1–10 of 192 posts
I’m wondering what kind of ‘significant’ problems they solve and by this is not possible with regular technology.
I have a strong sense that blockchain technology is a solution that has yet to find a relevant problem to solve.
I think the same is true for cryptocurrencies but I would like to keep those out of the discussion, if possible.
A bit strange to exclude the one and only answer to your question.
Some stores use it to store the production chain metadata of their products : when it was produced, by whom, etc, and make this information public. As anything stored in the blockchain can't easily be faked, it allows customers to check the authenticity of what they are buying (ie where has this product been farmed, cooked, by whom, etc).
If you solve a problem with non-blockchain technology, you will get a centralized entity of some kind. Be it a bank, a SaaS service, a social network, a database, or whatever. Sure, it can be open source, but it's still centralized in one way or another, and decisions must be made be someone. If you are the owner or have privilidged access, you may do bad things (alter data, abuse user data, increase prices, etc).
With blockchain technology, you can get around having a centralized entity. Instead, you are developing an incentive schema that allows distributed ownership and decision making, so that all participants have power and are incentivized to behave in the best interest of all.
Besides money, there are many other cases where this make sense, but is the downside of having a centralized entity really large enough to justify the downsides of blockchain (hard to develop, slow, hard to use and manage, etc)? Probably not right now, and maybe it will never get to the point.
IMO, a well-run, transparent, centralized entity can be more trustworthy than a complex technology that is potentially exploitable, buggy, you don't fully understand, and is difficult to change once to initial incentive schema is in place.
I think this is already relevant for court cases.
What it doesn’t include is any kind of proof-of-work or proof-of-identity, which some people might consider necessary for something to be “blockchain technology”.
Edit, to the downvoters. In order for me to produce better commentary on this topic in the future, I would like to know: Do you view these statements as incorrect, misleading, or simply unhelpful?
Some stores use it to store the production chain metadata of their products : when it was produced, by whom, etc, and make this information public. As anything stored in the blockchain can't easily be faked, it allows customers to check the authenticity of what they are buying (ie where has this product been farmed, cooked, by whom, etc).