3 ms·
Not true! A lot of code written for financial applications, and a lot of the complexity in those systems, is there just to synchronize, reconcile and settle bet
by legutierr 5y ago
Not true! A lot of code written for financial applications, and a lot of the complexity in those systems, is there just to synchronize, reconcile and settle between the independent data silos maintained by the various entities involved in a transaction. Blockchains can do a lot to eliminate that complexity.
Also, there are interesting advantages to the transaction authorization model that blockchains have whereby a message is valid only if signed by the sender, enforced down to the data layer.
- throwaway248329 5y agoTraditional finance did settling just fine before. The only reason they are getting into blockchain now, is that it's a real alternative that people prefer to the banks.
- legutierr 5y agoJust because they did it just fine before, doesn't mean that there isn't a better way that will provide massive competitive advantages to companies that adopt them. Big companies ran payroll 100 years ago without IBM machines, but IBM made it easier for big companies to run payroll, so companies that bought IBM machines were able to scale. Company budgets were done just fine on big sheets of paper 50 years ago before PCs loaded with VisiCalc or Excel deployed to every desktop. What company that still did it the old way survived the 1980s? Credit card transactions even 30 years ago were still often done with a physical mechanical impression at the point-of-sale. That worked just fine, didn't it? Yeah, there was some fraud, but the people who were given credit cards were few enough that it wasn't unmanageable. But online POS systems now mean that almost everyone today makes payments with debit or credit cards most of the time. Is "things are working just fine" a reason to not innovate?