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Ask HN: Is there Distributed Ledger technology that's “better” than blockchain?

6 points by aniijbod 5y ago

bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
Better at what? Faster? Google sheets. All Blockchains are “better” than one another depending on whether you are looking at security or speed or centralization, etc.
- mikece 5y ago
  I presume the OP meant something like a distributed database -- with or without running block encryption/verification -- to do what the distributed ledger in a blockchain does but not in the way cryptographically signed blockchains do it. I could be wrong though.
- aniijbod 5y ago
  That's exactly why I put the word "better" in scare quotes.
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    That doesn't answer the 'better in what way' question, otherwise it's only asking if there are different kinds. I presume to compare something to a blockchain we take decentralized and hard-to-corrupt (e.g. 51% PoW) as given properties. If there's something like that which is not a blockchain, I'm also curious to know.
    - aniijbod 5y ago
      I'm also curious about this. The pre-blockchain history of distributed ledgers sounds like it might be an important topic in this context: https://medium.com/blockstreethq/before-blockchain-there-was-distributed-ledger-technology-319d0295f011 https://medium.com/blockstreethq/before-blockchain-there-was...
    - karmakaze 5y ago
      Actually there is one old distributed ledger I was told about when discussing what is money or a blockchain: the stone currency historically used on the Yap islands. It started out by using some large distinctive stones and adding markings to them. Additional markings and additional stones could be added. A key property was that all the information was public and known to the islanders, so if someone were to fake a marking or forge a stone it would immediately be invalidated. The oral recounting of the stones was a literal gossip protocol. As the story goes, a stone was lost to sea during a storm. Nothing changed as everyone remembered it and either already agreed what was on it, or came to consensus. The physical presence/existence of the stone wasn't needed at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
    - xchaotic 5y ago
      I once put together a blockchain-like solution that was actually running on top of a distributed database. Because it was using db's native replication, it was much faster and more efficient to distribute the blockchain among the participating nodes. There were some drawbacks too, for example the system required n/2+1 for quorum which is a bit more than than 51% for small clusters. So back to basics: I would start with the use case, problem to solve and then see if something like blockchain is the correct solution for the problem (as opposed to searching for some magic blockchain-like tech that is magically better than others for all types of problems)
- aniijbod 5y ago
  "All Blockchains are “better” than one another" Yes, but are there any (other?) "non-blockchains" that are better as distributed ledgers"? I'm assuming here that you didn't count Google Sheets as being a Blockchain, but that you did count it to be (capable of being used as) a distributed ledger
SCORP111 5y ago
Take a Look at IOTA (https://www.iota.org/ https://www.iota.org/)
vannevar 5y ago
"Better" depends on your requirements of course, but Freenet predates the blockchain and its underlying encrypted distributed data store could serve as the basis for a distributed ledger. https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki

6 points by aniijbod 5y ago

Better at what? Faster? Google sheets. All Blockchains are “better” than one another depending on whether you are looking at security or speed or centralization, etc.

mikece 5y ago
I presume the OP meant something like a distributed database -- with or without running block encryption/verification -- to do what the distributed ledger in a blockchain does but not in the way cryptographically signed blockchains do it. I could be wrong though.
aniijbod 5y ago
That's exactly why I put the word "better" in scare quotes.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  That doesn't answer the 'better in what way' question, otherwise it's only asking if there are different kinds. I presume to compare something to a blockchain we take decentralized and hard-to-corrupt (e.g. 51% PoW) as given properties. If there's something like that which is not a blockchain, I'm also curious to know.
  - aniijbod 5y ago
    I'm also curious about this. The pre-blockchain history of distributed ledgers sounds like it might be an important topic in this context: https://medium.com/blockstreethq/before-blockchain-there-was-distributed-ledger-technology-319d0295f011 https://medium.com/blockstreethq/before-blockchain-there-was...
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    Actually there is one old distributed ledger I was told about when discussing what is money or a blockchain: the stone currency historically used on the Yap islands. It started out by using some large distinctive stones and adding markings to them. Additional markings and additional stones could be added. A key property was that all the information was public and known to the islanders, so if someone were to fake a marking or forge a stone it would immediately be invalidated. The oral recounting of the stones was a literal gossip protocol. As the story goes, a stone was lost to sea during a storm. Nothing changed as everyone remembered it and either already agreed what was on it, or came to consensus. The physical presence/existence of the stone wasn't needed at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
  - xchaotic 5y ago
    I once put together a blockchain-like solution that was actually running on top of a distributed database. Because it was using db's native replication, it was much faster and more efficient to distribute the blockchain among the participating nodes. There were some drawbacks too, for example the system required n/2+1 for quorum which is a bit more than than 51% for small clusters. So back to basics: I would start with the use case, problem to solve and then see if something like blockchain is the correct solution for the problem (as opposed to searching for some magic blockchain-like tech that is magically better than others for all types of problems)
aniijbod 5y ago
"All Blockchains are “better” than one another" Yes, but are there any (other?) "non-blockchains" that are better as distributed ledgers"? I'm assuming here that you didn't count Google Sheets as being a Blockchain, but that you did count it to be (capable of being used as) a distributed ledger

SCORP111 5y ago

Take a Look at IOTA (https://www.iota.org/ https://www.iota.org/)

vannevar 5y ago

"Better" depends on your requirements of course, but Freenet predates the blockchain and its underlying encrypted distributed data store could serve as the basis for a distributed ledger. https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki https://github.com/freenet/wiki/wiki