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Building for the Blockchain

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Building for the Blockchain

#21

Post by CPLX »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #18
CPLX wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But this has been going on for awhile, what's the example of someone actually doing any of these things in a way that creates real efficiency?

I feel like you are moving the goalpost. edit: If UPS doesn't count then nothing is going to count.

The guy said it seems interesting in theory but asked where the actual value was. You replied with some theoretical examples.

Lots of things are interesting in theory. Bitcoin is about to end its first decade though. Asking where the actual value comes from seems on topic to me.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#22

Post by furyofantares »

api wrote: post #2

Yet 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 post does kind of explain that.

In the centralized world with a thin protocol layer that captures little value and a fat application layer that captures a lot, we see far, far more development in the application layer. When you invert where the most value is captured, you invest where the most work is done.

That said, all sorts of open source projects have shown that there are plenty of people willing to sacrifice their ability to capture value if it means they can produce even more value that is instead captured by users.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#23

Post by TylerE »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #18
CPLX wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But this has been going on for awhile, what's the example of someone actually doing any of these things in a way that creates real efficiency?

I feel like you are moving the goalpost. edit: If UPS doesn't count then nothing is going to count.

Don't think so. You said $x is great for $y. He asked you to show an example of $x actually solving $y.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#24

Post by api »

furyofantares wrote: post #22
api wrote: post #2

Yet 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 post does kind of explain that. In the centralized world with a thin protocol layer that captures little value and a fat application layer that captures a lot, we see far, far more development in the application layer. When you invert where the most value is captured, you invest where the most work is done. That said, all sorts of open source projects have shown that there are plenty of people willing to sacrific…

That's a nice hypothesis. We are now almost a decade into cryptocurrency. Where is the evidence that this hypothesis is true?

Don't get me wrong. I want to believe. I want a decentralized trust-free ubiquitous computing future. I want an alternative to conventional VC to fund startups. I want an alternative to adware/surveillanceware to fund products and services.

That's why I am saying "put up or shut up" and calling BS on this mania. It's sucking all the air out of the room and if this really is a totally vapid value-free bubble its collapse is going to be a disaster.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#25

Post by chickenfries »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #18
CPLX wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But this has been going on for awhile, what's the example of someone actually doing any of these things in a way that creates real efficiency?

I feel like you are moving the goalpost. edit: If UPS doesn't count then nothing is going to count.

> 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?

What? Where did they move the goalpost.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#26

Post by woah »

arkona wrote: post #15
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #11

People are trying to solve a lot of interesting problems with blockchain, but I fear it's become the ultimate shoehorn solution for the modern era. See also: https://tonyarcieri.com/on-the-dangers-of-a-blockchain-monoc... I've had meetings with prospective clients that opened with, "We have $problem, can we use blockchain to solve it?" where anything that doesn't qualify as a blockchain is cast to the wayside because…

> A distributed, append-only cryptographic ledger Pardon my ignorance, but isn’t that what a blockchain is?

I agree that blockchain is overhyped right now, but I don't understand the common sentiment on HN that "you don't need a blockchain, just an append-only decentralized database with Merkel root logs", as if that's something easy to build. What is this hypothetical non-blockchain, where are you going to get it, and why not just use a blockchain if that's what you need?

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#28

Post by sly010 »

jaequery wrote: post #12

Where I can see blockchain being more 'actually' useful is in simple things, like verifying the integrity of the app (or anything really), ala checksum hashes. It makes a lot of sense for us to store them on the blockchain rather than hosting it on a webpage.

We have been doing that without blockchains with PKI for a long time.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#29

Post by thisisit »

I stopped after reading this:

> “Historically the only way to make money from a protocol was to create software that implemented it and then try to sell this software (or more recently to host it)… With [cryptographic] tokens, however, the creators of a protocol can ‘monetize’ it directly and will in fact benefit more as others build businesses on top of that protocol.”

And what was wrong with developers finding a market, developing a software and then monetizing it? I have tons of ideas each day, some of them blockchain related too but it seems unethical to use other people's money to test my hypothesis.

Re: Building for the Blockchain

#30

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

woah wrote: post #26
arkona wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A distributed, append-only cryptographic ledger Pardon my ignorance, but isn’t that what a blockchain is?

I agree that blockchain is overhyped right now, but I don't understand the common sentiment on HN that "you don't need a blockchain, just an append-only decentralized database with Merkel root logs", as if that's something easy to build. What is this hypothetical non-blockchain, where are you going to get it, and why not just use a blockchain if that's what you need?

> I don't understand the common sentiment on HN that "you don't need a blockchain, just an append-only decentralized database with Merkel root logs", as if that's something easy to build.

In my case, this sentiment accompanies an implementation in the form of an easily-deployable open source microservice.

https://github.com/paragonie/chronicle

If it's too hard for people to build, they can use what I wrote.

> What is this hypothetical non-blockchain, where are you going to get it, and why not just use a blockchain if that's what you need?

That's the tx/s limit on Bitcoin today? I can do hundreds of writes per seconds to Chronicle on a modest VM without sweat. This is possible because it's centralized, albeit supports mirroring (i.e. replication) and cross-signing.

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