Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#71

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:04 AM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #16

macns wrote: post #13

Reading the participants' comments below the announcement, most of them speak of an open/distributed ledger, not Bitcoin's blockchain. So it seems they really are ditching the original blockchain. IBM intends to contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Digital Asset is contributing the Hyperledger mark, which will be used…

"enterprise grade code" What does that even mean? I read that and think to myself "cowboy generated spaghetti code with more bugs and more technical debt".

Without being sarcastic, I think it means scalable so that it can be deployed in a situation where you have tens of thousands of seats. Generally it also means that you have some way of monitoring that it is working across the network. Finally, it usually means that it is an integrated turnkey system that doesn't require you to separately install and maintain a lot of third party support systems that it depends on.

You can think of the opposite of "enterprise" software as realizing that if you use independent packages a,b, and c and tie them together with some shell script that it will do what you want. It's only been tested by one or two guys, but you can't see any reason why it wouldn't work for the 10,000 people on your site (famous last words...). You spend a week patching it together and roll it out on the weekend with no way to roll back if it doesn't work, etc.

Still not a fan of enterprise software, but I don't work for enterprise companies any more ;-)

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#72

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:05 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #21

jordigh wrote: post #4

So what is going to replace miners? What incentive will people have to verify the integrity of this new blockchain? Is it still vulnerable to 51% attacks?

When you know the participants PoW is just a waste. You can use something like round robin to determine who gets to add the next block. That means that no it's not.

Why do you even need blocks? If you trust each other, what's wrong with signed messages?

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#73

Post by sanswork » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:06 AM UTC

brighton36 wrote: post #65

sanswork wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks don't need mining for their chains. >I suppose you could somehow implement private blockchains where only those with the private key can participate, but I don't know whether this has been done or not. This is what everyone is talking about. They aren't talking about mined chains.

If there's no mining its not a blockchain. Objective truth is the innovation that Bitcoin offered. These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is technology we've had since the 80s

Bullshit. Nothing about the term blockchain implies there must be mining. This whole "it's not a blockchain without mining" thing came straight from /r/bitcoin where a bunch of people seem to think that saying something isn't a blockchain matters so they keep trying to change the definition of it so bitcoin is the only true blockchain.

>These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is technology we've had since the 80s

So what? What does that really change at all? Nothing.

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#74

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:07 AM UTC

pilatesfordogs wrote: post #2

Does anyone have a link to a simplistic explanation of the block chain and why it seems to be so relevant?

It's a buzzword, its a database, but with better marketing behind it.

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#75

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:08 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #22

macns wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1] On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks[2]. Though if that many big corps joined, they could achieve a well established, attack-proof consensus relatively fast - - this probably is bad news[3] for Bitcoins' blockchain "ambitions" which is considered by man…

>blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1] PoW aims to solve that. Blockchains are just a way to store data in an agreed format with immutability and known ordering. >On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks 51% attacks are an issue for PoW systems. Private chains don't need PoW so aren't vulnerabl…

Private chains are also trivially compromised. Much more so than a traditional database

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#76

Post by sanswork » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:08 AM UTC

brighton36 wrote: post #72

sanswork wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you know the participants PoW is just a waste. You can use something like round robin to determine who gets to add the next block. That means that no it's not.

Why do you even need blocks? If you trust each other, what's wrong with signed messages?

Less overhead in distribution and signed messages between individual parties doesn't allow third party(within the system ) auditing.

I can sign a message saying I am giving you $10 of Bank B's debt but there is no way with just signed messages for you to know I still have ownership of that debt.

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#77

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:08 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #22

macns wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1] On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks[2]. Though if that many big corps joined, they could achieve a well established, attack-proof consensus relatively fast - - this probably is bad news[3] for Bitcoins' blockchain "ambitions" which is considered by man…

>blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1] PoW aims to solve that. Blockchains are just a way to store data in an agreed format with immutability and known ordering. >On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks 51% attacks are an issue for PoW systems. Private chains don't need PoW so aren't vulnerabl…

Private chains are also trivially compromised. Much more so than a traditional database

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#78

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:11 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #73

brighton36 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's no mining its not a blockchain. Objective truth is the innovation that Bitcoin offered. These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is technology we've had since the 80s

Bullshit. Nothing about the term blockchain implies there must be mining. This whole "it's not a blockchain without mining" thing came straight from /r/bitcoin where a bunch of people seem to think that saying something isn't a blockchain matters so they keep trying to change the definition of it so bitcoin is the only true blockchain. >These proposed system achieve consensus by merely voting for truth, which is tech…

It means the security is non existent. Read any of the andrew poelstra papers for details on how and why.

Subjective truth has been around for decades. No one cared about it , because its not useful. The only reason blockchains are useful now is because they enable value transmission between untrusted parties. (Which private chains don't do)

The only reason blockchain is a buzzword now is so that consultants can bilk banks for database contracts.

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#79

Post by sanswork » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:11 AM UTC

brighton36 wrote: post #75

sanswork wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>blockchain aims to solve the "Two Generals' Problem"[0] short explanation in video[1] PoW aims to solve that. Blockchains are just a way to store data in an agreed format with immutability and known ordering. >On what the article says, transactions not relying on the first bitcoin blockchain are more vulnerable to 51% attacks 51% attacks are an issue for PoW systems. Private chains don't need PoW so aren't vulnerabl…

Private chains are also trivially compromised. Much more so than a traditional database

Please share with the class how?

Re: Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain

#80

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #76

brighton36 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you even need blocks? If you trust each other, what's wrong with signed messages?

Less overhead in distribution and signed messages between individual parties doesn't allow third party(within the system ) auditing. I can sign a message saying I am giving you $10 of Bank B's debt but there is no way with just signed messages for you to know I still have ownership of that debt.

That's not even a little true. Have you worked on finance code before?