It’s not still the early days of blockchain • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#271

Post by Galanwe » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

tomputer wrote: post #261

hubraumhugo wrote: post #33

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

> Use cases like storing the history of a car on-chain, transparent supply chains, public voting... this all sounds interesting but never made it to product-market fit. Anything that does not exist natively on the blockchain doesn't need a blockchain at all. If a token on the blockchain would represent you as the owner of a car and one day someone steals your private key which represents your car ownership, that pers…

> one day someone steals your private key which represents your car ownership, that person is now the owner of your car.

Why take such a naive blockchain as example? You could very well have a proof of authority blockchain so that 3 notary have to sign a car transaction.

You could also very well have revocation lists published on the blockchain by a further authority if keys are stolen.

There are hundreds of ways to make this work.

At the very least, that would allow me to know that I'm not buying a stolen car.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#272

Post by conradev » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

tomputer wrote: post #261

hubraumhugo wrote: post #33

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

> Use cases like storing the history of a car on-chain, transparent supply chains, public voting... this all sounds interesting but never made it to product-market fit. Anything that does not exist natively on the blockchain doesn't need a blockchain at all. If a token on the blockchain would represent you as the owner of a car and one day someone steals your private key which represents your car ownership, that pers…

This problem exists with cash. We teach people to not keep too much cash on them, but to keep it in a bank where it is safer.

You could get a credit card, and then it’s not even your money that you are spending! or your money that you lost to fraud.

I can see both of these existing in the crypto world in some form, the same way they exist in the fiat world

as for the banks and institutions and companies losing all of their money? that’s a new blockchain problem for sure

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#273

Post by duskwuff » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

axg11 wrote: post #269

tomputer wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use cases like storing the history of a car on-chain, transparent supply chains, public voting... this all sounds interesting but never made it to product-market fit. Anything that does not exist natively on the blockchain doesn't need a blockchain at all. If a token on the blockchain would represent you as the owner of a car and one day someone steals your private key which represents your car ownership, that pers…

Couldn’t you say the same thing about the deed for a house?

Physically possessing the deed to a house doesn't make you its owner either.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#274

Post by usrbinbash » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #198

Shish2k wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a way to authenticate yourself without a centralized authority PGP did that 31 years ago though, faster and more efficient and without all the downsides?

inefficiency here can actually be useful, it's similar to password stretching. If you know someone had to burn $10 of electricity to make an authentication, it hurts more to get banned.

> inefficiency here can actually be useful

Except for the tons of CO2 that get pumped into the atmosphere in the process, or the blackouts its causes, or the fact that there are tons of more useful applications for that energy, like heating homes, running air conditioning, charging electric vehicles ...

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#275

Post by conradev » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

tomputer wrote: post #261

hubraumhugo wrote: post #33

I'm still very opposed to the idea of taking a technology and then searching a problem for it. Why? Back in 2017 during the first hype cycle, blockchain companies raised hundreds of millions with ICOs. I became very interested in the technology too, and some friends still work in this space. 4 years later in the web3 era, there is not a single product aside from trading/finance that got traction. Use cases like stori…

> Use cases like storing the history of a car on-chain, transparent supply chains, public voting... this all sounds interesting but never made it to product-market fit. Anything that does not exist natively on the blockchain doesn't need a blockchain at all. If a token on the blockchain would represent you as the owner of a car and one day someone steals your private key which represents your car ownership, that pers…

This problem exists with cash. We teach people to not keep too much cash on them, but to keep it in a bank where it is safer.

You could get a credit card, too, and then it’s not even your money that you are spending! or your money that you lost to fraud.

I can see both of these existing in the crypto world in some form, the same way they exist in the fiat world

as for the banks and institutions and companies losing all of their money? that’s a new blockchain problem for sure

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#276

Post by neiman » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:13 AM UTC

eterm wrote: post #255

neiman wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. "Remotely send money" is a super hard thing to do. I literally just struggled for a month with a transfer that included 3 countries, none of them is English speaking. It required letters from banks, accountants, plenty of forms of different countries, translations, stuff which is lost in translation (the bank was unhappy with the word selection of a non-English speaker accountant, for example), different format…

> "Remotely send money" is a super hard thing to do. Technologically it is not. Which is why anyone in the EU can instantly send money to anywhere else in the EU, for free, despite being a collection of 27 countries with dozens of different languages and legacy banking systems. The hurdles are legal and regulatory, not technical. Blockchain and new technology does not solve the underlying problem at all.

Part of the transaction I described (which was personal) involved a bank transfer between two EU states, and it's simply not true. It's not instantly, doesn't work 24/7 (a transaction made on Friday arrived on Tuesday), and you have to find plenty of tricks to avoid high fees and super bad exchange rates (EU has more than one currency, you know).

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#277

Post by erik_seaberg » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:13 AM UTC

hunterb123 wrote: post #239

throwawaygh wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chargeback free donations Are chargebacks on donations are major issue for any legitimate non-profit organization?

Virtual game currencies, controversial politics, porn, gambling etc. Basically anything Stripe / PayPal locks your account for and considers you high risk or CC companies block.

They are targets for testing stolen numbers: https://blog.sift.com/2016/card-testing-chargebacks-and-nonp...

I can also imagine political orgs having foes.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#278

Post by neiman » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:13 AM UTC

jhrmnn wrote: post #220

tintor wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to trust each other. ie. No need to have a dedicated treasurer.

In the end, someone has power over the things in the real world, like releasing a version of the software or purchasing stuff. So everyone involved has to trust that someone at the least.

Open-source has the great advantage that it's auditable by everyone, hence the trust is distributed.

That's a comment for open-source in general, not about blockchains.

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#279

Post by tomc1985 » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

yashg wrote: post #254

baby wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are doing research and deploying cool stuff that others are actively using. You can criticize that as much as you want but it won’t do much.

Is there any cool stuff that doesn't involve speculative trading in some "coin" or "token"? I recently read about a steel maker in India executing a cross border order on blockchain. On further reading it turns out their bank used a third party company for digitizing letter of credit and that company claims to be using an enterprise blockchain R3 Corda. R3 itself is owned by a consortium of banks and on their website…

> My understanding is that a blockchain is supposed to be distributed, trustless, permissionless, immutable and open.

A blockchain is just a data structure. That description is more befitting of Decentralized Finance/DeFi

Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain

#280

Post by hnhg » Sat, Jan 15, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

neiman wrote: post #259

RandomLensman wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you comply with compliance and reporting requirements? I would naively imagine that interacting with the financial system/fullfilling requirements for cross border payments etc. are still difficult when everyone is anonymous Not saying you are doing something wrong but rather that I see a lot of applications in the wild that have to do with people imagining also a different regulatory landscape - which actuall…

I transfer all my financial actions to my accountant who's reporting it while instructing me what I need to do further. Compliance and reporting really differ from one country to another, and I'm not familiar with the US system (which I heard is one of the most strict). But as far as I checked (I'm not a lawyer, not an accountant and not an expert), where I live in the EU, compliance is something for legal entities (…

I'm not sure that's the case. I'm no expert but I believe those entities exist in part to take liability away from us as individuals. It's my understanding that, for example, in certain cases of privacy and security regulation I would be personally liable as an individual without an entity to undertake it for me. This could change by country and entity type though, even in the EU.