Building for the Blockchain
blog.ycombinator.com
Building for the Blockchain
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Re: Building for the Blockchain
#2Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff.
The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze.
Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for the blockchain?
Oh kitties. Yeah.
I am absolutely aware of the fact that early stage tech often looks like a toy, but here's the thing. PCs were a toy but it didn't take long at all (VisiCalc, etc.) before they had actual uses. BBSes were a toy but they were immediately useful to their users for trading data and messaging.
We are now about eight years into block chain and beyond its one core use cases there is almost nothing. Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen.
Can someone provide a counter example? What are people doing in the real world with this stuff?
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#3> For one, Ethereum is unable to access real time data from outside the blockchain. Developers need to rely on trusted third party data providers, called oracles, to provide smart contracts with outside information like weather, random numbers, or currency values.
I feel like this is more of a feature than a bug. If you're weaving applications into the blockchain, would it really be wise to have that chain communicate with abstract data off of the chain itself? Seems an unnecessary burden for the chain to bare!
Great article. I've recently gotten into Ethereum Dev and Solidity. It's really fun, fun stuff. This isn't directly addressed in the Ethereum portion of the article, but it's good to keep in mind that these things are all works in progress. Limitations today are non-such tomorrow; we don't quite know where the train is headed.
You, Developer, can help it get to wherever you feel it needs to go. Remember that before deciding not to contribute. :)
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#4Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
Hello, api.
You might want to check this page out:
https://www.stateofthedapps.com
There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity.
One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io. The whitepaper is a fun read.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#5Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
My favorite part about the blockchain is that it is a standard building block for decentralized byzantine consensus. Throw Ripple's XRP Consensus algorithm at 50-100 nodes and you know that 30% or more would have to be compromised to break the guarantees.
That's really cool because I can code the rest of the interface (front end etc.) with sloppy security and then ACTUALLY BOLT ON a secure layer with guarantees at the end.
Makes development much more streamlined. As the author of a huge codebase (https://qbix.com/platform) I worry that there are lots of security holes. With such a large attack surface, most new open source projects are swiss cheese, like early Wordpress (which is still full of holes from plugins).
Here, we just build our MODEL layer with a blockchain and KNOW the rules are going to be enforced.
Combine that with IPFS and a token and suddenly you don't have to pay for hosting to scale to billions of people. It's nice.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#6Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
Hello, api. You might want to check this page out: https://www.stateofthedapps.com There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity. One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io . The whitepaper is a fun read.
What I'm really looking for (and I've been asking this question in a lot of places recently) is some concrete examples of real world cases where this tech is being... you know... used as something other than just novelty or tinkering.
Block chain centric use cases don't count since those just reinforce my worst case hypothesis-- that cryptocurrency is a financial MMORPG and a pure value-free bubble.
What's an actual case of an actual team, project, or organization using this stuff to do something... actual?
I'm both a developer and a founder and am very active in tech. I have yet to encounter a single case of someone using a block chain based application in the real world with the exception of the core currency/wire transfer use case of cryptocurrency. We have used it for that ourselves, but as others have noted the appreciation in value is actually harming this use case.
What I see here is heaps of money being raised and a lot of developer time being spent building things without any contact with reality whatsoever. As they say in the military: the first casualty of war is the plan. IMHO there is nearly zero chance that you are building the right thing until you have shipped and iterated a few times, especially with something complex and rather byzantine. The only exception to that might be "scratch your own itch" or "dogs making dog food" projects, but those really aren't exceptions since if you are the customer you can (to some extent and in the early days) short circuit the process by testing on yourself in your own head as you go.
Colony looks like groupware on the block chain. Groupware is a very well known tar pit of death.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#7Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
its only a matter of time before bank settlement and cross border payments are all done on blockchain. I would think that asset tracking and real esate deeds are a great application. Asking why these things aren't on the blockchain yet is like asking why businesses aren't using the internet in the 1970s.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#8Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
> Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen.
What's even worse, from my POV, is the humongous amount of electricity that is used to support the blockchain. And to what end?
Personally, I won't start believing in the blockchain until a non-wasteful alternative to the present PoW scheme gets developed and actually deployed. Right now, this looks to me like the most direct way of turning human vices into cooking us live on this planet that humanity has ever invented.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello, api. You might want to check this page out: https://www.stateofthedapps.com There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity. One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io . The whitepaper is a fun read.
What I'm really looking for (and I've been asking this question in a lot of places recently) is some concrete examples of real world cases where this tech is being... you know... used as something other than just novelty or tinkering. Block chain centric use cases don't count since those just reinforce my worst case hypothesis-- that cryptocurrency is a financial MMORPG and a pure value-free bubble. What's an actual…
You might like this example, it puts decentralized smart-contracts in a digestible context: https://germanylandofinnovation.com/2016/10/19/german-compan...
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Under the prototype, users interact with the charging station by agreeing to a smart contract that is programmed on top of the Ethereum network. Prior to charging, the user makes a deposit on the network, which is later released after the transaction is complete.
The main difference is that instead of users being billed for the amount of time that they are connected to charging station–i.e. the way most stations work today–users pay only for the amount of electricity consumed during the charging process. The hope is that both the cost of the micro-transactions, and the allocation and consumption of electricity, will be made more efficient and ultimately save money.
In addition, the blockchain plus smart contracts has the potential to streamline the process of purchasing power from a charging station. In theory, this can take place directly with the machine (charging station) and not require prior contact with the providing company or a human representative.
Re: Building for the Blockchain
#10Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for…
Why use a blockchain instead of a database? Because multiple organizations are involved and each wants to control the database.
If a thing moves across multiple organizations then you can make a case for a blockchain application, logistics is an obvious example, but there are others like asset (expensive paintings / vintage wine) provenance.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/ups-bets-on-blockchain-as-...