Millions of citizens from countries that have abusive governments would disagree with this. Its digital gold. In Yugoslavia where I am from originally, gold was banned, and that was the case too in Romania during dictatorship times. People were smuggling gold to preserve their means of survival, and being seen carrying gold would result in one being killed by a firing squad or jailed. BTC doesn’t have that problem
Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
211–220 of 296 posts
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#212Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. If you want to buy a 4chan pass, you'll find there is no option to pay in EUR or USD. Cryptocurrency only. Is this because 4chan is operating an illegal business? No. It's because they cannot process payments using the traditional means. Controversial websites get financially censored all the time. Here are a few that come to mind: Kiwi Farms, Wikileaks,…
> Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. Cash is still better This argument comes up everytime blockchain are discussed, but I don't believe it is true I could theoretically pay 4chan using crypto money,but I argue this is not a solution First of all, it's not the straightforward, very few people on average can do that on their own It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous…
Your point is that the lack of adoption makes it an incomplete solution, right?
It's a valid point, but it's like saying e-mail in the 90's was not a good replacement for mail because if you want to forward it to your aunt you still need to print it out and mail it. If adoption improves those problems go away.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Sounds good at first, but now your calls stop working if the regulator's system goes down for maintenance. You can certainly make it work, but I don't see what the major benefit of using a central database is here.
> It wouldn't need to handle a large number of transactions per second because people don't change phone providers very often.
That makes it fit blockchain quite well, actually.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fiat also uses crazy amount of energy in absolute terms. But per-transaction costs are much lower for fiat.
Can you give some examples of ubititous systems in the real world which don't use crazy amount of energy in absolute terms? It would be helpful if you could provide an estimate for your notion of "crazy amount of energy" in terms of powers of ten kWh.
I know you're sealioning, but I've worked in payments and here's some examples for you:
- the largest bank in Canada used one Tandem computer for all banking transactions until 2000
- ebay used one E10K for all auction transactions until 2000.
(I actually worked in the data centers for those, and could have touched them if I wasn't concerned about possible grounding issues.)
You're looking at a few kilowatts each for billions of transactions per day.
So any comparison of bitcoin mining vs. banking is simply stupid.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#215Responding to title only: of course, but the things it _is_ a solution for will be world changing.
When will they be world changing? I have a client who insists on paying me in crypto and the whole thing is dramatically more expensive and complicated than using TransferWise with a 10,000x increased risk that someone fat fingers something and the money disappears into the ether forever
My opinion is that it's like tcp/ip, new plumbing (ethereum). So expect protocols and apps to be built on top of it, similar to HTTP and browsers. You just need one killer app to make all the hype worth it.
That killer app might be elections or possibly decentralized trading of electronic assets like stock ownership.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Start non-profit for that purpose that will manage the database. Ther database will hold only entries signed by telco companies. Some rules will apply on what happens when a number changes. Everyone gets access to the raw database, and to query the database. In case of mismatches there will be an agreed arbitration process, with agreed upon fines to the party no being responsible. This or some other contract. This so…
I'm not sure I agree that blockchain is the most secure solution for common problems. Let's say you get a computer virus that steals your banking credentials and transfers your money to someone else's account. In the traditional banking system, it's often possible to reset passwords and reverse transactions, especially if you catch the bad behavior quickly. With Bitcoin, your money is gone forever and it is mathemati…
That's true for Bitcoin because it's almost impossible to get most miners and nodes to agree to reversing such a mistake, it's completely against the spirit of the project.
But in the example above that could still be easily fixed, you'd just need the companies involved to agree to reverse the mistake, as they are the miners of the chain.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#217Earlier 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
You know that a private, or permissioned, blockchain is pointless, right? If some entity controls the blockchain, you might as well just use a standard database.
It's not pointless, it's just yet another way "noSQL" database. It certainly doesn't give you the same benefits of a public blockchain.
But if the code is already written, meets the project requirements and is easy to deploy, why not?
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#218This author is way behind the times. Bitcoin is obsolete. Nano (nano.org) is what the author should be looking at as the future of p2p digital currency. Nano transactions are feeless and take under 1 second, fully confirmed. If you send 1 Nano the recipient receives 1 Nano. There is no mining involved so it is green and it is decentralized. These features make microtransactions possible. You could use it to pay a fra…
I'm not sure a cryptocurrency that has lost ~95% of its value in the past couple years is a good counterexample to this article.
Tell me, what is the value of Java, Python, Javascript, or HTML?
When you start looking at cryptocurrencies as code, valuation becomes meaninglessness.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wrote this below but copying here as it's hard to write a huge comment twice. That's a long article itself but this might be a good starting point: https://consensys.net/blockchain-use-cases/ Consensys is run by an Ethereum co-founder and one of the most prestigious organizations in this space, so that page might seem intimidating but it's good, factual information. Ethereum allows for the usage of unique and real…
> Money was obvious as it's impossible to have internet money if you can just ctrl+c and ctrl+v it to make copies. Ah, yes, that was Amazon's mistake. Accepting Internet money has meant that I've been able to just email them photocopies of the same money over and over. Hahaha, it has been the perfect crime. I hope Amazon never embrances Ethereum and I can keep getting free merchandise forever.
I get the joke but you don't send Amazon money, you just tell someone else (after multiple third-parties and fees) to let them take some of the money you store with them.
It's not at all like handing someone some cash, I never "signed up" to my local grocery store and I don't need to login to make a purchase, I can just hand them some cash.
Re: Blockchain, the Solution for Almost Nothing
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. Cash is still better This argument comes up everytime blockchain are discussed, but I don't believe it is true I could theoretically pay 4chan using crypto money,but I argue this is not a solution First of all, it's not the straightforward, very few people on average can do that on their own It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous…
Your point is that the lack of adoption makes it an incomplete solution, right? It's a valid point, but it's like saying e-mail in the 90's was not a good replacement for mail because if you want to forward it to your aunt you still need to print it out and mail it. If adoption improves those problems go away.
> If adoption improves those problems go away
My point is also that adoption won't improve because the benefits are limited and most of the times there is no benefit at all
e-mail solved a problem: communicating rapidly
sending letters was slow, costly and error prone
sending an e-mail was immediate, free and if it got lost re-sending a copy was effortless