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Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#51

Post by anotheryou »

PeterisP wrote: post #40
anotheryou wrote: post #7

I still like it as "proof of existence", proofing that you where in possession of a certain information at some point in time. (by publishing the hash on the blockchain). I think this is already relevant for court cases.

This use case, especially for legal proof in court cases, has been solved by digital signatures with timestamps - essentially, you hash the document; and a third party issues a digitally signed certificate that they verified that hash at this specific day and time). The technical infrastructure and legal process for that existed before Bitcoin was invented and the blockchain boom, I recall doing some work on these th…

Well than this at least makes it decentralized and cheap (though of course that central entity could provide that as well in theory...)

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#53

Post by kjaftaedi »

keiferski wrote: post #35

Blockchain has existed as a widespread technology for what, a little over a decade now? And people are already proclaiming its fundamental uselessness? Seems like a massive lack of patience and long term thinking. It took nearly a century for the first airplane to go anywhere and another half-century for it to be widespread and practical.

Given the amount of hype and money dumped into projects, and nothing more coming out of it more than crypto-currency which already existed and started the trend.. i'd say 10 years is more than generous.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#54

Post by JackFr »

41 comments when I write this.

There is a ton of ‘will’, ‘could’, ‘might’, but no ‘is’. The concrete examples pointed to are sales pitches, announcements, protocols, consortia being organized.

It looks a lot like the answer is no.

That may change I suppose, but it really seems like no one is doing anything practically useful with it.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#55

Post by simonw »

As a blockchain skeptic the replies to this post have so far further cemented my skepticism.

Providing an example of blockchains solving real problems aside from cryptocurrency should be trivially easy at this point: well funded companies have had /years/ to do this now.

It's not just startups either - IBM and other big consultancies have been pushing blockchain solutions really hard.

How much longer do we have to wait for someone to build something that's actually useful, and that genuinely couldn't have been built cheaper and faster without a blockchain?

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#56

Post by anotheryou »

biddlesby wrote: post #42
anotheryou wrote: post #7

I still like it as "proof of existence", proofing that you where in possession of a certain information at some point in time. (by publishing the hash on the blockchain). I think this is already relevant for court cases.

Has a blockchain hash ever been successfully used as a piece of evidence in a real court case?

Honestly not that I know. Though I could neither find a case for where it was attempted and failed.

China explicitly allows for it though: https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2163487/china-accepts-bloc...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#57

Post by chpmrc »

Git uses, in fact, a "blockchain". There's no mining involved (although, given how hard some code reviews can get I'd argue there is still "proof of work" lol) and anyone can create new blocks and is free to accept or reject them.

Like someone else already said I think it's less about the "blockchain" and more about finding ways to decentralize traditionally centralized services.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#58

Post by amelius »

chrisco255 wrote: post #41
amelius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if you want to avoid ending up in a world straight out of a Black Mirror episode, I recommend supporting open-source monetary blockchain systems Could you provide a reason why, with some examples?

Because if Government-run blockchains become the norm, they'll be able to dictate whatever you spend your money on and you'll have no recourse. There will be no cash alternative. China's social credit system is a perfect example, also shown in Black Mirror. If governments can have control over both behavior and spending in such a way, they own you. You're in 1984.

Ok, but why wouldn't governments simply prohibit the use of these systems then?

It seems easy to do because anyone wanting to pay or be paid has to somehow advertise this.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#59

Post by rorykoehler »

chpmrc wrote: post #57

Git uses, in fact, a "blockchain". There's no mining involved (although, given how hard some code reviews can get I'd argue there is still "proof of work" lol) and anyone can create new blocks and is free to accept or reject them. Like someone else already said I think it's less about the "blockchain" and more about finding ways to decentralize traditionally centralized services.

Yet all our git repos are centralised on github

Re: Ask HN: Are there any substantial examples of blockchain solving a real problem?

#60

Post by PeterisP »

anotheryou wrote: post #51
PeterisP wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This use case, especially for legal proof in court cases, has been solved by digital signatures with timestamps - essentially, you hash the document; and a third party issues a digitally signed certificate that they verified that hash at this specific day and time). The technical infrastructure and legal process for that existed before Bitcoin was invented and the blockchain boom, I recall doing some work on these th…

Well than this at least makes it decentralized and cheap (though of course that central entity could provide that as well in theory...)

Yes, it makes it decentralized, but so what? The whole point of this discussion asked by the OP above is to question why (and IF) decentralization is an advantage - what practical benefits does it achieve for this particular use case?

Decentralization is a trade-off; it almost always incurs an efficiency cost compared to an equivalent centralized solution, so the question is if it brings some specific benefits that justify the drawbacks.

Regarding costs, as I mentioned above, the verification in court (which is the whole point of this service) would be much more expensive for the decentralized scenario and the timestamping services are trivially cheap already, so if we look purely at costs then decentralization does not provide any advantage.

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