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You’re talking about the problem after the network has already reached consensus on a block. Problem is, if you’re downloading new blocks from the blockchain,
by selestify 5y ago
You’re talking about the problem after the network has already reached consensus on a block.
Problem is, if you’re downloading new blocks from the blockchain, and you’re getting two sets of history, which one do you pick? With Git, it’s trivial to recreate history differently, albeit with different hashes. With crypto, you pick the chain with more resources put into its creation.
Otherwise, any random person can spin up a hundred Bitcoin nodes and start spoofing the latest transactions pretty easily.
- p4bl0 5y agoYes, this is true in a decentralized and adversarial environment. This is exactly the problem that blockchains have been invented for! In such an environment, we do not have solutions to reach "consensus" apart from blockchains. My point is that apart from cryptocurrencies (where the blockchain is enough because it defines the truth), since you need some form of trusted third-party to make what's written on the blockchain relevant, then you're not in a decentralized and adversarial setting. So you can do things more efficiently, you don't need a blockchain. You don't have to solve the distributed consensus problem.
- selestify 5y agoAh I see what you mean. Good point!