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Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#141

Post by Alex3917 »

api wrote: post #19

I said this in another thread but I'll say it again here. I am downright shocked at just how much of a failure this technology has turned out to be. How can this many brilliant people work on an area for this long and produce almost nothing of value? I suppose it happens in areas of "pathological science" like infinite energy machines, but those are areas where the tech doesn't work and probably violates laws of phys…

It's only been ten years and it takes on average around 40 years for a new technology to become useful. And this technology is much bigger and more complicated than the average new breakthrough technology, like the semiconductor or whatever.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#142

Post by thrkwaway »

IMO the killer blockchain app is voting. It makes use of the features that are unique to blockchain: censorship resistance, decentralization, and trustless transactions. I've been working on a paper for the last 6 months that details a system that makes use of crypto innovations like zk-snarks and some other novel technologies that lays a blueprint for how to use this tech to provide a voting system that would be beyond any central party's influence and would securely allow for voting from mobile devices and a host of other things that are beyond the capabilities of centralized tech - at least beyond the ability to be done in a manner that anyone would trust.

I've been watching the space since 2010 and can honestly say most projects are solutions in search of a problem.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#143

Post by ibeckermayer »

drexlspivey wrote: post #55

Blockchains make no sense when the "asset" they are tracking have to be imported from the outside world because they lose the trustless property which is the whole point. For example supply line tracking blockchains. "Look this piece of beef was at place X on time Y with temperature Z, I have a hash and everything". Yes but how do I know that you didn't swap the barcodes or you didn't fiddle with the GPS or the therm…

Sure, cryptocurrency is the perfect use case if for some reason you think currency should not be be tied to anything of physical value in the non-digital world.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#144

Post by therein »

dnautics wrote: post #134
osrec wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I extend it further: the moment you need to verify that something happened outside the system, your blockchain is broken.

There are ideas around trusted oracles and consensus recommendation ratings for oracles that aren't terrible and may work (no comment on scalability, of course).

I cannot trust a system that trusts an oracle.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#145

Post by tomrod »

seibelj wrote: post #89
simonw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you talk me through how a blockchain solution would help avoid this in a bit more detail? I've seen lots of vague "blockchain for supply chains is a great idea" pronouncements but I don't get how it would actually work.

Suppliers at every step of the chain enter data into a blockchain. Every organization runs a node. Therefore they can’t lie later and tamper with records when something goes wrong. Investigators can trace provenance easier. That’s it really. An append-only cryptographically secure database would do that same thing, but that’s just another name for a blockchain, which is a rebranding of a specific type of distributed…

Blockchain requires distribution for trustless implementation though, which is the duplicated expense (versus an append-only secure database).

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#146

Post by 6nf »

manmanic wrote: post #8

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 can you help the authors of this article with their quest to find any success stories at all?

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#147

Post by 6nf »

manmanic wrote: post #23
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

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.

> it's niche but it happens.

Do you have an actual example?

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#148

Post by api »

Alex3917 wrote: post #141
api wrote: post #19

I said this in another thread but I'll say it again here. I am downright shocked at just how much of a failure this technology has turned out to be. How can this many brilliant people work on an area for this long and produce almost nothing of value? I suppose it happens in areas of "pathological science" like infinite energy machines, but those are areas where the tech doesn't work and probably violates laws of phys…

It's only been ten years and it takes on average around 40 years for a new technology to become useful. And this technology is much bigger and more complicated than the average new breakthrough technology, like the semiconductor or whatever.

I don't think you can compare Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency to semiconductors at all. Cryptocurrency is really not all that complex a technology. Once you grasp it it's pretty simple, especially if you understand cryptography and a little bit of game theory.

I do still hold out some hope that the tech will evolve and eventually catch on, or that it will lead to something else, but the first big incarnation cycle of cryptocurrency seems like a total failure to a shocking degree.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#149

Post by api »

zanny wrote: post #123
api wrote: post #19

I said this in another thread but I'll say it again here. I am downright shocked at just how much of a failure this technology has turned out to be. How can this many brilliant people work on an area for this long and produce almost nothing of value? I suppose it happens in areas of "pathological science" like infinite energy machines, but those are areas where the tech doesn't work and probably violates laws of phys…

If money is the root of all evil, give technologists and futurists the ability to print money they can swindle muggles into pouring their life savings into as a get rich quick scheme or espouse at a pitch about how life changing it is and how much excessive amounts of money they need to get paid to copy paste half the Bitcoin Core or Etherium repo. You see pretty fast the dissolution of values in the face of potentia…

Good point about the conquistadors. I've always thought that many of them probably did come here with utopian ideals about founding pure societies and bringing the word of God to the natives (in a positive way at least as they thought of it), but once they got a whiff of gold and riches greed took over and pretty soon they were committing genocide.

People really do get weird around lots of money, especially if there's an opportunity to get rich quick. I think some really atavistic predator instincts can kick in.

Re: Blockchain study finds zero success rate and vendors don't call back

#150

Post by baby »

drexlspivey wrote: post #55

Blockchains make no sense when the "asset" they are tracking have to be imported from the outside world because they lose the trustless property which is the whole point. For example supply line tracking blockchains. "Look this piece of beef was at place X on time Y with temperature Z, I have a hash and everything". Yes but how do I know that you didn't swap the barcodes or you didn't fiddle with the GPS or the therm…

Ah! I keep hearing people talking about blockchain and supply chain and it makes zero sense to me. So we agree that this is bullshit?
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