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Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

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Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#121

Post by cbcoutinho »

cm2187 wrote: post #100
Animats wrote: post #24

Some big banks are gearing up to use a blockchain to track interbank settlements.[1] But this isn't a coin, nor is there mining. It's simply a shared ledger that can't be altered without cooperation between a majority of the parties. All alterations are clearly visible to all parties, which is good for auditing. Only big banks who have signed up for this have active nodes, and they are not anonymous. This is an alter…

I don't understand how they go around the confidentiality. If you are a trader at big bank A, the last thing you want is traders at big bank B and C to know everything you have in your book.

This probably has to do with payments the banks are making to each other, not between banks and clients. If banks are paying each other, there's going to be a nonzero cost associated with the accounting for those transactions, and this system would remove that cost.

What I didn't understand from the article was the point about membership. If the contributing banks are the only ones using it, why is it giving information about what _I_ could do with one of these USCs - apparently nothing because I won't be able to join the chain

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#122

Post by ThomPete »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #113
ThomPete wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are just some of the examples and yes it has quite a lot of value. Many things in the physical world is also built on these simple principles.

I wouldn't describe turning Infinity into One as having "quite a lot of value". I'd describe that as pointing a machine gun at value and spraying it with bullets.

You can describe it any way you want. It doesn't change the fact that "value" is not something which is easily defined which again the art scene is a good example but also stamps, coins, stickers, physical Pokemon cards and so on.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#123

Post by travmatt »

Animats wrote: post #24

Some big banks are gearing up to use a blockchain to track interbank settlements.[1] But this isn't a coin, nor is there mining. It's simply a shared ledger that can't be altered without cooperation between a majority of the parties. All alterations are clearly visible to all parties, which is good for auditing. Only big banks who have signed up for this have active nodes, and they are not anonymous. This is an alter…

There's also research into cryptocurrencies issued by central banks, both for retail and wholesale between banks [0].

[0] https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1709f.htm

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#124

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cbcoutinho wrote: post #121
cm2187 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how they go around the confidentiality. If you are a trader at big bank A, the last thing you want is traders at big bank B and C to know everything you have in your book.

This probably has to do with payments the banks are making to each other, not between banks and clients. If banks are paying each other, there's going to be a nonzero cost associated with the accounting for those transactions, and this system would remove that cost. What I didn't understand from the article was the point about membership. If the contributing banks are the only ones using it, why is it giving informat…

> If banks are paying each other, there's going to be a nonzero cost associated with the accounting for those transactions, and this system would remove that cost

Wouldn’t it just amplify it? Right now, central banks just set up swap facilities between each other. It’s akin to opening a bank account with one another. Crediting, debuting and undoing anything nefarious is cheap and easy.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#125

Post by tarikjn »

adamnemecek wrote: post #10
ttul wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, during the late 1990s, people tried to make an internet version of EVERYTHING, even when it made zero sense. That’s where we are with blockchain today.

Right. That’s how technology works. But internet right now is undeniable. Block chain will be the same.

Talking of PKI, Blockchains are actually a great use case to render PKI more secure [1]. It can help secure CAs' and Keybase is using it as well as a second factor [2].

All that stuff still need some more development obviously. We're still in the early days.

[1] https://www.cryptomathic.com/news-events/blog/how-digital-si... [2] https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/merkle_root_in_bitco...

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#126

Post by United857 »

pedalpete wrote: post #19

This reminds me of the naysayers from the early internet, and I think we can look at each stage of the internet's growth with these same glasses. 1) email: it will never replace the post-office. You can only send text. Oh, ok, they've added images now, well, its' too slow for most people to download them, and now I've got all this spam. We use it in our company, but it isn't really for consumers. Oh, then hotmail...…

Often times, the fundamental idea is sound. However the first players in the market gain in the short run but are out-competed in the long run:

e.g. Netscape, Yahoo, Nokia, Blackberry, Real Networks...

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#127

Post by twright »

DenisM wrote: post #118

Here's a vague idea... How about a reputation ledger? My reputation will accumulate over time, and people will trust me, simplifying some transactions. For example I could rent a short-term stay at a lower rate because I am such a nice fellow and will never mess anything up. Because my reputation has direct monetary value I would be hesitant to mess it up by being a dick, unless for a very big gain. The counter-parti…

Sounds like a good idea for a credit rating company, it might certainly be more transparent than current ones. Or, Black Mirror series 3 episode 1, it's a fine line.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#128

Post by bottled_poe »

ezoe wrote: post #110
Animats wrote: post #24

Some big banks are gearing up to use a blockchain to track interbank settlements.[1] But this isn't a coin, nor is there mining. It's simply a shared ledger that can't be altered without cooperation between a majority of the parties. All alterations are clearly visible to all parties, which is good for auditing. Only big banks who have signed up for this have active nodes, and they are not anonymous. This is an alter…

Since only the trustworthy bodies can join the party, they can do the job more efficiently by not using any of the trendy blockchain which may technically prevent the fraud but otherwise inefficient. And since there are only banks can join the network, I doubt it can technically prevent the fraud among banks because unlike public cryptocurrencies, it does not give incentives to the banks to spend a lot of computation…

This seems easy to solve though. Couldn’t they just modify the transaction acceptance logic to require 100% agreement across the network?

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#129

Post by zeep »

pipio21 wrote: post #37

Personally I believe in blockchain, but not current blockchain. Like anything it will take multiple steps and failing several times before it works. The perfect example is the internet, it was so wrong at the start, so ugly, and so naive. But it was free and open. Everybody said "internet is the future", and that created the dotcom bubble when everybody agreed and wanted to profit from it. I had friends at the time t…

But this is not like anything... If it was like any other software, someone would have found a bug to be able to steal all Bitcoins

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#130

Post by tomtomistaken »

DenisM wrote: post #118

Here's a vague idea... How about a reputation ledger? My reputation will accumulate over time, and people will trust me, simplifying some transactions. For example I could rent a short-term stay at a lower rate because I am such a nice fellow and will never mess anything up. Because my reputation has direct monetary value I would be hesitant to mess it up by being a dick, unless for a very big gain. The counter-parti…

How to reward not being a dick: You can earn a token for being nice. With this token you can lend a stake for POS.
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