evil / speak no evil. There's room here for the law to push people into adopting better technology than what is currently used. This is another case in which the paper tech is better for fraud, negligence, and crime than the blockchain tech. It is also more forgiving because it prevents participants in the supply chain from becoming aware of fraud further up the chain, so it prevents them from taking on liability. Transparency sounds great until you learn it means that you have to pay more for the same units because the crime / lax practices that lubed the system up is now infeasible.

castlecrasher2 6y ago
Dumb this down for me, because it's unclear how blockchain would solve the issues you bring up.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  Blockchain is just a ledger. So "the Blockchain" does not make anything significantly better. Its in fact ridiculously expensive. The idea is that everytime sweat shop X finishes sewing sequins on a dress, they can scan the RFID tag on the dress with their smartphone, and the ledger gets updated, and then Walmart can prepare for that dress, the shipping company can print out labels etc. Its a good idea. Industries are supposed to work this out, create their own cheaper blockchains that just need some sort of simple KYC to get started, then its as cheap as email to add your little bit to the supply chain. I dont know of any successful implementations Edit: no blockchain will solve the grey market problems. Everything will have to be made genuninely on the chain. Which starts to lead to probelsm with if you cannot get permission to write to the chain ... etc etc

UShouldBWorking 6y ago

I love that HN has been calling blockchain a failure for 10 years now. I wish that I could make heads or tails of your arguments against it but you seem to just take the worst aspects of it to make a point. The killer app is cash, everything else is a distraction. I think hn guys just happen to get paid a lot of money in a stable fiat currency so the system works great for you. Everyone else is looking for an alternative.

Geee 6y ago

There is Sia/Skynet which I think is really cool. Sia is the decentralized storage layer and Skynet provides file-sharing and HTTP-access through webportals. It's actually working and can compete with AWS S3 in terms of security, performance and price, while being completely decentralized. Check out https://siasky.net https://siasky.net and the Skynet App Store: https://siasky.net/hns/skyapps/#/apps/all https://siasky.net/hns/skyapps/#/apps/all

slickrick216 6y ago

Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean it’s not useful. People called computers useless for a long time too. Some still do.

snurk 6y ago

https://kleros.io https://kleros.io

splintercell 6y ago

> If you've got trust issues with your subcontractors you should fix those and not "seal" the willingly wrong information in a blockchain. In first world countries, yes. In third world countries, no.