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Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

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131–140 of 291 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In can do some of the things you'd use a notary for. Or, just use an entirely conventional database, operated by the notary.

Finding a notary trusted by all parties may prove an issue, especially in international contexts. A blockchain may be cheaper.

We’ve operated and trust escrow’s right? Isn’t it more of a business opportunity for a tech-savvy escrow firm instead of a blockchain specific problem?

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#132
post #114

Venmo for all. We're used to Venmo in the US but many places in the world don't have an equivalent. Valora is a new Venmo-like mobile app that's built on the Celo blockchain, a new network where mobile devices can efficiency sync with the chain, with a native stable coin, and a decentralized phone number verification protocol. Check out https://valoraapp.com and https://celo.org

In my country this is already fully supported: PayID will let you transfer money instantly instantly between accounts (up to some daily limit), with no fees. Similarly, an app called BeemIt, which is supported by the major banks here gives you a very similar experience, albeit with a prettier UI/UX. As it stands, there’s now no advantage that cryptocurrency offers in this space anymore IMO.

In my country the government issues little pieces of paper with patriotic symbols on them that we pass to each other.

Maybe im just a stick in the mud, but i always thought it worked pretty great.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#133

I use blockchain to pay people to block phone spam.[1] It's also the subject of my patented algorithm on killing phone spam by requiring a refundable cash deposit for non-contacts phone calls. [2] I wrote a short white paper on this theory too. [3] [1] https://myrobocash.com/ [2] https://uspto.report/patent/app/20200304647 [3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c1GyiVVZFDiUuxWkBCQ63qLdJgP...

How do you possibly have a patent on that. That's pretty much the oldest proposal for dealing with spam in existence. Bitcoin is even based on something called HashCash, which is roughly the same thing minus the refundability.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#134

I use blockchain to pay people to block phone spam.[1] It's also the subject of my patented algorithm on killing phone spam by requiring a refundable cash deposit for non-contacts phone calls. [2] I wrote a short white paper on this theory too. [3] [1] https://myrobocash.com/ [2] https://uspto.report/patent/app/20200304647 [3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c1GyiVVZFDiUuxWkBCQ63qLdJgP...

That's cool that it works. So that's one solution to that problem.

Here in France, phone spam is essentially non-existant, and I'm nearly sure there are no block chains involved.

I'd posit that this is a tech workaround for a political problem. Which is fine in my book, but it's not exactly a killer application for the technology that is block chain, if really you'd want (and could have) something that does the job better.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#135
Depending on how you define a "blockchain" there are various technologies like certificate transparency or git that share certain similarities and are pretty useful.

However none of them would be caught dead calling themselves a "blockchain"

Also https://xkcd.com/2267/

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#136

The biggest use case I have found of blockchain tech is timestamping, especially in a case where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests. I'll give you an example, from one of my startup's enterprise customers. This company needs to ensure that their high-end auto inventory remains in the same state through transport — the mileage, the car body, etc. They've had issue…

Sorry, but your solution solves nothing. The transporter could take a picture of the odometer and tweak the image. Your solution is only as secure as the input flow and you can't control it. A blockchain can't reflect physical reality. It can only reflect what someone said/says physical reality is. Additionally, they have to trust you to push the "right" data to the blockchain. If they are already trusting you, you c…

I would just like to say that if anyone has a rational counterargument to this, I really want to hear it. This is precisely the observation past which the logic becomes less coherent in just about any conversation I've had on blockchain applications.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#137
post #91
post #19

Broadly speaking blockchain only solves a singular problem: Trust. If there is some work that needs to be done between parties and you don't trust the parties involved then you can use blockchain to do the work in a trust-less setting. This is why money has been the first and most prominent use case; people are less trusting with their own money. For a specific non-money potential use case of blockchain I would say i…

You say that: “Broadly speaking blockchain only solves a singular problem: Trust.” but there is another equally significant contribution that deserves to be acknowledged: scarcity. Bits & bytes can be cloned effortlessly by computers which is why a version of Photoshop ripped from a DVD is indistinguishable from the same version downloaded from a CDN as an iso. As long as the hashes match, you wont be able to tell ap…

The original poster is right. Blockchain solves distributed trust. Scarcity is a particular rule, and blockchain is solving a problem of trust in that everyone are obeying that rule. You can have a blockchain that enforces completely different rules, where scarcity don't matter. And you can have scarcity in a system where trust is not a problem (trusted central party).

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#138

The biggest use case I have found of blockchain tech is timestamping, especially in a case where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests. I'll give you an example, from one of my startup's enterprise customers. This company needs to ensure that their high-end auto inventory remains in the same state through transport — the mileage, the car body, etc. They've had issue…

We do something similar at our startup. Basically we're a communication tool for construction, maintenance work and visitor management. Our selling point is simply data consistency, e.g. you can't edit posts, unlike on Facebook, and deleting will give a notice. Photos taken from the app are signed and location stamped. I think it's interesting that people comment you can just take a photo of an odometer, but that's not something that two parties do all the time; it's best to just automate that process.

Blockchain is not a "killer" feature of the app, but it's another layer of security. Databases are the core, but staff with access can edit a database in seconds. Maybe one way to think of it is like cash registers. The person operating a cash register can still steal it, but it's a lot harder than if it were just a box. It won't stop a dedicated person, but will greatly discourage doing it casually.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#139
Inventory management. In many cases you want this centralized so you can manage it. But the reason is really so you have a “record” of what is in storage. The blockchain keeps it decentralized (ie less risk of a user deleting it), at the same time anyone can query the inventory.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#140
post #129
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests But in this case, isn't whoever controls your code the "timestamping party"? Looking at two examples: A: With blockchain The timestamp that the photo was taken is immutably, publicly logged. B: Without blockchain The timestamp the photo was taken is logged by you, the software provider. What is a scenario where (B) is le…

The picture of the car is not protected by hard crypto until it's inserted into the blockchain. Until it is inserted the trust chain breaks at the questions of: When was it taken? Who was taking the picture? What is the picture of? The car to be protected? Or someone else's car. Blockchain works for currencies, since currencies are just numbers in a ledger. And numbers can be easily secured with strong crypto.

"Secured by hard crypto" is item fifteen on someone's priority list after usability, cost, reliability, speed and the font used on the marketing page. Note that none of the questions you raise are answered by protecting a jpeg with hard crypto... (If that was the point, my apologies for re-explaining it).
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