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Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

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Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#11

Post by xchaotic »

Geee wrote: post #8
semicolonandson wrote: post #4

I know this question is probably intended as a technical one, but from a pragmatic/empirical perspective, the number one use-case of the blockchain is to raise money in a way that side-steps traditional causes of friction (e.g. financial regulations). (I make no judgement on whether these sources of friction are worthwhile or not.)

That's an use-case for cryptocurrency, not blockchain. The title asked use-cases that are not currency.

you misunderstood - it's not limited to cryptocurrency or even DLT - in making the whole scheme elaborate you bypass the traditional AML/KYC regulations - anyone can buy your 'token' without setting up a legal account or using a legal source of funding such as a credit card.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#12

Post by Tomte »

_b8r0 wrote: post #2

Usually it's when you want decentralized validation of time-series data. E.g. The egg industry adopts a solution whereby the chicken are tracked on a blockchain so people know which chickens are kept outdoors and which are indoors. The eggs are then tracked and checked in at each quality gate and the consumer then gets a QR code for an app that tells them where the egg came from and where it was checked for tampering…

> the chicken are tracked on a blockchain so people know which chickens are kept outdoors and which are indoors.

A blockchain does nothing to ensure that an indoor chicken isn't marked as outside.

How an untruthful information is distributed or secured doesn't matter.

All those blockchain logistics tracking ideas fail at the same point: where the blockchain meets the real, physical world.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#13

Post by sebmellen »

xchaotic wrote: post #9
sebmellen wrote: post #7

The biggest use case I have found of blockchain tech is timestamping, especially in a case where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests. I'll give you an example, from one of my startup's enterprise customers. This company needs to ensure that their high-end auto inventory remains in the same state through transport — the mileage, the car body, etc. They've had issue…

why does it need a distributed blockchain though? Why not just put it in a database?

Because many companies with many conflicting interests need to be able to trust each other. If we put this data in a database, our enterprise customer can tweak the system to their advantage if they make a deal with us.

The global, open database provided by a blockchain solves this problem, and also allows anybody to read the state without relying on our company to maintain the database or for uptime.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#14

Post by [deleted] »

xchaotic wrote: post #9
sebmellen wrote: post #7

The biggest use case I have found of blockchain tech is timestamping, especially in a case where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests. I'll give you an example, from one of my startup's enterprise customers. This company needs to ensure that their high-end auto inventory remains in the same state through transport — the mileage, the car body, etc. They've had issue…

why does it need a distributed blockchain though? Why not just put it in a database?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#15

Post by jedimastert »

xchaotic wrote: post #9
sebmellen wrote: post #7

The biggest use case I have found of blockchain tech is timestamping, especially in a case where the timestamping party cannot be trusted to act honestly because of conflicting interests. I'll give you an example, from one of my startup's enterprise customers. This company needs to ensure that their high-end auto inventory remains in the same state through transport — the mileage, the car body, etc. They've had issue…

why does it need a distributed blockchain though? Why not just put it in a database?

Because the person who owns the database has to be trusted, where here no one has to be

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#16

Post by puranjay »

One good use case I've found is file authentication. If a file is signed and it can be matched against a distributed ledger, it can help ensure the authenticity of the file. I can imagine uses for this everywhere from piracy prevention to checking authenticity of documents, records, etc.

Imagine that all land records are in a distributed ledger. The land owner has a signed certificate that can be verified anytime for authenticity. The only way to access the certificate is with a 12 word passkey.

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#17

Post by jedimastert »

xchaotic wrote: post #11
Geee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an use-case for cryptocurrency, not blockchain. The title asked use-cases that are not currency.

you misunderstood - it's not limited to cryptocurrency or even DLT - in making the whole scheme elaborate you bypass the traditional AML/KYC regulations - anyone can buy your 'token' without setting up a legal account or using a legal source of funding such as a credit card.

If you're buying and selling "tokens" that don't do anything other than provide proof that you've added or subtracted an appropriate amount of value into the system, you've just created a currency. That's basically the definition

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#19

Post by dgrin91 »

Broadly speaking blockchain only solves a singular problem: Trust. If there is some work that needs to be done between parties and you don't trust the parties involved then you can use blockchain to do the work in a trust-less setting. This is why money has been the first and most prominent use case; people are less trusting with their own money.

For a specific non-money potential use case of blockchain I would say identity services. For example, currently the internet runs based on implicitly trusting a set of root CAs (hundreds just counting the big ones!). The CAs certify that a site is what it claims to be. But if the CA becomes malicious (either through intent or hack) there are limited mechanisms for combatting this.

If you decentralize the certification process you can have a trust-less system. This also works beyond CAs - any sort of identity management falls under the same principle: Credit scores, citizenship, etc

Re: Ask HN: What are real-life useful use-cases for blockchain (not currencies)?

#20

Post by dasudasu »

sebmellen wrote: post #13
xchaotic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does it need a distributed blockchain though? Why not just put it in a database?

Because many companies with many conflicting interests need to be able to trust each other. If we put this data in a database, our enterprise customer can tweak the system to their advantage if they make a deal with us. The global, open database provided by a blockchain solves this problem, and also allows anybody to read the state without relying on our company to maintain the database or for uptime.

So the customer set up an IT service with multiple servers to sync with yours so that both can sync to the ledger? How does that work in practice? Is someone also monitoring that nobody is doing a 50% attack? Are both parties present when something is inserted into the blockchain?
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