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What you are referring to is a distributed ledger, built on top of a blockchain data structure. The word Blockchain is so overloaded, people forget you can bui

What you are referring to is a distributed ledger, built on top of a blockchain data structure. The word Blockchain is so overloaded, people forget you can build a "blockchain" in 50 lines of code if not less. "Mining" new blocks is added on top of that, it's not a hard requirement - you can just create new blocks and link them up. You can choose to "mine" on CPU (slow) or on the GPU, if you want "mining" at all. You can then choose to persist it (file or sql or whatever) or only run it in memory. After that you can get into the concept of ledgers and currencies, and after that into making it distributed via some gossip-y protocols. So a cleaner definition of a block chain would be, a tamper-proof daisy-chained data structure, similar to a linked list. All the stuff about ledgers, currencies, mining and consensus are separate concerns, stacked on top of a blockchain. Also checkout: Merkle trees, linked lists, Chain of Responsibility. Anyone agree/disagree?

Nursie 4y ago
Yeah, basically everyone. "Blockchain" as commonly understood was brought into being by Bitcoin, and encapsulates far more than just a linked list with a cryptographic component. If it doesn't contain a mechanism for trustless, distributed consensus, then it's not really a blockchain in the sense that HN or the wider industry understands it. Your definition is wide enough to cover a lot of things that are well outside of normal discussion of blockchains. I'm not insinuating this is your goal, but it is a common argumentation tactic of people desperately trying to defend the sector, to widen the definition until they can include within it things like git, and then say "so of course blockchain tech is useful! You're using it!"
cmckn 4y ago
I think you’re just describing merkle trees; and “blockchain” in popular usage includes the consensus mechanism (mining or otherwise).
hiq 4y ago
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_good_reaso.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_g... explains why talking about "blockchain" for anything but a public blockchain (including consensus etc.) is uninteresting.
- Terr_ 4y ago
  He's right, the phrase "private blockchain" is almost a contradiction in terms, like "horse-drawn automobile" or "centimeter-scale nanotechnology".
iterateofen 4y ago
Git has nothing to do with blockchain and is essentially what you are describing. There’s already a word for that: distributed version control. We don’t need to move the goal posts on what blockchain is to make it have an interesting use case. Blockchain is more specific to the consensus part not really about the self proving data structure part.
- jonhohle 4y ago
  The consensus part is the piece that that vast majority of businesses (potentially all businesses) don’t need. There are other mechanisms for trusting nodes and having a shared coordination mechanism is solved many times over.

Nursie 4y ago

Yeah, basically everyone. "Blockchain" as commonly understood was brought into being by Bitcoin, and encapsulates far more than just a linked list with a cryptographic component. If it doesn't contain a mechanism for trustless, distributed consensus, then it's not really a blockchain in the sense that HN or the wider industry understands it. Your definition is wide enough to cover a lot of things that are well outside of normal discussion of blockchains. I'm not insinuating this is your goal, but it is a common argumentation tactic of people desperately trying to defend the sector, to widen the definition until they can include within it things like git, and then say "so of course blockchain tech is useful! You're using it!"

cmckn 4y ago

I think you’re just describing merkle trees; and “blockchain” in popular usage includes the consensus mechanism (mining or otherwise).

hiq 4y ago

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_good_reaso.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2019/02/theres_no_g... explains why talking about "blockchain" for anything but a public blockchain (including consensus etc.) is uninteresting.

Terr_ 4y ago
He's right, the phrase "private blockchain" is almost a contradiction in terms, like "horse-drawn automobile" or "centimeter-scale nanotechnology".

iterateofen 4y ago

Git has nothing to do with blockchain and is essentially what you are describing. There’s already a word for that: distributed version control. We don’t need to move the goal posts on what blockchain is to make it have an interesting use case. Blockchain is more specific to the consensus part not really about the self proving data structure part.

jonhohle 4y ago
The consensus part is the piece that that vast majority of businesses (potentially all businesses) don’t need. There are other mechanisms for trusting nodes and having a shared coordination mechanism is solved many times over.