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I think there may be valid uses of blockchain and decentralized tracking of things but most of the stuff I hear is coming from marketers, etc. An example would

I think there may be valid uses of blockchain and decentralized tracking of things but most of the stuff I hear is coming from marketers, etc. An example would be actual real estate titles and deeds, not virtual real estate. This data set of who owns what piece of land could benefit from the features blockchain has as an open, decentralized database. You might eliminate a bunch of lawyer jobs and “title insurance” business in the process which is mostly bullshit anyhow. Decentralized is key because then it isn’t pay walled off behind some company. I didn’t mention money, tokens, or coins either because those aren’t really part of the use case. Public domain tracking of things is probably a solid use case in general but also might not be profitable. The decentralized part means the cost of maintenance is spread out more, maybe to the point of making it zero for a municipality. Does this use case require blockchain? No, but it’s rare that any use case we come up with actually requires a certain tech stack to solve.

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pieix 4y ago
Who would mine those blocks? There has to be value in it for them. And there better be a lot of it — such a ledger would be an extremely appealing target for bad actors.
Mezzie 4y ago
I've had the thought kicking around in my head for a while that the decentralized, difficult to alter nature of blockchain might have some use for the long-term preservation of provenance in the archival sense: Often figuring out whether something is legitimate or not requires tracking down its history of possession. This is/can be very messy, and I can see blockchain tech maybe eventually solving some of these issues. But preserving things for future researchers doesn't earn $$, so I imagine it will take a few decades at least.
mojuba 4y ago
Why can't the described use case solved with some trivial database with digital signatures? Which is essentially sort of blockchain, just simpler. However, with or without blockchain you still need an authority that would say: "this is the legitimate blockchain, that one is not".

deleted 4y ago

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pieix 4y ago

Who would mine those blocks? There has to be value in it for them. And there better be a lot of it — such a ledger would be an extremely appealing target for bad actors.

Mezzie 4y ago

I've had the thought kicking around in my head for a while that the decentralized, difficult to alter nature of blockchain might have some use for the long-term preservation of provenance in the archival sense: Often figuring out whether something is legitimate or not requires tracking down its history of possession. This is/can be very messy, and I can see blockchain tech maybe eventually solving some of these issues. But preserving things for future researchers doesn't earn $$, so I imagine it will take a few decades at least.

mojuba 4y ago

Why can't the described use case solved with some trivial database with digital signatures? Which is essentially sort of blockchain, just simpler. However, with or without blockchain you still need an authority that would say: "this is the legitimate blockchain, that one is not".