6 ms·

The block chain hype has been fascinating. The (practically) immutable nature of a block chain is genuinely fascinating and arguably very novel and new but the

The block chain hype has been fascinating. The (practically) immutable nature of a block chain is genuinely fascinating and arguably very novel and new but the only reason everyone got excited was because the value of Bitcoin went to the moon. I assume there is some growth hack idea here somewhere.

substation13 4y ago
Indeed. Blockchain is a really clever piece of applied cryptography with very limited real-world use-cases.
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  The real-world use-cases are already covered by git.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    Not all of them. There are two very specific use cases that it has value as: 1. A decentralised/trust-less "source of truth" for coordination between mutually distrusting parties. This was the "novel" innovation for Bitcoin and it's been refined with the less energy intensive consensus algorithms. Not everything needs this and arguably fairly few things do but for the projects that benefit from trust-less coordination as an option, I'm not sure there's a better alternative yet. 2. As a decentralised marketplace for a given resource. The most common one is the basic cryptocurrency which is a fee market for inclusion in the ledger. Past that however are Storage, Data routing (i.e. VPN or onion routing), and Verifiable Compute (or non-accuracy-critical compute like 3d rendering). Outside of those, I'd also argue it's useful for privacy preserving transactions (like monero, etc) but I know some people will disagree that that's "just for criminals". Don't get me wrong, a lot of cryptocurrency or blockchain projects are practically an abstraction over git or a database but there are a number of very useful things you can do with blockchains that you just can't do with git or a db.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > trust-less "source of truth" for coordination between mutually distrusting parties This only works if everything of value is on the blockchain. Otherwise, the oracle problem makes regular databases a better solution.
    - root_axis 4y ago
      Doesn't really make any sense. A regular database with digital signatures chained per transaction gives you all the benefits without any of the downsides of a blockchain.
      - substation13 4y ago
        No, it doesn't. How do you build consensus around the signatures?
        acdha 4y ago
        The same way humans have for millennia: relying on authority, reputation, and auditing. Blockchains have enormous overhead because they’re trying to be anonymous but once you need real-world connections you’re already giving that up, which makes it much cheaper to simply rely on those existing relationships. Historically, that was things like documents being stamped or sealed by a trusted third party witness, escrow agents to hold funds or property until some transaction finished, auditors confirming that a particular good was in the expected condition, etc. In every case, anonymity would be a negative because you want to know, for example, that your notary doesn’t have a criminal history or a reputation for sloppy record keeping. In the electronic era, that could be implemented using PKI where different parties register keys (or more likely corporate CAs) and use those to sign transactions or witness having seen a particular record. That’s similar to a blockchain in terms of trust but orders of magnitude more efficient and robust since it doesn’t require a network connection to a complex distributed service.
        root_axis 4y ago
        What does that mean? The signatures are self-describing, you don't need to build a "consensus" around them.
  - chris_wot 4y ago
    No, git uses a merkle tree, which the blockchain also uses. That’s the only similarity. It doesn’t rely on a massively distributed system to get the next time stamp for the next commit. Git is decentralised, not distributed. You get the whole git database (for want of a better word) when you clone it, unless you use the —unshallow option. git does not implement a block-chain.
CharlieDigital 4y ago
> but the only reason everyone got excited was because the value of Bitcoin went to the moon I'm a blockchain minimalist, but I'd say that there are at least 2 other reasons why blockchains are interesting: 1) A trustless, distributed digital ledger. But it turns out that _in most cases_, we are OK with a trusted, centralized, institutional clearing agent that maintains the ledger. The benefits are numerous as long as we trust the institution/agent. 2) An immutable record of transactions. This follows (1), though: if you trust the institution, you trust that there won't be a malicious mutation of your records and in general, because the records are mutable, they can also easily canceled or reversed which also turns out to be generally beneficial. So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history), but there are just way too many where they add no value.
- cpascal 4y ago
  You still have to trust that data was recorded into a blockchain correctly/faithfully. So you can never truly remove trust. I'm not sure a immutable ledger is any more useful than a database if there is still some sort of required trust component.
- DebtDeflation 4y ago
  >So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history) All of those use cases are subject to the Oracle Problem (you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain, and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain). As such, they are horrible use cases for blockchain.
  - CharlieDigital 4y ago
    There is a difference in that the trust is now distributed as opposed to centralized. > you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain In all of those cases, that trust is already inherent in the documents filed by the entities/institutions. But the thing is, they also become gatekeepers of those records (e.g. titles) which seems to be a great use case for a distributed system. > and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain This is also the case with paper records; your car title isn't automatically tied to whether your car is totaled or sold. You update the record based on a change in the status of the material object it represents whether it is a paper or digital update or a blockchain update. > they are horrible use cases for blockchain I'd disagree; having an immutable record of ownership is valuable; especially so in countries where a centralized institution may not be trustworthy. Especially with transactions around something like a car where there are multiple entities that are reliant on the record (your state DMV (and multiple sub-agencies), an electronic toll vendor, your insurance provider, your loan provider, maybe your landlord for an assigned parking space), having a distributed ledger to access and immutably modify the data would be a boon. For titles on homes which are subject to liens, it would be a great consumer benefit to be able to access this information without paying several hundred dollars for a title search.
Salgat 4y ago
The immutable nature of the blockchain is not the interesting part, and in most cases you're far better off just using Kafka/EventStore for that. The only revolutionary thing brought by cryptocurrencies was truly anonymous trustless transactions, and that's a very niche requirement in a world of government and law.

substation13 4y ago

Indeed. Blockchain is a really clever piece of applied cryptography with very limited real-world use-cases.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago
The real-world use-cases are already covered by git.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  Not all of them. There are two very specific use cases that it has value as: 1. A decentralised/trust-less "source of truth" for coordination between mutually distrusting parties. This was the "novel" innovation for Bitcoin and it's been refined with the less energy intensive consensus algorithms. Not everything needs this and arguably fairly few things do but for the projects that benefit from trust-less coordination as an option, I'm not sure there's a better alternative yet. 2. As a decentralised marketplace for a given resource. The most common one is the basic cryptocurrency which is a fee market for inclusion in the ledger. Past that however are Storage, Data routing (i.e. VPN or onion routing), and Verifiable Compute (or non-accuracy-critical compute like 3d rendering). Outside of those, I'd also argue it's useful for privacy preserving transactions (like monero, etc) but I know some people will disagree that that's "just for criminals". Don't get me wrong, a lot of cryptocurrency or blockchain projects are practically an abstraction over git or a database but there are a number of very useful things you can do with blockchains that you just can't do with git or a db.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > trust-less "source of truth" for coordination between mutually distrusting parties This only works if everything of value is on the blockchain. Otherwise, the oracle problem makes regular databases a better solution.
  - root_axis 4y ago
    Doesn't really make any sense. A regular database with digital signatures chained per transaction gives you all the benefits without any of the downsides of a blockchain.
    - substation13 4y ago
      No, it doesn't. How do you build consensus around the signatures?
      - acdha 4y ago
        The same way humans have for millennia: relying on authority, reputation, and auditing. Blockchains have enormous overhead because they’re trying to be anonymous but once you need real-world connections you’re already giving that up, which makes it much cheaper to simply rely on those existing relationships. Historically, that was things like documents being stamped or sealed by a trusted third party witness, escrow agents to hold funds or property until some transaction finished, auditors confirming that a particular good was in the expected condition, etc. In every case, anonymity would be a negative because you want to know, for example, that your notary doesn’t have a criminal history or a reputation for sloppy record keeping. In the electronic era, that could be implemented using PKI where different parties register keys (or more likely corporate CAs) and use those to sign transactions or witness having seen a particular record. That’s similar to a blockchain in terms of trust but orders of magnitude more efficient and robust since it doesn’t require a network connection to a complex distributed service.
      - root_axis 4y ago
        What does that mean? The signatures are self-describing, you don't need to build a "consensus" around them.
- chris_wot 4y ago
  No, git uses a merkle tree, which the blockchain also uses. That’s the only similarity. It doesn’t rely on a massively distributed system to get the next time stamp for the next commit. Git is decentralised, not distributed. You get the whole git database (for want of a better word) when you clone it, unless you use the —unshallow option. git does not implement a block-chain.

CharlieDigital 4y ago

> but the only reason everyone got excited was because the value of Bitcoin went to the moon I'm a blockchain minimalist, but I'd say that there are at least 2 other reasons why blockchains are interesting: 1) A trustless, distributed digital ledger. But it turns out that _in most cases_, we are OK with a trusted, centralized, institutional clearing agent that maintains the ledger. The benefits are numerous as long as we trust the institution/agent. 2) An immutable record of transactions. This follows (1), though: if you trust the institution, you trust that there won't be a malicious mutation of your records and in general, because the records are mutable, they can also easily canceled or reversed which also turns out to be generally beneficial. So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history), but there are just way too many where they add no value.

cpascal 4y ago
You still have to trust that data was recorded into a blockchain correctly/faithfully. So you can never truly remove trust. I'm not sure a immutable ledger is any more useful than a database if there is still some sort of required trust component.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
>So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history) All of those use cases are subject to the Oracle Problem (you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain, and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain). As such, they are horrible use cases for blockchain.
- CharlieDigital 4y ago
  There is a difference in that the trust is now distributed as opposed to centralized. > you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain In all of those cases, that trust is already inherent in the documents filed by the entities/institutions. But the thing is, they also become gatekeepers of those records (e.g. titles) which seems to be a great use case for a distributed system. > and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain This is also the case with paper records; your car title isn't automatically tied to whether your car is totaled or sold. You update the record based on a change in the status of the material object it represents whether it is a paper or digital update or a blockchain update. > they are horrible use cases for blockchain I'd disagree; having an immutable record of ownership is valuable; especially so in countries where a centralized institution may not be trustworthy. Especially with transactions around something like a car where there are multiple entities that are reliant on the record (your state DMV (and multiple sub-agencies), an electronic toll vendor, your insurance provider, your loan provider, maybe your landlord for an assigned parking space), having a distributed ledger to access and immutably modify the data would be a boon. For titles on homes which are subject to liens, it would be a great consumer benefit to be able to access this information without paying several hundred dollars for a title search.

Salgat 4y ago

The immutable nature of the blockchain is not the interesting part, and in most cases you're far better off just using Kafka/EventStore for that. The only revolutionary thing brought by cryptocurrencies was truly anonymous trustless transactions, and that's a very niche requirement in a world of government and law.