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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

#141

Post by tarikjn »

tehlike wrote: post #140
tarikjn wrote: post #138

1. Blockchain technology could be theoretically used to secure elections. Some example usage: When people register to vote, assist them with setting a key pair and allow them to enter their public key with their registration. They could then verify how their vote was counted after the election. Not sure if it would be superior to paper voting still as it could then be used to buy votes, but maybe there are some narro…

For 1: Do you need blockchain at all? Or do you need public/private key signing?

Where would you register all the votes and verify the counts? The blockchain would help secure that database from an actor targeting votes of people not likely to verify their votes.

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

#142

Post by dozzie »

tom_mellior wrote: post #103
dozzie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Blockchain is a document timestamping system, which means its whole purpose is to tell which of the two connected documents was issued earlier. As such, it doesn't care if the document was subtracting a number from one account and adding the same number to another account or if it was some text telling who gets the ownership of a described plot. In fact, this particular use is one of the few that blockchain…

This is a particular use for a public database. The public database must be writable (only) by the corrupt authorities. What exactly does a blockchain do to make the authorities non-corrupt here?

> The public database must be writable (only) by the corrupt authorities. What exactly does a blockchain do to make the authorities non-corrupt here?

Wrong. In selling land to somebody else, authorities -- corrupt or not -- have nothing to say. The only thing authorities are needed for is to put an official stamp on the sale document.

This official stamp is generally a good thing; land is too valuable, so such transactions need some friction, like public notary's involvement, so one cannot sell a property by merely clicking "accept" under EULA. Corrupt authorities, as I understand, can delay the process of stamping the sale for indefinite time, so what blockchain is supposed to do here is to do away with authorities altogether.

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

#144

Post by deckard1 »

chipgap98 wrote: post #114
deckard1 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market None of these are realistic examples. Do you think Nintendo won't want a piece of that digital trading market? Or Amazon, for ebooks? Digital assets aren't going to be decentralized. Never. Corporations are going to maintain their walled garden platform, and make sure all transactions are conducted within that platform so they scrape off…

> None of these are realistic examples. Do you think Nintendo won't want a piece of that digital trading market? Or Amazon, for ebooks? This sounds a lot like arguing in 1995 that people wouldn't buy stuff online because entrenched retail stores are where everyone does their shopping. Its so simple to buy stuff in a store why add the complexity of online shopping? There are undoubtedly benefits for consumers when you…

> undoubtedly benefits for consumers when you have a decentralized marketplace

I'm not disputing that. What I'm disputing is the idea that corporations are willing to give up that much control over their copyright so that consumers get some false impression that they "own" a Pikachu.

Where are you going to see that Pikachu? Through officially-licensed Nintendo software. Not through third party apps and websites. They will get hit with the DMCA hammer.

There is no benefit of the blockchain, when all representation of that data is centralized. Nintendo won't do it because, who cares. Other than a buzzword, the blockchain is irrelevant. That's like caring about whether a website is running on Ruby or Node, or some other stack. It doesn't matter. It's an implementation detail.

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

#145

Post by girvo »

bottled_poe wrote: post #128
ezoe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At risk of breaking NDAs, this is exactly what is being done in deployments I’ve worked on. Regulators also have nodes.

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

#146

Post by adventured »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #61
dreit1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't an answer that you will like....but blockchain allows me to invest in high risk investments that would typically only be allowed for accredited investors. Having the shares/coins in a blockchain provides for transparency and authenticity and makes legit companies act in a way that is generally favorable for the small time investor

but isn't that just taking advantage of a (temporary) loop hole? The real problem there imho is that for some reason the government has decided that oh we need to step in and protect the unwise. Strangely this is by the same people that say government shouldn't be involved in the financial markets. There is no guarantee that having an ICO makes the investment any more bullet proof.

> There is no guarantee that having an ICO makes the investment any more bullet proof.

Right now it's the exact opposite. There's nothing less bullet-proof (eg in the US) than investing into an ICO, outside of perhaps junk penny stocks.

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

#147

Post by ThomPete »

deckard1 wrote: post #144
chipgap98 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of these are realistic examples. Do you think Nintendo won't want a piece of that digital trading market? Or Amazon, for ebooks? This sounds a lot like arguing in 1995 that people wouldn't buy stuff online because entrenched retail stores are where everyone does their shopping. Its so simple to buy stuff in a store why add the complexity of online shopping? There are undoubtedly benefits for consumers when you…

> undoubtedly benefits for consumers when you have a decentralized marketplace I'm not disputing that. What I'm disputing is the idea that corporations are willing to give up that much control over their copyright so that consumers get some false impression that they "own" a Pikachu. Where are you going to see that Pikachu? Through officially-licensed Nintendo software. Not through third party apps and websites. They…

You are reading this too literally. Pokemon was just an example there will be others based on the blockchain and yes it does have the same benefits that physical cards have. It's unique and doesn't need a centralized place to work.

Implementation details are not what's relevant here.

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

#148

Post by scythe »

root_axis wrote: post #111
scythe wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As society advances, the lowest rung is brought up even though corruption persists. Many years ago, it wasn't likely for people in third world countries to have access to vaccination or clothing, but today we've eliminated smallpox and nobody wears animal skins except uncontacted tribes and people who choose to. Internet connectivity is very cheap in per capita terms and cell phone towers have gone up in places like…

The bottom line is that blockchain token technology is not a fit for the problem of 3rd world banking and hyperinflation, it is stunningly out of touch to suggest that crpyo-tokens are having any significant impact on the ground in these places.

You don't know anything about the bottom line. I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used. You seem to be operating on the assumption that third world = mud huts and subsistence farming, which is very untrue.

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

#149

Post by dgrnbrg »

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.

At least one commercial company I've heard of has a sophisticated permissioning model, so that the owner of the chain can publish it and have its causal history and/or integrity be validated by all participants, but with specific permission scopes so that subscribes to the blockchain can only see inside of transactions they have permissions for.

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

#150

Post by mrep »

wallacoloo wrote: post #79
richardwhiuk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they can - put you in prison with no internet access.

Sure, but there are plenty of dissenters that manage to escape being in the physical custody of their government. One might reasonably decide to leave the country before dissenting, in some scenarios. You can bet that Edward Snowden had all his US assets seized, for example. But if he had any cryptocurrency, he may have been able to take those with him.

So, for Illegal activity? The article has already consented that illegal markets are 1 of the 2 current use cases. Got any others?
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