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Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#11

Post by YuriNiyazov »

0xf8 wrote: post #10
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #8

When the Bitcoin paper originally came out, it used the word 'blockchain' to specifically mean a 'trustless distributed blockchain' where consensus is reached via mining, and that is susceptible to a 50% + 1 attack, and where the mining nodes are individual businesses that have no reason to trust each other except that the game is set up in a way that it is in their self-interest to secure the blockchain. However, th…

JPM's Quorum is originally a fork of Ethereum though.

Sure, but it's permissioned. Not everyone can join and mine.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#12

Post by dozzie »

econner wrote: post #3
dozzie wrote: post #2

> How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain? It doesn't, because blockchain doesn't solve consensus problem.

What's the point of using a blockchain then?

To tell which document (transaction) of a given pair correlated ones was issued earlier, which is called "timestamping". But you don't need consensus (as in Byzantine generals problem) to do that, you just need timestamping protocol.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#13

Post by dozzie »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #9
dozzie wrote: post #2

> How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain? It doesn't, because blockchain doesn't solve consensus problem.

A trustless blockchain most certainly does. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915957

It most certainly doesn't. You even confuse blockchain and Merkle trees, and call into existence some weird term "distributed blockchain".

But then, consensus problem is a problem of establishing a specific value for almost all participants. Which implies that the value is established, which means that the protocol terminates. Blockchain was not designed to ever terminate, so it's not a consensus protocol even if for no other reason.

Otherwise, what parts of blockchain exactly establish a common value among participants and what exactly is this common value?

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#14

Post by dozzie »

blueplanet200 wrote: post #6
dozzie wrote: post #2

> How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain? It doesn't, because blockchain doesn't solve consensus problem.

Maybe explain a little more? Obviously in your opinion the OP is confused, but this answer is short and unhelpful.

First and foremost: what is consensus problem?

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#15

Post by zero-x »

dozzie wrote: post #13
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trustless blockchain most certainly does. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15915957

It most certainly doesn't. You even confuse blockchain and Merkle trees, and call into existence some weird term "distributed blockchain". But then, consensus problem is a problem of establishing a specific value for almost all participants. Which implies that the value is established , which means that the protocol terminates . Blockchain was not designed to ever terminate, so it's not a consensus protocol even if f…

What? There is consensus on the public blockchain every few seconds + block depth. It's called Nakamoto consensus, so yes blockchain 'solves' the problem.

In smaller chains, there can certainly be consensus, it just won't be as trusted as a public chain and 51% attacks are potentially more feasible due to it having a smaller economic barrier.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#16

Post by dozzie »

zero-x wrote: post #15
dozzie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It most certainly doesn't. You even confuse blockchain and Merkle trees, and call into existence some weird term "distributed blockchain". But then, consensus problem is a problem of establishing a specific value for almost all participants. Which implies that the value is established , which means that the protocol terminates . Blockchain was not designed to ever terminate, so it's not a consensus protocol even if f…

What? There is consensus on the public blockchain every few seconds + block depth. It's called Nakamoto consensus, so yes blockchain 'solves' the problem. In smaller chains, there can certainly be consensus, it just won't be as trusted as a public chain and 51% attacks are potentially more feasible due to it having a smaller economic barrier.

> What? There is consensus on the public blockchain every few seconds + block depth. It's called Nakamoto consensus, so yes blockchain 'solves' the problem.

It's a name used for Bitcoin's protocol. It doesn't mean it's consensus.

How does the established value by this "consensus" protocol look like? And why do you consider it established, when other participants can have a totally different view of the list of documents in the protocol, or your view can change completely with next message? How is it an agreed value? And at what point should we look at the views of two different participants to see the same value?

And how does it relate to Lamport's original publication about the consensus problem?

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#17

Post by viraptor »

> Second, if it is only about a set of shared ledger with multiple trusted parties, what is wrong with an API layer integration? What exactly is the value creation for a full fledged system?

> But, if we have a permission-ed server which can add stuff to an enterprise blockchain doesn't it make the whole thing a lot less secure?

You're asking the right questions and this is pretty much a summary why the enterprise use is unlikely to use blockchain the same way as the public, if at all. Enterprise/banking may be interested in a distributed ledger as a datastructure, but other tech which provides a similar results already exists.

Unfortunately if you look at most of the "big (company/bank) starts (experimenting with/using) (Bitcoin/blockchain)" news, they very rarely say why and how.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#18

Post by russdpale »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #8

When the Bitcoin paper originally came out, it used the word 'blockchain' to specifically mean a 'trustless distributed blockchain' where consensus is reached via mining, and that is susceptible to a 50% + 1 attack, and where the mining nodes are individual businesses that have no reason to trust each other except that the game is set up in a way that it is in their self-interest to secure the blockchain. However, th…

Huh? Bitcoin white paper does not have the word block-chain in it.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#19

Post by russdpale »

prepend wrote: post #4
econner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of using a blockchain then?

There’s tons of answers to this, but one example I’m interested in is as a good shared, accessible audit log for data throughout an organization. Just having a stable history for all data helps with investigation and master data management. In this case consensus isn’t really necessary because all participants are trusted and should rarely differ (since they all have the same boss at some level).

I agree. But working at a huge company I can honestly say they don't really want an immutable ledger. They want to fudge and change things.

Re: Ask HN: How does consensus work in an enterprise blockchain?

#20

Post by prepend »

russdpale wrote: post #18
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #8

When the Bitcoin paper originally came out, it used the word 'blockchain' to specifically mean a 'trustless distributed blockchain' where consensus is reached via mining, and that is susceptible to a 50% + 1 attack, and where the mining nodes are individual businesses that have no reason to trust each other except that the game is set up in a way that it is in their self-interest to secure the blockchain. However, th…

Huh? Bitcoin white paper does not have the word block-chain in it.

Yet it describes the blockchain. It talks about blocks, it refers to them in a chain. While true that the word block-chain doesn’t exist, it isn’t relevant to OP’s point (since the paper clearly defines the blockchain concept now used so prevelantly).
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