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How Blockchain Works

blockchain.mit.edu

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Re: How Blockchain Works

#61

Post by the_snooze »

easymodex wrote: post #49
Moodles wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to solve a problem with a blockchain that does not exist. Also, exactly how does your blockchain even know "this yacht now belongs to this person"?

How is this not a problem if the court system is filled to the brim with situation that could have been solved with smart contracts in place. As for the yacht it's easy, the ownership is transfered from your address to the buyers address on the government's blockchain. :)

Let's say I'm the buyer and this happens. There's now a record on the government blockchain that says I own a yacht. Does that mean I physically have possession of the yacht now? How do we assure that what's in the blockchain is an accurate reflection of who actually has physical possession of the boat?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#62

Post by Moodles »

sparkzilla wrote: post #55
this_user wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A blockchain is just a type of data structure. I have yet to see any use case, outside of building crypto currencies, that could not be realised without it. The problem is not that the technology did not exist before, the problem is that people and organisations were slow or unwilling to adopt it. But that is not the type of issue that will be solved by introducing new technology, and almost all blockchain advocates…

My company aims to convert all the world's news into data. Please tell me another technology that will allow us to build a decentralised, failure-tolerant, censorship- and tamper-resistant archive of that data, that allows anyone to add data, and have it verified without a central authority, and that anyone can use to create news applications.

> my company .... decentralized

Can you explain this step?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#63

Post by vec »

gibsons77 wrote: post #48
Moodles wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed I have conjectured multiple times that I think the only application of blockchains is in cryptocurrency. Introducing any physical asset like a yacht or a banana in Laos or a diamond in Africa really doesn't make sense: you can't literally put those physical things in the blockchain.

I agree. You would need an oracle in order to put physical things on the blockchain, and that is subject to incorrect data or tampering. It's non-trivial, but not technically impossible.

Yes, but if you have a mechanism (either technical or institutional) that you trust to attach real-world goods to your blockchain in a sufficiently correct and tamper-resistant manner, why not just let that mechanism manage your ledger directly and skip the blockchain entirely?

Re: How Blockchain Works

#64

Post by briatx »

easymodex wrote: post #56
briatx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But code isn't law. You would have to rewrite parts of the legal system to support blockchain tokens as representing actual ownership, and there's strong reasons why you would never want to, such as loss of private keys, forgetting of passwords, or security vulnerabilities, or user error leading to complete asset loss. Otherwise you have a synchronization problem between the upcoming blockchain token system and the e…

"and has a history of working just fine for lower cost." Citation needed. Also we are just talking opinions here, a lot of things seem impossible until they are actually here and in our everyday lives.

Maybe you should try watching the video I already cited, specifically this part: https://youtu.be/YxmXIgLEAIE?t=1404

You might learn something.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#65

Post by prostoalex »

thedancollins wrote: post #33

Over the past year I have gone from Blockchain enthusiast to more blockchain gadfly. The concept is truly revolutionary but the use cases I typically see trotted out are not compelling in any significant sense and could be solved without blockchain. I believe the reason for this is due to the fact that the true value of a blockchain solution is not in the data aspect of it (which everyone gravitates to and can quickl…

> The concept is truly revolutionary

In what way? Publishing a DB dump with a checksum has been around for decades, and doesn't require a new user to download an entire history of deltas from day 1.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#67

Post by bloomer »

sparkzilla wrote: post #55
this_user wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A blockchain is just a type of data structure. I have yet to see any use case, outside of building crypto currencies, that could not be realised without it. The problem is not that the technology did not exist before, the problem is that people and organisations were slow or unwilling to adopt it. But that is not the type of issue that will be solved by introducing new technology, and almost all blockchain advocates…

My company aims to convert all the world's news into data. Please tell me another technology that will allow us to build a decentralised, failure-tolerant, censorship- and tamper-resistant archive of that data, that allows anyone to add data, and have it verified without a central authority, and that anyone can use to create news applications.

So you are building a write-only editor-less Wikipedia? Not sure how blockchain is related.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#68

Post by acjohnson55 »

thedancollins wrote: post #33

Over the past year I have gone from Blockchain enthusiast to more blockchain gadfly. The concept is truly revolutionary but the use cases I typically see trotted out are not compelling in any significant sense and could be solved without blockchain. I believe the reason for this is due to the fact that the true value of a blockchain solution is not in the data aspect of it (which everyone gravitates to and can quickl…

Maybe this is a different way of putting it, but my assumption is that if there are killer apps for blockchain tech, the value created will tend to be in the equity of companies rather than tokens. In most cases where those things are being conflated (e.g. ICOs), there's no obvious reason for it. Not everything needs a bespoke ledger and microeconomy. The complexity is completely unjustified.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#69

Post by p4bl0 »

This is a very good and clear explanation of how bitcoin type blockchains work. It could easily have been made simpler and more general at the same time by omitting the proof of work aspect, which is not even discussed actually. The "begin with four zeros" rule is completely arbitrary, it could be any prefix of any length depending on the necessary amount of work that you want, including zero. And with an empty prefix we still have a blockchain with all the properties presented here that hold.

Re: How Blockchain Works

#70

Post by bloomer »

tom_ wrote: post #41
Moodles wrote: post #6

Now explain to a technical audience why some people say nonsense like how it’s the next internet or how it’ll change the world please.

These people want VC money. (I can imagine some genuine uses, but I'm not interested in explaining them to people, especially not technical people with an axe to grind. So boring! Much quicker and easier just to say nothing, sit tight, see what happens, and find out that way whether I'm wrong or not. Most technical people are myopically technical anyway, and the technical side is just not the interesting bit here.)

Funny because I think a lot of technical people would say that the technical side is the only interesting part of block chain, i.e. it’s a neat data structure. However, every proposed use of it neglects all of the other non-technical aspects of human society. Hence all the calls by people with understanding of the technology for explanations of where it could actually be applied in society.
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