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Explaining Blockchains to Developers

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Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#21

Post by carlosrg »

robjan wrote: post #16
m00dy wrote: post #11

I strongly believe that we need a lot simpler explanations to bring more people on board. Last month, I was in Turkey and explaining Bitcoin to my 60-year-old dad. He got the concept within minutes. His first question was about double-spending, and then he failed to grasp the mining concept and PoW. I think this happened because he lacks some abstraction ability.

We first need to know why we should bring more people on board.

Because peer-to-peer money without intervention of third-party institutions is genuinely a good technology that would benefit from more people using it and developing for it.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#22

Post by doomroot »

carlosrg wrote: post #15

> If 51% agree on the legitimacy of the block, consensus is reached I think this isn't entirely right, because he's talking about 51% of miners . The ones that actually incorporate the blocks to the blockchain and validate if the transactions are valid are the nodes (I might be wrong but that's my understanding). In fact this article fails to mention nodes at all, and nodes (for example people running the Bitcoin Cor…

For the most part your are correct. I think one distinction should be made. Economically active nodes are what matters not just any old node that someone has sitting in a closet.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#25

Post by korbdo »

emerged wrote: post #13
m00dy wrote: post #11

I strongly believe that we need a lot simpler explanations to bring more people on board. Last month, I was in Turkey and explaining Bitcoin to my 60-year-old dad. He got the concept within minutes. His first question was about double-spending, and then he failed to grasp the mining concept and PoW. I think this happened because he lacks some abstraction ability.

Alternatively, your 60 year old dad may have developed enough common sense in his years to sense the blockchain is largely an over hyped snake oil.

Agreed on "blockchain", which as been spun by marketers into a a snake oil for everything.

The comment you're responding to referenced a lack of understanding of POW and doubles pending, which has are specific to Bitcoin, not blockchain.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#26

Post by paulryanrogers »

m00dy wrote: post #17
emerged wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, your 60 year old dad may have developed enough common sense in his years to sense the blockchain is largely an over hyped snake oil.

I don't think it is overhyped. We are still in the early days of blockchain, and I can easily say that it offers a cheaper & more inclusive financial system than the traditional one.

How is it cheaper if miners can afford to buy defunct power plants?

How is it more inclusive if regulated countries still require KYC to buy into it or sell out? What can you buy with it without converting to fiat?

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#27

Post by intuitionist »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #14
rognjen wrote: post #3

OK, now explain it to non developers who think "it's the future of currency".

Simple - it may be called a "currency" but really it acts more like a stock. - There are limited ways to convert the bitcoin to USD, much like there are limited ways (brokers) to move money in/out of stocks. - The exchange/price compared to USD fluctuates wildly. It is not stable like USD - it is more like a volatile stock. BTC was worth $18k on Dec 1 2020 and has gone as high as $63k since then and is now around $32…

A stock is a residual claim on the assets of a business and the cash flows those assets generate. A digital token is an entry in a database that…entitles you to say you have an entry in a database. And it is typically a pretty lousy database in every way but Byzantine fault tolerance.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#28

Post by akudha »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #26
m00dy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is overhyped. We are still in the early days of blockchain, and I can easily say that it offers a cheaper & more inclusive financial system than the traditional one.

How is it cheaper if miners can afford to buy defunct power plants? How is it more inclusive if regulated countries still require KYC to buy into it or sell out? What can you buy with it without converting to fiat?

I don’t know about regulation.

But if you’re talking about Bitcoin’s energy consumption - there are alternatives (Nano, for example) that are not resource intensive

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#29

Post by aazaa »

> In simple words, it’s a slow database.

A better way to put it is: "it's a log file composed of blocks."

> A blockchain “validates” and permanently stores the data after a consensus is reached.

Not so. The whole point of a consensus algorithm is to map a path through a tree of blocks (the active chain). That path can shift, depending on messages received by the network, typically in the form of more blocks.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#30

Post by imglorp »

pluc wrote: post #24

"I can't understand why more developers aren't into blockchain and fintech startups here, let me post an article explaining it!" It ain't the tech, it's the people.

Right, there are two groups and you have to figure out which group you're talking to.

One group sees new, distributed consensus data structures with unique properties that can advance civilization. They're out there; I've met them and they're doing good work.

The other group are pure crooks and speculators willing to burn everything to the ground as long as they get theirs. But they wear a cute face and tell a flashy story, so it's hard to tell them from the first group.

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