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The Truth on the Blockchain

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Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#11

Post by p4bl0 »

aeternum wrote: post #7
p4bl0 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have this factory that builds objects. Building an object requires $X of energy. Because of a temporary malfunction in the factory, a few of them required 10 times that amount of energy. Are you saying that these selected objects that were built during the malfunction, and which are otherwise identical to all other objects produced in this factory, are more valuable because of that? I must admit that it makes no…

This isn't the best analogy since PoW was declared beforehand that more work = more trust. In the manufacturing example though, there are many examples of collectables that trade at a huge premium due to a very subtle manufacturing defect.

> more work = more trust

This is not true. The trust you are talking about is the "solidity" of the blockchain, i.e., it's immutability feature, what (supposedly) makes it a trustable source.

But it is not PoW that makes the blockchain immutable. A lot of people are saying that, but they're wrong, I'm sorry.

What actually makes the blockchain immutable is that it is distributed and that it cannot be done to rewrite it's history discretely. People will notice because the hash of the blocks would change.

The same is true for a Git repository. If you have a Git repository that everyone mirrors regularly (so that it is distributed, just like a blockchain), then you can't rewrite it's history without having people notice: the new log will be incompatible with the history they already have all the commits hash will be different.

The only solution would be, in both case, to find entire collision for each block/commit. This is waaaaay more expansive than mining to find new valid hashes for a given blockchain.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#12

Post by p4bl0 »

ffwacom wrote: post #10
p4bl0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing this necessitate to blindly trust market economy. Market economy is what makes NFT works. It always needs new places to expand to, even if those are entirely virtual. What makes mining profitable for some is not the value of the information stored on the blockchain they're mining for, it purely is speculation.

If the information has no value then surely the market will eventually price the whole chain at $0. The short term is just noise, ‘price discovery’, whatever.

Again, this is true only if you have a complete trust in market economy to make reasonable decisions. I don't. And evidence support that it doesn't always do that (I'm sorry I only have French ressources on this subject).

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#13

Post by selestify »

p4bl0 wrote: post #11
aeternum wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the best analogy since PoW was declared beforehand that more work = more trust. In the manufacturing example though, there are many examples of collectables that trade at a huge premium due to a very subtle manufacturing defect.

> more work = more trust This is not true. The trust you are talking about is the "solidity" of the blockchain, i.e., it's immutability feature, what (supposedly) makes it a trustable source. But it is not PoW that makes the blockchain immutable. A lot of people are saying that, but they're wrong, I'm sorry. What actually makes the blockchain immutable is that it is distributed and that it cannot be done to rewrite i…

You’re talking about the problem after the network has already reached consensus on a block.

Problem is, if you’re downloading new blocks from the blockchain, and you’re getting two sets of history, which one do you pick? With Git, it’s trivial to recreate history differently, albeit with different hashes. With crypto, you pick the chain with more resources put into its creation.

Otherwise, any random person can spin up a hundred Bitcoin nodes and start spoofing the latest transactions pretty easily.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#14

Post by ffwacom »

p4bl0 wrote: post #12
ffwacom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the information has no value then surely the market will eventually price the whole chain at $0. The short term is just noise, ‘price discovery’, whatever.

Again, this is true only if you have a complete trust in market economy to make reasonable decisions. I don't. And evidence support that it doesn't always do that (I'm sorry I only have French ressources on this subject).

What’s the alternative? Centrally planned economies lead to people dying, messing with them via regulation hasn’t seemed to help at all, just leads to some financial crisis.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#15

Post by galaxyyy »

Imo the point of the blockchain is that it can do many things (such as payments, storage, immutable records) all in one place which will lead to an overall increase in societal productivity.

In the case of your diploma, it's true that there are other ways to have a distributed immutable ledger that contains a signature leading to the diploma. However, by having one agreed upon global ledger for any university to upload to with a proven statement of authenticity for the degree, you then have the ability to build technologies on top of that massive ledger that would have been much, much harder if each university decided to host their own distributed ledger.

A simple example would be a hiring company (like lever.co) being able to verify degrees instantaneously on-chain instead of requesting a proof of degree from the university. This request for a proof already happens in real-life and requires a relationship between the university and the hiring company. The blockchain can then come in and allow companies to verify degrees in seconds, rather than days, leading to an overall increase in productivity.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#16

Post by p4bl0 »

selestify wrote: post #13
p4bl0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more work = more trust This is not true. The trust you are talking about is the "solidity" of the blockchain, i.e., it's immutability feature, what (supposedly) makes it a trustable source. But it is not PoW that makes the blockchain immutable. A lot of people are saying that, but they're wrong, I'm sorry. What actually makes the blockchain immutable is that it is distributed and that it cannot be done to rewrite i…

You’re talking about the problem after the network has already reached consensus on a block. Problem is, if you’re downloading new blocks from the blockchain, and you’re getting two sets of history, which one do you pick? With Git, it’s trivial to recreate history differently, albeit with different hashes. With crypto, you pick the chain with more resources put into its creation. Otherwise, any random person can spin…

Yes, this is true in a decentralized and adversarial environment. This is exactly the problem that blockchains have been invented for! In such an environment, we do not have solutions to reach "consensus" apart from blockchains.

My point is that apart from cryptocurrencies (where the blockchain is enough because it defines the truth), since you need some form of trusted third-party to make what's written on the blockchain relevant, then you're not in a decentralized and adversarial setting. So you can do things more efficiently, you don't need a blockchain. You don't have to solve the distributed consensus problem.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#17

Post by p4bl0 »

galaxyyy wrote: post #15

Imo the point of the blockchain is that it can do many things (such as payments, storage, immutable records) all in one place which will lead to an overall increase in societal productivity. In the case of your diploma, it's true that there are other ways to have a distributed immutable ledger that contains a signature leading to the diploma. However, by having one agreed upon global ledger for any university to uplo…

I don't see why saying "we don't need a blockchain" would imply that we can't have one agreed upon global distributed immutable ledger. To problem to achieve that is probably more political than technical. But then if HE institutions come to an agreement, we can totally have what you suggest without a blockchain :).

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#18

Post by p4bl0 »

ffwacom wrote: post #14
p4bl0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this is true only if you have a complete trust in market economy to make reasonable decisions. I don't. And evidence support that it doesn't always do that (I'm sorry I only have French ressources on this subject).

What’s the alternative? Centrally planned economies lead to people dying, messing with them via regulation hasn’t seemed to help at all, just leads to some financial crisis.

Here too you are asserting things that are highly ideologically biased, or at least influenced.

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#19

Post by selestify »

p4bl0 wrote: post #16
selestify wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re talking about the problem after the network has already reached consensus on a block. Problem is, if you’re downloading new blocks from the blockchain, and you’re getting two sets of history, which one do you pick? With Git, it’s trivial to recreate history differently, albeit with different hashes. With crypto, you pick the chain with more resources put into its creation. Otherwise, any random person can spin…

Yes, this is true in a decentralized and adversarial environment. This is exactly the problem that blockchains have been invented for! In such an environment, we do not have solutions to reach "consensus" apart from blockchains. My point is that apart from cryptocurrencies (where the blockchain is enough because it defines the truth), since you need some form of trusted third-party to make what's written on the block…

Ah I see what you mean. Good point!

Re: The Truth on the Blockchain

#20

Post by ffwacom »

p4bl0 wrote: post #18
ffwacom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the alternative? Centrally planned economies lead to people dying, messing with them via regulation hasn’t seemed to help at all, just leads to some financial crisis.

Here too you are asserting things that are highly ideologically biased, or at least influenced.

Sigh.
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