5 ms·

I worked for a blockchain startup and let me tell you, it was a ride. It was small operation not doing cryptocurrency (it had tried, failed, and pivoted). There

I worked for a blockchain startup and let me tell you, it was a ride. It was small operation not doing cryptocurrency (it had tried, failed, and pivoted). There was still a financial angle to it and the pitch enamored me enough to join them. It turned out that the only value proposition they had was that they "used blockchain" but literally only in the sense that at some point a blockchain would have some data on it. They were true believers too, but simultaneously didn't care that it was fakery. I have lingering PTSD from that gig. The crazy thing (for me) is that I remain enamored with the special qualities of blockchains and would like to put them to use in a non-financial manner.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago
> I remain enamored with the special qualities of blockchains and would like to put them to use in a non-financial manner. Can you think of any practical uses of a blockchain? I also think they're a fascinating concept, but I cannot think of a killer application for them. I remember one of the original ideas was a trustless logistics system for things like shipping, but even then all the blockchain proves is that someone said they'd shipped you a box, you could still open it and find it full of rocks. And the smart contract stuff is very clever, but seems to be essentially techno-escrow except that you just have to trust your smart contract broker and the authors of the blockchain rather than your escrow agent, and also if everything goes sideways there's no legal system to interpret the contract "sensibly".
- pstuart 4y ago
  I had an opportunity to get something going on Amazon once they started hosting Hyperledger Fabric (the stack that I used). I could not come up with a commercially viable service to launch on there. I've got some fuzzy notions on identity management and other non monetary things but it still needs thinking through.
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  git is a fantastic usage of blockchain, no?
  - purerandomness 4y ago
    Only if you redefine what is usually meant when people say "blockchain" to mean "some kind of linked data structure with checksums", then yes, git is a fantastic use of a linked data structure with checksums.
- rapind 4y ago
  > Can you think of any practical uses of a blockchain? I also think they're a fascinating concept, but I cannot think of a killer application for them. Identity / authenticity. As we head into a world of digital (deep) fakes, being able to authenticate the source of information/media will be very important. Block chain seems well positioned for this? I think NFTs will settle down eventually and they'll be useful (after these short term stupids). I'm not a fan of blockchain currencies mostly due to the preponderance of bad actors. Maybe some day, but it's a bit of a shit show atm, and not nearly as practical as originally hoped for.
  - purerandomness 4y ago
    > being able to authenticate the source of information/media will be very important What would stop an actor with enough resources (Russia, China, USA) to put deepfakes onto the chain? What would stop them from blackmailing service providers who act as gatekeepers / market platforms to put deepfakes into the chain? Why would they even accept any single "Blockchain X" as the source of truth? Why wouldn't they just say "Oh that's the evil state Y, of course they're pretending that their fakes on their state-governed propaganda blockchain are authentical, whereas OUR blockchain tells the TRUTH!" How would you correct honest mistakes on the chain? By a correction update? Then what would stop an evil actor (Taliban) who overturns the government, or takes over a giant corporation, from "correcting" an unpleasant truth, and rewriting history? Once again, a social problem is attempted to be solved with technology. This never works. > I think NFTs will settle down eventually and they'll be useful What would be different, given some time, from now? What needs to change for NFTs to become useful?
    - pstuart 4y ago
      NFTs are nothing but a scam and provide no intrinsic value (other than cover for money laundering). I think that the way would be to use a permission-based, id-linked, reputation-maintaining mechanism. No PoW or PoS -- proof of self. It would have to be designed from the start to account for hostile manipulation. Easier said than done, of course.
    - rapind 4y ago
tasuki 4y ago
> The crazy thing (for me) is that I remain enamored with the special qualities of blockchains and would like to put them to use in a non-financial manner. Which special qualities are you enamored with? And to what use would you like to put them?
- pstuart 4y ago
  > Which special qualities are you enamored with? The shared ownership of state -- theoretically "serverless" in that there's not a specific server that rules them all. > And to what use would you like to put them? Something wiki-like, as well as service discovery.
entropicdrifter 4y ago
IPFS seems like the most interesting non-financial blockchain project to me. Could be a decent way to make a decentralized backup of the internet in case the current centralized web starts falling into disrepair.
- pstuart 4y ago
  Yes it is intriguing but similarly so in how it hasn't really caught on. Perhaps some killer app will come around and change that.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  there's no blockchain in IPFS, but there are cryptographic hashes
mrosett 4y ago
This sounds oddly like my experience with a blockchain startup for identity management…

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

> I remain enamored with the special qualities of blockchains and would like to put them to use in a non-financial manner. Can you think of any practical uses of a blockchain? I also think they're a fascinating concept, but I cannot think of a killer application for them. I remember one of the original ideas was a trustless logistics system for things like shipping, but even then all the blockchain proves is that someone said they'd shipped you a box, you could still open it and find it full of rocks. And the smart contract stuff is very clever, but seems to be essentially techno-escrow except that you just have to trust your smart contract broker and the authors of the blockchain rather than your escrow agent, and also if everything goes sideways there's no legal system to interpret the contract "sensibly".

pstuart 4y ago
I had an opportunity to get something going on Amazon once they started hosting Hyperledger Fabric (the stack that I used). I could not come up with a commercially viable service to launch on there. I've got some fuzzy notions on identity management and other non monetary things but it still needs thinking through.
jacobsenscott 4y ago
git is a fantastic usage of blockchain, no?
- purerandomness 4y ago
  Only if you redefine what is usually meant when people say "blockchain" to mean "some kind of linked data structure with checksums", then yes, git is a fantastic use of a linked data structure with checksums.
rapind 4y ago
> Can you think of any practical uses of a blockchain? I also think they're a fascinating concept, but I cannot think of a killer application for them. Identity / authenticity. As we head into a world of digital (deep) fakes, being able to authenticate the source of information/media will be very important. Block chain seems well positioned for this? I think NFTs will settle down eventually and they'll be useful (after these short term stupids). I'm not a fan of blockchain currencies mostly due to the preponderance of bad actors. Maybe some day, but it's a bit of a shit show atm, and not nearly as practical as originally hoped for.
- purerandomness 4y ago
  > being able to authenticate the source of information/media will be very important What would stop an actor with enough resources (Russia, China, USA) to put deepfakes onto the chain? What would stop them from blackmailing service providers who act as gatekeepers / market platforms to put deepfakes into the chain? Why would they even accept any single "Blockchain X" as the source of truth? Why wouldn't they just say "Oh that's the evil state Y, of course they're pretending that their fakes on their state-governed propaganda blockchain are authentical, whereas OUR blockchain tells the TRUTH!" How would you correct honest mistakes on the chain? By a correction update? Then what would stop an evil actor (Taliban) who overturns the government, or takes over a giant corporation, from "correcting" an unpleasant truth, and rewriting history? Once again, a social problem is attempted to be solved with technology. This never works. > I think NFTs will settle down eventually and they'll be useful What would be different, given some time, from now? What needs to change for NFTs to become useful?
  - pstuart 4y ago
    NFTs are nothing but a scam and provide no intrinsic value (other than cover for money laundering). I think that the way would be to use a permission-based, id-linked, reputation-maintaining mechanism. No PoW or PoS -- proof of self. It would have to be designed from the start to account for hostile manipulation. Easier said than done, of course.
  - rapind 4y ago

tasuki 4y ago

> The crazy thing (for me) is that I remain enamored with the special qualities of blockchains and would like to put them to use in a non-financial manner. Which special qualities are you enamored with? And to what use would you like to put them?

pstuart 4y ago
> Which special qualities are you enamored with? The shared ownership of state -- theoretically "serverless" in that there's not a specific server that rules them all. > And to what use would you like to put them? Something wiki-like, as well as service discovery.

entropicdrifter 4y ago

IPFS seems like the most interesting non-financial blockchain project to me. Could be a decent way to make a decentralized backup of the internet in case the current centralized web starts falling into disrepair.

pstuart 4y ago
Yes it is intriguing but similarly so in how it hasn't really caught on. Perhaps some killer app will come around and change that.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
there's no blockchain in IPFS, but there are cryptographic hashes

mrosett 4y ago

This sounds oddly like my experience with a blockchain startup for identity management…