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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

#211

Post by root_axis »

dorgo wrote: post #197
root_axis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't know anything about the bottom line. I'm unsure what you mean by this. "The bottom line" is just a manner of expression. > I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used And I stated why I believe this to be a dubious claim; crypto-tokens are totally impractical. Your allusion to advancements in medicine and internet connectivity is a red herring argument that hand waves away the…

atm yes. First computers were huge, slow and impractical too.

> First computers were huge, slow and impractical too.

So what? Every technology starts off slow and impractical including the ones that fail.

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

#212

Post by teamonkey »

Geee wrote: post #207
teamonkey wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the purpose of tokens is to provide an incentive for running the ledger client and processing transactions: mining for uptake and transaction fees to maintain scale long-term. You need as many people to run the client as possible. If you can find some other reason for processing transactions and can guarantee that the population is big enough then the coin becomes unnecessary.

Distributed ledgers (e.g. blockchain) are based on security by game theory. It's financially rewarding to agree with each other, and financially very costly to disagree or attack it. You can't have game theory in the protocol without intrinsic rewards, as far as I know.

I assume you mean extrinsic reward. Yeah, it's unrealistic to expect people to burn CPU cycles processing the ledger client just for the fun of seeing the dials on their power meter spin faster.

An extrinsic reward doesn't have to be financial though, it's anything that you want to get out of an activity that isn't part of the activity itself.

If the blockchain ledger was a part of a greater whole and the client software of which it forms a part was somehow intrinsically fun, useful or needed, the token itself wouldn't be necessary.

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

#213

Post by _mhr_ »

DenisM wrote: post #161
prodtorok wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like a dystopia.

Well, worse case you shed your identity and start from zero, which is where you are now.

If the hash function were based on your DNA (proof-of-life), that would make shedding your identity significantly more difficult.

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

#214

Post by ThomPete »

rtkwe wrote: post #209
ThomPete wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically like cash?

Cash at least requires a pretty large effort to securely and secretively move large amounts.

Why would you need to move a large amount?

There are coke traces on something like 90% of US cash.

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

#215

Post by LrnByTeach »

dogma1138 wrote: post #135
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are confusing transaction clearing with actual account settlements. Banks want to use Blockchain as a more reliable alternative to SWIFT it won’t be doing actual account settlements which in your case you mentioned corresponding banking. That said many of the more progressive institutions stopped calling it Blockchain a while ago they all are talking about distributed ledgers, hyper ledger and the likes are being…

This captures what is Banks interest in blockchain in a nutshell

> Banks want to use Blockchain as a more reliable alternative to SWIFT it won’t be doing actual account settlements which in your case you mentioned corresponding banking.

> That said many of the more progressive institutions stopped calling it Blockchain a while ago they all are talking about distributed ledgers, hyper ledger and the likes are being either used or piloted by many institutions.

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

#216

Post by emodendroket »

blueprint wrote: post #158

Is it ok if I reply without reading the article if the title is able to be proven patently false? That is... unless we're bending word definitions... :-P

Probably, because you'd miss the author's point: other than currency speculation and buying illegal goods there is no compelling use case for the Blockchain. Crowing about BTC appreciation like Bitcoin lovers like to do doesn't disprove the thesis.
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