31–40 of 247 posts
I used blockchain in a project successfully, but it is not a distributed consensus application. My problem was file sharing. Torrent files send a big list of SHA1 hashes, one for each piece of the file. I replaced that idea with a single block which contains the hash of the next block (as well as two other blocks so verification isn't linear one block to the next). This allows a single block to represent the entire f…
I've been working on DLT / enterprise blockchain technologies since 2014 and have insight into hundreds of projects, a small number of which made it to live production. Here is the bottom line: yes, it's mostly hype, but this technology does have genuine use cases - when you want to build an interparty database-driven application, and cannot find a suitable place to put the database, because of business concerns or r…
Can you let me know how these "private" blockchains utilize proof of X to determine consensus? E.g. proof of work, or proof of stake, or something else? The thing I never understood with private blockchain tech is that the "traditional" blockchain (i.e. Bitcoin) relies on proof of work, and the only way this is viable is to have tons of resources working on these proofs so that you don't get a 51% attack (there have…
And I think you're right -- adding Nakamoto consensus to private blockchains makes no sense, because by definition they don't have arbitrary validators. And without Nakamoto consensus, "blockchain" is just rebranding of old and boring tech.
I used blockchain in a project successfully, but it is not a distributed consensus application. My problem was file sharing. Torrent files send a big list of SHA1 hashes, one for each piece of the file. I replaced that idea with a single block which contains the hash of the next block (as well as two other blocks so verification isn't linear one block to the next). This allows a single block to represent the entire f…
If I understand your short description, this sounds more like a Merkle tree[1] than a blockchain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree
I've been working on DLT / enterprise blockchain technologies since 2014 and have insight into hundreds of projects, a small number of which made it to live production. Here is the bottom line: yes, it's mostly hype, but this technology does have genuine use cases - when you want to build an interparty database-driven application, and cannot find a suitable place to put the database, because of business concerns or r…
So I personally think DLT is going to be one of those multi-quadrillion dollar technologies that come around every few hundred years. The real benefit of DLT is that it enables new types of human relationships. So thinking about it in terms of what percentage of your existing databases should be replaced by it isn't going to give an especially impressive result, because by definition your existing databases are going to model your existing relationships.
Think about what percentage of the stuff in your house you would own without the invention of double entry accounting. Unless you happen to have some veggies from the farmer's market or a sweater one of your relatives knit you, the answer is probably 0.00%. It simply isn't possible to manufacture things like the iPhone without double entry accounting, because without double entry it would be impossible to form the sorts of human relationships needed to produce such a complex product. And if we asked someone to take a look at all the stuff in their house a couple hundred years from now, I'm guessing that a similar 0.00 percentage of the stuff they own will have not have been created as the result of DLT.
The fact is that once DLT becomes ubiquitous it will no longer be cost competitive to manufacture and distribute products using only the sorts of relationships and techniques enabled by double entry accounting. And if anyone even tries it's going to be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when you want to build an interparty database-driven application, and cannot find a suitable place to put the database, because of business concerns or regulation If you're operating a legal business, a centralized database hosted by an industry mutual or regulator beats a blockchain.
Yes, that's true. But in some cases an industry mutual doesn't exist, and the regulator doesn't want to manage the database. Then what? It can be cheaper and easier to deploy a blockchain than to build the necessary organizational structure to run a central database. Like I said, it's niche but it happens.
From my perspective, blockchains are suitable for two things: People who want to misbehave(therefore they don't have legal recourse, independent of the morality of the extralegal actions) and people at war with each other that still need to have a relationship with each other.
It's kind of the perfect technology for a collapsed civilization or the revolutionaries and criminals in the current world order.
I used blockchain in a project successfully, but it is not a distributed consensus application. My problem was file sharing. Torrent files send a big list of SHA1 hashes, one for each piece of the file. I replaced that idea with a single block which contains the hash of the next block (as well as two other blocks so verification isn't linear one block to the next). This allows a single block to represent the entire f…
Can a serious project really succeed with a .lol TLD?
I've been working on DLT / enterprise blockchain technologies since 2014 and have insight into hundreds of projects, a small number of which made it to live production. Here is the bottom line: yes, it's mostly hype, but this technology does have genuine use cases - when you want to build an interparty database-driven application, and cannot find a suitable place to put the database, because of business concerns or r…
It also enables otherwise untrusted actors to make trustable claims, bypassing the gatekeepers that would otherwise have mediated those claims. One tangible example is ICOs bypassing not just regulators, but banks and the financial industry that would normally have had to underwrite them. Obviously this particular example has some serious kinks to work out, but the ability to bypass the corporate gatekeepers (not so much the regulators) has value, I think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you let me know how these "private" blockchains utilize proof of X to determine consensus? E.g. proof of work, or proof of stake, or something else? The thing I never understood with private blockchain tech is that the "traditional" blockchain (i.e. Bitcoin) relies on proof of work, and the only way this is viable is to have tons of resources working on these proofs so that you don't get a 51% attack (there have…
There are a variety of formal consensus algorithms uses for enterprise blockchains, but they are all some variant of voting schemes based on validator signatures. Nothing like proof-of-work is needed to ensure that one bad actor, or a small number of bad actors, cannot break the network's consensus. If you have just one validator, like QLDB, then you're back to a centralized scenario.
Another issue against the DLT hype is that the blockchain does not provide security where 90% of the whole architecture is outside the blockchain, less if there are many few nodes.
I used blockchain in a project successfully, but it is not a distributed consensus application. My problem was file sharing. Torrent files send a big list of SHA1 hashes, one for each piece of the file. I replaced that idea with a single block which contains the hash of the next block (as well as two other blocks so verification isn't linear one block to the next). This allows a single block to represent the entire f…
You should look at Merkle trees. They are a component of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in some cases an industry mutual doesn't exist, and the regulator doesn't want to manage the database. Then what? If you're at the scale where broad co-ordination is a problem, you're at the scale where the big boys can arrange a meeting. Alternatively, if you're at a scale where someone can get everyone on a blockchain, you're at the scale to create an industry organization.
I'm sorry but this does not always apply in the real world. Someone getting everyone onto a blockchain is a one-time project, perhaps with an annual maintenance fee. Running an industry organization is an order of magnitude (or two) more expensive. Trusting someone to build an (open source) application is not the same as trusting them to centrally host it.
Get the actors together to standardize a format for the messages everyone's emitting, and then make some software (one shared implementation, many different ones, doesn't matter) to parse the log stream into a point-in-time representation you can load into an analytics tool.
Seems to me that that sort of technology would fit this use-case a lot more closely than an Actual Blockchain™ would.