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Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

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Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#171

Post by zucker42 »

csande17 wrote: post #131
andreskytt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number mobility between Indian telecoms runs on private blockchain. AFAIK it is live and actively used. BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. So every telco has their own copy that get synced via a consensus mechanism and signed transactions

> BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. Would it, though? Google tells me that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. Let's assume each person has one phone number, and each phone number requires one kilobyte of number-mobility-related data. Then the database would need to store 1.4 terabytes of information. 1.4 terabytes doesn't seem like an im…

I imagine the issue is maintaining consensus between the different phone companies. Without blockchain you'd have to have a canonical database run by a single entity, whereas you can use blockchain as the consensus mechanism among competing companies.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#172

Post by stagas »

> I have never heard of a bank simply taking money from someone’s account. If a bank did something like that, they would be hauled into court in no time and lose their license. Technically it’s possible; legally, it’s a death sentence.

cough Cyprus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Cypriot_fina...

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#173

Post by dk8996 »

ponker wrote: post #147
dk8996 wrote: post #139

I'm really surprised by how uneducated most of HN are about blockchain. This means we're still early. Few big things that are coming out of blockchain; 1) ICO - a way to raise money in a distributed manner outside the traditional financial system (think Banks and VCs). 2) Defi - a way to borrow and lend (and much more) outside the traditional financial system. One example, Banks get as much as 16-20% return on your d…

Pretty presumptuous to assume that we are “uneducated” about blockchain to be dismissive of it, rather than being educated but simply believing that the conditions required for blockchain solutions to be better (for a given utility function) than centralized solutions are actually very rarely found in real-life combinations of scenarios and utility functions. Like reversible transactions: I love that transactions are…

Most of the issues are around the UI/UX but these are being solved. I would take a look at metamask and other web wallets that make crypto really easy to use. Web3 websites that have wallet integration built in are actually easier to use than most online credit card forms. Think of it as a Amazon one-click but on every Web3 website.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#174

Post by csande17 »

mongol wrote: post #160
csande17 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. Would it, though? Google tells me that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. Let's assume each person has one phone number, and each phone number requires one kilobyte of number-mobility-related data. Then the database would need to store 1.4 terabytes of information. 1.4 terabytes doesn't seem like an im…

I don't think it is the size that is the problem. I imagine it is like a routing table, keeping track which number is managed by which operator, and if India has number portability, there needs to be a transactional method to update it that is shared by all operators. I could imagine this being done with a blockchain. Or for that matter, recording of call details for billing between operators?

"Keep track of which number is managed by which operator" reduces to "store a small amount of information for each phone number".

In a traditional database setup, the "transactional method to update it" would be sending a request to a central server to update the database. The central server can be run by whatever regulatory body or industry association is responsible for number portability -- ideally, this would be the group with legal authority to overrule whatever the computer system says anyway. It wouldn't need to handle a large number of transactions per second because people don't change phone providers very often.

You could imagine doing it with a blockchain instead, but you could also imagine doing it using a Yahoo Groups email list -- that doesn't make it a necessary or good solution.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#175

Post by vmception »

mgraczyk wrote: post #150
vmception wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everyone is an uninformed cynic. There are relevant criticisms of the space, but the relevant ones are exclusively inside the space and are distinctly not irreconcilable as it is permissionless to build or advocate for consensus changes to implement something that was built. The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.

..... Honestly have no idea what you're saying. I'm actively involved in the Compound community contributing "inside", but I don't think that matters. Outside criticism isn't automatically invalid just because it comes from outside.

> The external criticisms lack nuance and masquerade their observations as absolute limitations.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#176

Post by csande17 »

zucker42 wrote: post #171
csande17 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BC solves a problem there because operating a database for that scale would be very complicated. Would it, though? Google tells me that India has a population of around 1.4 billion people. Let's assume each person has one phone number, and each phone number requires one kilobyte of number-mobility-related data. Then the database would need to store 1.4 terabytes of information. 1.4 terabytes doesn't seem like an im…

I imagine the issue is maintaining consensus between the different phone companies. Without blockchain you'd have to have a canonical database run by a single entity, whereas you can use blockchain as the consensus mechanism among competing companies.

It's a shame there's no central authority responsible for regulating telecom in India, or this would be a really easy problem to solve.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#177

Post by ahdeanz »

arkadiyt wrote: post #146
dk8996 wrote: post #139

I'm really surprised by how uneducated most of HN are about blockchain. This means we're still early. Few big things that are coming out of blockchain; 1) ICO - a way to raise money in a distributed manner outside the traditional financial system (think Banks and VCs). 2) Defi - a way to borrow and lend (and much more) outside the traditional financial system. One example, Banks get as much as 16-20% return on your d…

What is an ICO really - just a company minting tokens for people that they can exchange for something. They're not using any of the properties of blockchain, and no one is running nodes except for the company itself. They should just sell digital tokens via traditional ecommerce methods - nothing about ICOs depends on or takes advantage of being on a blockchain.

They're literally using the blockchain to distribute the tokens.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#178

Post by skinnyasianboi »

A year ago I might have upvoted the post but after reading like 60% of it it felt very biased and I couldn't finish it. Disclaimer I'm also biased. A few things that I was missing: no mention of smart contracts(?), no mention of inflation and countries/banks that you can't trust your money and transactions doesn't have to take 7minutes-7days. For example in my experience a transaction on the Tron network goes quicker than a debit card transaction. But a valid reason was the massive energy consumption and I hope we will solve that with e.g. fusion energy.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#179

Post by zucker42 »

rainbow-road wrote: post #149
malikNF wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What even surprising is lots of HNers are really strongly against blockchain projects while YCombinator themselves have invested in several blockchain projects[1] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=cryptocurrency

Interestingly, all of those either use cryptocurrencies as an investment, or merely provide cryptocurrency-based tools (of questionable utility), and leave the problem-solving to their users. Why mine (fool's) gold when you can sell shovels?

Protocol Labs seems to be one which is actually trying to solve a problem rather than just being a tool to buy or use cryptocurrency. Your description is probably apt for the rest.

Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing

#180

Post by quickthrowman »

rudiv wrote: post #104
seebetter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For drugs you must mean Venmo or Cash App, where orders of magnitude greater numbers of drugs are ordered.

Not remotely, unless drug users have become much more trusting since I was last in the US.

The quantity and dollar value of drugs sold person to person in the US is orders of magnitude greater more than that of global darknet markets, and the amount of money being transferred by Venmo and Cashapp is growing, people are becoming more trusting.
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