9. Currency.
You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
11–20 of 415 posts
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#12Anyone have any good counter arguments to articles like this? That there is a use case that makes sense? I’ve been trying to find one and can’t, but it hasn’t stopped major corporations like IBM, who I would expect to jump on the hype train, but even AWS is embracing it to a degree with their latest announcements.
There's one I like: the farmer has a veal and introduces its date of birth on the blockchain. The veterinary that comes to check it posts a validation mark on the blockchain. If you trust the veterinary, you should trust the birthdate. The veal grows up to become a cow, and is sent for slaughter. The farmer stores an event on the blockchain and sends it to be cut into meat. The slaughterhouse stores an event (with th…
None of those seem to require a blockchain at all; a trusted authority database would accomplish the same thing at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#13Anyone have any good counter arguments to articles like this? That there is a use case that makes sense? I’ve been trying to find one and can’t, but it hasn’t stopped major corporations like IBM, who I would expect to jump on the hype train, but even AWS is embracing it to a degree with their latest announcements.
There's one I like: the farmer has a veal and introduces its date of birth on the blockchain. The veterinary that comes to check it posts a validation mark on the blockchain. If you trust the veterinary, you should trust the birthdate. The veal grows up to become a cow, and is sent for slaughter. The farmer stores an event on the blockchain and sends it to be cut into meat. The slaughterhouse stores an event (with th…
That's already a solved problem in the UK after the BSE crisis. From what I was told (by a friend who worked on it), it uses certificates to provide trust and verification. Uses a central database hosted by DEFRA. No blockchain needed.
https://secure.services.defra.gov.uk/wps/portal/ctso/
Everything you describe can be solved, in a better and more efficient way, by non-blockchain technologies.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#14Anyone have any good counter arguments to articles like this? That there is a use case that makes sense? I’ve been trying to find one and can’t, but it hasn’t stopped major corporations like IBM, who I would expect to jump on the hype train, but even AWS is embracing it to a degree with their latest announcements.
Blockchain-the-datastructure is incredibly useful and widely deployed — e.g. Git histories are blockchains (well, a slightly extended version of a blockchain that allows you to represent a DAG, same difference).
Blockchain-the-trustless-consensus-protocol has a fundamental challenge that makes it completely and utterly pointless for most applications — the oracle problem. You build up a whole system around a secure trustless chain-of-custody, but then require trust in some sort of outside entity for adding resources into the system. If you're willing to trust that entity, there's many simpler ways to sort out your chain-of-custody problems.
Cryptocurrencies "work" precisely because they don't need an oracle. They don't track anything that exists outside the chain.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one I like: the farmer has a veal and introduces its date of birth on the blockchain. The veterinary that comes to check it posts a validation mark on the blockchain. If you trust the veterinary, you should trust the birthdate. The veal grows up to become a cow, and is sent for slaughter. The farmer stores an event on the blockchain and sends it to be cut into meat. The slaughterhouse stores an event (with th…
And you need to trust each and every one of these people not to lie. That's the key issue: Bitcoin works, because Bitcoins are "born" on the blockchain. Anytime you need to relate real-world concepts to the blockchain, you need trust again. As you said: "if you trust the veterinary".
No, I think you "only" need to trust the veterinary, and make sure that all animals are tracked (which is the case in Europe, which is why the Lasagna scandal came to be a scandal). Both things are already true here.
The anti-double-spend features of blockchains is what matters after that: your cow cannot be sent to slaughterhouse 1 and 2 at the same time. Slaugher house cannot ship it to butcher A and butcher B. And it's fairly easy to check that the butcher doesn't sell it twice.
Though as I said in another comment, this can all be solved very easily if you give the DB hosting to the veterinary authorities, and very likely to be much cheaper too.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#169. Currency.
has worked for literally millennia without it.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one I like: the farmer has a veal and introduces its date of birth on the blockchain. The veterinary that comes to check it posts a validation mark on the blockchain. If you trust the veterinary, you should trust the birthdate. The veal grows up to become a cow, and is sent for slaughter. The farmer stores an event on the blockchain and sends it to be cut into meat. The slaughterhouse stores an event (with th…
None of those seem to require a blockchain at all; a trusted authority database would accomplish the same thing at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
The point is you don't need a central authority. And I'm sure running a central authority costs some too which could also gain power that no one in the industry can resist.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#18I'm reminded of the helpful "How to decide if blockchain is right for your project" flowchart ( https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPFvZuqU8AAeU0C?format=jpg ) from @MalwareTechBlog.
I also recommend Andreas Antonopoulos's talk "Blockchain vs Bullshit" which can be found on YouTube.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one I like: the farmer has a veal and introduces its date of birth on the blockchain. The veterinary that comes to check it posts a validation mark on the blockchain. If you trust the veterinary, you should trust the birthdate. The veal grows up to become a cow, and is sent for slaughter. The farmer stores an event on the blockchain and sends it to be cut into meat. The slaughterhouse stores an event (with th…
That's already a solved problem in the UK after the BSE crisis. From what I was told (by a friend who worked on it), it uses certificates to provide trust and verification. Uses a central database hosted by DEFRA. No blockchain needed. https://secure.services.defra.gov.uk/wps/portal/ctso/ Everything you describe can be solved, in a better and more efficient way, by non-blockchain technologies.
It could be solved, but is it really ?
Shall I remind you of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal#UK_Inv...
The blockchain doesn't offer a technological solution that couldn't be done with a centralized authority (I particularly like the way passports rfid reading involves certificates signed by each country). But it offers means to achieve that even if nobody safe enough wants to host the bloody service.
Re: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those seem to require a blockchain at all; a trusted authority database would accomplish the same thing at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
The point is you don't need a central authority. And I'm sure running a central authority costs some too which could also gain power that no one in the industry can resist.
but in most countries there is a central authority in the shape of a government agency responsible for agriculture.