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We as a society have entrusted upon the court system to sort out ownership of properties, so yes, the court can declare ownership. The court issuing a transact

by ww520 5y ago

We as a society have entrusted upon the court system to sort out ownership of properties, so yes, the court can declare ownership. The court issuing a transaction is just like the court issuing a paper declaring a judgement. The consent of everyone on the blockchain only applies to the integrity of the transaction, i.e. yes, this transaction is issued from this particular wallet. That's it. No more. No less. Everyone on the blockchain consents that the transaction is indeed from the court's wallet, not from some random guy off the street. The court's wallet is a well known one and carries some authority. Once the question of ownership is contested again, everyone can trace it back to the court's issuing of the transaction.

oblio 5y ago
So you're saying that in this distributed ledger where we proof-of-stake and proof-of-work and proof-of-doge everything, there are some agents which are more special than other and we should trust them? Interesting.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Look it’s easy to nay-say. There must be something that connects the ledger to the real world and that something is going to have to be able to modify the ledger when the real world doesn’t match. Blockchains aren’t magic and can’t just query the state of the world without the help of people in meatspace. This is not a fixable problem. It’s just a question of who the somebody is. It’s why I think blockchain for IRL goods is pointless because whatever entity you have to trust to enforce the database constraints could just run the database without a blockchain.
- cma 5y ago
  And each transaction gets to burn the equivalent of 10 gallons of gasoline instead of an atomic logged database transaction (which could even be published and cryptographically signed cheaply).
  - aftbit 5y ago
    It will certainly be better with Proof of Stake & sharding, but I was curious how bad it is today, so I looked it up. One ETH transaction consumes 86.94 kWh of energy. Wikipedia says gasoline has 8.83 kWh/l energy content, so it looks like about 10L of gasoline per transaction (not 10gal). Still, there are about 3.8L/gal, so if you factor in that heat engines are about 25% efficient, then you are right. What a crazy world we live in. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption
    - cma 5y ago
      Bitcoin transactions have gone as high as 1200 kWh now. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
- ww520 5y ago
  The wallets are the issuers of the transactions into the blockchain. The wallets can be used as the identification and representation of the real world entities. It's just like the court's stamp on a piece of paper carrying more weight than your and my stamps on a piece of paper.

by ww520 5y ago

oblio 5y ago

So you're saying that in this distributed ledger where we proof-of-stake and proof-of-work and proof-of-doge everything, there are some agents which are more special than other and we should trust them? Interesting.

Spivak 5y ago
Look it’s easy to nay-say. There must be something that connects the ledger to the real world and that something is going to have to be able to modify the ledger when the real world doesn’t match. Blockchains aren’t magic and can’t just query the state of the world without the help of people in meatspace. This is not a fixable problem. It’s just a question of who the somebody is. It’s why I think blockchain for IRL goods is pointless because whatever entity you have to trust to enforce the database constraints could just run the database without a blockchain.
cma 5y ago
And each transaction gets to burn the equivalent of 10 gallons of gasoline instead of an atomic logged database transaction (which could even be published and cryptographically signed cheaply).
- aftbit 5y ago
  It will certainly be better with Proof of Stake & sharding, but I was curious how bad it is today, so I looked it up. One ETH transaction consumes 86.94 kWh of energy. Wikipedia says gasoline has 8.83 kWh/l energy content, so it looks like about 10L of gasoline per transaction (not 10gal). Still, there are about 3.8L/gal, so if you factor in that heat engines are about 25% efficient, then you are right. What a crazy world we live in. https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption
  - cma 5y ago
    Bitcoin transactions have gone as high as 1200 kWh now. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
ww520 5y ago
The wallets are the issuers of the transactions into the blockchain. The wallets can be used as the identification and representation of the real world entities. It's just like the court's stamp on a piece of paper carrying more weight than your and my stamps on a piece of paper.