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I feel like you're intentionally playing semantic games, i.e. trolling, so let me tell you straight that I don't appreciate that. The fact a central bank is a

by kriops 4y ago

I feel like you're intentionally playing semantic games, i.e. trolling, so let me tell you straight that I don't appreciate that. The fact a central bank is a "human institution" is irrelevant. The fact blockchain is a "technology" is also in itself irrelevant. The point is that each concept necessitates characteristics that are irreconcilable. Most importantly a central bank can not function without central authority. The defining property of the blockchain is the decentralization of authority. Authority can not be simultaneously centralized and decentralized, and so the blockchain and the central bank are antithetical concepts.

kortilla 4y ago
> The defining property of the blockchain is the decentralization of authority No it’s not. A blockchain can be used in a way that only specific central authorities can add to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#Private_blockchains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#Private_blockchains
- astrange 4y ago
  I was kind of expecting you to link to an article about Git repository permissions.
- eldenwrong 4y ago
  You can use a rock as a spoon but that just makes you retarded.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    Are you familiar with git repositories?
NikolaNovak 4y ago
>> The defining property of the blockchain is the decentralization of authority. So "unaware assumptions" it is then. I'm sorry if you perceive that as snarky (and not everyone that disagrees is a troll btw), but to me, decentralized authority is what some people perceive an important (if not zealous) use case. It is not the defining property of blockchain. There are many companies that are building distributed ledger with centralized authority. You may disagree with that use case. I feel it's lack of self awareness to think a valid and clearly implemented use case is somehow antithetical to a simple neutral well defined technology.
- Banana699 4y ago
  >There are many companies that are building distributed ledger with centralized authority. The fundamental innovation of the bitcoin protocol is how it made the blockchain, a traditionally centralized data structure invented in the early 1990s, a distributed append-only database using PoW consensus. It's incredibly inefficient, its unimaginable inefficiency is there to buy trust in a trustless peer-to-peer network. You're basically forcing every writer to cut down a pound of their own computational flesh to write to the database. How can this be necessary or useful in a trusted setting? why can you not rely on trust or traditional register-and-authenticate to write to the database? You're either using PoW consensus or you're not. If you're, you're not a central authority (unless the blockchain is somehow not an authoritative state and you're simply using it as a fancy bulletin board), if you're not, then whatever you're doing is different from what everbody else have been calling 'blockchain' since 13 years and you're just inviting confusion by calling it that.
  - ryani 4y ago
    I think there's a difference between "blockchain + PoW" and "blockchain". Blockchain taken literally is just verification of history via hashing. It's a form of provenance that is hard to fake. Even if you are a central authority as to what transactions are being made, you can't rewrite history beyond any point that you've made publicly visible, without losing the trust of people who rely on you as a central authority, as to do so you would need to break the hashing algorithm.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    But I'm still rejecting the premise. There's TONS of small startups and large companies that are building blockchain for verification purposes and centralized or known limited authorities. Many of them are showing pragmatic promise in supply chain verification etc. Certainly they're calling it blockchain. What they're not calling it is Crypto currency. Are we saying they're synonymous and there's no other use case? I'm an outsider laughing at the whole Blockchain brouhaha, have zero horse in any race. I'm just amused endlessly how any given individual strongly believes their perspective is the only valid one and all others are simply "wrong", and heretics to the one true religion I mean bitcoin I mean blockchain I mean Crypto currency (Note how people are switching which one we are talking about in the thread. Due to various assumptions of equivalence ). Everything in this thread has firmed up my perspective.

by kriops 4y ago

kortilla 4y ago

> The defining property of the blockchain is the decentralization of authority No it’s not. A blockchain can be used in a way that only specific central authorities can add to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#Private_blockchains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain#Private_blockchains

astrange 4y ago
I was kind of expecting you to link to an article about Git repository permissions.
eldenwrong 4y ago
You can use a rock as a spoon but that just makes you retarded.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Are you familiar with git repositories?

NikolaNovak 4y ago

>> The defining property of the blockchain is the decentralization of authority. So "unaware assumptions" it is then. I'm sorry if you perceive that as snarky (and not everyone that disagrees is a troll btw), but to me, decentralized authority is what some people perceive an important (if not zealous) use case. It is not the defining property of blockchain. There are many companies that are building distributed ledger with centralized authority. You may disagree with that use case. I feel it's lack of self awareness to think a valid and clearly implemented use case is somehow antithetical to a simple neutral well defined technology.

Banana699 4y ago
>There are many companies that are building distributed ledger with centralized authority. The fundamental innovation of the bitcoin protocol is how it made the blockchain, a traditionally centralized data structure invented in the early 1990s, a distributed append-only database using PoW consensus. It's incredibly inefficient, its unimaginable inefficiency is there to buy trust in a trustless peer-to-peer network. You're basically forcing every writer to cut down a pound of their own computational flesh to write to the database. How can this be necessary or useful in a trusted setting? why can you not rely on trust or traditional register-and-authenticate to write to the database? You're either using PoW consensus or you're not. If you're, you're not a central authority (unless the blockchain is somehow not an authoritative state and you're simply using it as a fancy bulletin board), if you're not, then whatever you're doing is different from what everbody else have been calling 'blockchain' since 13 years and you're just inviting confusion by calling it that.
- ryani 4y ago
  I think there's a difference between "blockchain + PoW" and "blockchain". Blockchain taken literally is just verification of history via hashing. It's a form of provenance that is hard to fake. Even if you are a central authority as to what transactions are being made, you can't rewrite history beyond any point that you've made publicly visible, without losing the trust of people who rely on you as a central authority, as to do so you would need to break the hashing algorithm.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  But I'm still rejecting the premise. There's TONS of small startups and large companies that are building blockchain for verification purposes and centralized or known limited authorities. Many of them are showing pragmatic promise in supply chain verification etc. Certainly they're calling it blockchain. What they're not calling it is Crypto currency. Are we saying they're synonymous and there's no other use case? I'm an outsider laughing at the whole Blockchain brouhaha, have zero horse in any race. I'm just amused endlessly how any given individual strongly believes their perspective is the only valid one and all others are simply "wrong", and heretics to the one true religion I mean bitcoin I mean blockchain I mean Crypto currency (Note how people are switching which one we are talking about in the thread. Due to various assumptions of equivalence ). Everything in this thread has firmed up my perspective.