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Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for

Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for not having fraud prevention tech is like blaming TCP/IP stack for delivering a scam email to your inbox. This is a problem to be solved in a higher layer, which we're seemingly nowhere near as we're still just trying to get blockchain to scale efficiently.

Grustaf 4y ago
This is technically true, but crypto currency does make the most sense when there is no middle-man. If you merely replace the backend of the banking system with a blockchain, nobody would care.
Veen 4y ago
Yes, and if it was promoted as a "decentralized ledger of transactions" it would be fine and almost no one would have heard of it. But it's often aggressively promoted as a replacement for traditional currencies and banking with many benefits over the old-fashioned models, ignoring the fact that those models account for many issues that blockchain does not. There's a reason banks and economies evolved in the way they did.
coldtea 4y ago
>Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for not having fraud prevention tech is like blaming TCP/IP stack for delivering a scam email to your inbox. It's more like blaming a water utility company that doesn't give potable water, and its supporters tell you "but you can always buy a bottle of water from the store. Or maybe dig for water yourself!". Yes, one can build the "fraud prevention" and other measures on top of blockchain. But then you have a financial institution just like a bank, and you can drop the blockchain part - anything it "solves" can be solved much simpler and with 1000x less energy once you have the other trappings of a financial institution.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  Correct, crypto is great when you need an append only database with no root password. Outside of that use case crypto is a speculative investment vehicle. Maybe BTC will replace gold as a store of value. But that is just speculation.
- mattwilsonn888 4y ago
  That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal nor does it truly require user consent to complete transactions. Clever cryptography makes it possible to do both building on top of Bitcoin or whatever ledger has the desired security and feature set.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal Neither the "full blockchain solution" would, once the fraud protection and other safety checks are added. Which is the point I've made. You can't simultaneously claim the benefits of blockchain being without protection, and respond to the criticism about the dangers with "it's just a toolkit, you can add protection in layers above". Or you can, but you're claiming the pros on both sides of a XOR feature set.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
TomSwirly 4y ago
> Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. Well, so is Git! The big difference is that the blockchain requires all transactions to appear on all nodes, and has a wildly expensive and slow consensus phase. Thing is, these two features provide great negative utility for the average person and no positive utility at all unless you are an anonymous entity wanting to transact with other anonymous entities with no legal framework at all.

Grustaf 4y ago

This is technically true, but crypto currency does make the most sense when there is no middle-man. If you merely replace the backend of the banking system with a blockchain, nobody would care.

Veen 4y ago

Yes, and if it was promoted as a "decentralized ledger of transactions" it would be fine and almost no one would have heard of it. But it's often aggressively promoted as a replacement for traditional currencies and banking with many benefits over the old-fashioned models, ignoring the fact that those models account for many issues that blockchain does not. There's a reason banks and economies evolved in the way they did.

coldtea 4y ago

>Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for not having fraud prevention tech is like blaming TCP/IP stack for delivering a scam email to your inbox. It's more like blaming a water utility company that doesn't give potable water, and its supporters tell you "but you can always buy a bottle of water from the store. Or maybe dig for water yourself!". Yes, one can build the "fraud prevention" and other measures on top of blockchain. But then you have a financial institution just like a bank, and you can drop the blockchain part - anything it "solves" can be solved much simpler and with 1000x less energy once you have the other trappings of a financial institution.

gitfan86 4y ago
Correct, crypto is great when you need an append only database with no root password. Outside of that use case crypto is a speculative investment vehicle. Maybe BTC will replace gold as a store of value. But that is just speculation.
mattwilsonn888 4y ago
That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal nor does it truly require user consent to complete transactions. Clever cryptography makes it possible to do both building on top of Bitcoin or whatever ledger has the desired security and feature set.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal Neither the "full blockchain solution" would, once the fraud protection and other safety checks are added. Which is the point I've made. You can't simultaneously claim the benefits of blockchain being without protection, and respond to the criticism about the dangers with "it's just a toolkit, you can add protection in layers above". Or you can, but you're claiming the pros on both sides of a XOR feature set.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

TomSwirly 4y ago

> Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. Well, so is Git! The big difference is that the blockchain requires all transactions to appear on all nodes, and has a wildly expensive and slow consensus phase. Thing is, these two features provide great negative utility for the average person and no positive utility at all unless you are an anonymous entity wanting to transact with other anonymous entities with no legal framework at all.