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Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#201

Post by tngranados »

baby wrote: post #176
mypastself wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve read several technical, non-fluff books on the topic, and I’ve developed smart contracts on Ethereum for decent hourly wage (paid out in fiat). And I’ve still come to roughly the same conclusion as you. Either my reading comprehension is poor, or there is little actual value in the vast majority of blockchain applications. Digital cash, as defined in the Bitcoin whitepaper, still seems like the only real use cas…

> Digital cash, as defined in the Bitcoin whitepaper, still seems like the only real use case. IMO the big breakthrough of crypto past bitcoin is that we figured out that cryptocurrencies can use money incentives to run other applications than just payments. People are doing all sorts if things, many scams but also many useful applications.

Any example of those many useful applications?

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#202

Post by giantg2 »

lmohseni wrote: post #140
pcthrowaway wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've developed smart contracts, I'm surprised you don't consider the capability of trustless financial instruments (peer-to-peer lending and pooled lending, for example) to be pretty useful as well

If you’ve ever written code, and if you’ve ever written a bug, then you will understand that code as law is terrible idea, especially when it comes to finance.

"If you’ve ever written code, and if you’ve ever written a bug, then you will understand that code as law is terrible idea, especially when it comes to finance."

If your argument is that there could be bugs in the code, then how is this different from the law today? The legal system is rife with abuses and injustices. It most certainly has bugs as-is.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#203

Post by Konterstein »

Even if this is all true what is missing here is self reflection. What exactly has any so called value in the finance or digital industry? Really not much, Finance has literally no value at all.

So what i read here is bitterness that something without value displaces what you do know that has no value.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#204

Post by antihero »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #185
lmohseni wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve ever written code, and if you’ve ever written a bug, then you will understand that code as law is terrible idea, especially when it comes to finance.

I'm not sure this is convincing. If there's some actual benefit, then crappy code that can be iterated is fine. Anything you do today with computer code was likely done worse in the past with worse code. So what is the actual benefit of "peer-to-peer lending and pooled lending" that blockchain technology provides that makes it worth iterating through these early mistakes? I'd guess the answer usually involves dodging…

The whole point of the legal system is that whilst it's defined as clearly as possible, there is always going to be some flexibility and interpretation, and a human element, so if someone finds a technical loophole but is clearly defrauding everyone they can still be put in jail. Of course, it isn't perfect, but the idea of law being absolute (as in code is law) is absurd as we lack the capability to consider every eventuality when we release code.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#205

Post by FabHK »

TekMol wrote: post #5

The value of blockchains seem so obvious to me, that I wonder if OP can be genuine. ask_111: How can having a public log that is extremely tamper resistant not have value? Let's look at a concrete example: Bitcoin. You can write something into the Bitcoin blockchain and be very sure that the information you wrote into it will stay there pretty much forever. Is that enough, or do we also have to discuss why having suc…

Yes. I wonder how we know what happened in the 1970s or 1990s, or what the lottery numbers were back then, or what the election result was, or who owned which house. There was no Blockchain back then, so no tamper resistant public log back then, so, I guess we'll never really know.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#206

Post by theov »

mypastself wrote: post #110
paulsutter wrote: post #19

The sole purpose of blockchain is to prevent double spending without a trusted party Other proposed applications are mostly dumb / misguided, like immutable storage, social network posts, etc, these can be done with hashing or digital signatures alone If you have a better way to avoid double spending than blockchain folks woukd get very excited. Traditional database can’t do that (requires a trusted party)

I’ve read several technical, non-fluff books on the topic, and I’ve developed smart contracts on Ethereum for decent hourly wage (paid out in fiat). And I’ve still come to roughly the same conclusion as you. Either my reading comprehension is poor, or there is little actual value in the vast majority of blockchain applications. Digital cash, as defined in the Bitcoin whitepaper, still seems like the only real use cas…

I think electronic cash such as Bitcoin indeed has value. A decentralized world computer such as Ethereum imo can also have tremendous value, but NFTs are.. pretty dumb. The ecosystem is still in its infancy. Whenever a new technology appears, it takes a while for people to discover good use cases. This process involves a lot of trial and error. I believe most crypto projects out there today will be dead within a few years. Similar to what happened with the internet around the dot-com bubble.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#207

Post by CJefferson »

thowaway_420_69 wrote: post #173
lmohseni wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve ever written code, and if you’ve ever written a bug, then you will understand that code as law is terrible idea, especially when it comes to finance.

^ you will understand that code as law is terrible idea, especially when it comes to finance. Why are we relying on code for controlling Safety-critical system? e.g. Nuclear Reactors, Autopilot of aircrafts, docking of two separate free-flying space vehicles, and weapon of mass destruction launch and control machines. All of them use "code", is finance more critcal than systems which are kill capable.

All of that code usually has a human override, and it can be turned off, fixed and upgraded. Also, it isn't (in the main) in the public and under constant probing attack.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#208

Post by gravitycorn »

xupybd wrote: post #144
elsjaako wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the value of having a chain of "blocks" of data, but that could also describe git. I don't see the added value of proof of work or proof of stake here. Why isn't putting that data (or a hash of it) in a publicly available git repository just as good? You can even publish the newest branch hash in the newspaper everyday if you want.

Oh in this instance it's not about having a public record. It's about every transaction having a hash of the previous. Then it gets hard to forge old data without altering all records after the forgery. It's still possible but takes more work and can make the tampering easier to discover. And for data loggers not connected to the internet this helps. It would be just as good to put it in a central repo if there was a…

Wait, you never did a git rebase?

How does a consensus algorithm help when the nodes are not connected to the p2p network?

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#209

Post by boplicity »

TekMol wrote: post #120
ak_111 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that tamper proof log is very useful, but I don't believe that it is something you can't achieve using traditional database tech. I have a question for you that can short-circuit our discussion. You claim that the value is "so obvious" to you, why then one decade in there isn't one serious application of blockchain in the real world (not even in the dark web with early adpaters)? I mean a workflow that has…

You can only create "tamper proofness" aka security with social coordination. Your bankaccount is somewhat secure due to layers and layers of agreements and interdependencies of people. Bitcoin works the same way, but in a much more modern way and achieves much better security. The git repo you mention elsewhere is something completely different. There is no security baked into git. A git repo is just a bunch of file…

> Bitcoin works the same way, but in a much more modern way and achieves much better security.

Is this true in practice? Haven't there been multiple massive bitcoin thefts? If these happened to a bank, you'd have a chance to get your money back. With Bitcoin -- it's just gone.

Re: Ask HN: Am I going insane or is there genuinely no value in blockchain tech?

#210

Post by elsjaako »

xupybd wrote: post #144
elsjaako wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the value of having a chain of "blocks" of data, but that could also describe git. I don't see the added value of proof of work or proof of stake here. Why isn't putting that data (or a hash of it) in a publicly available git repository just as good? You can even publish the newest branch hash in the newspaper everyday if you want.

Oh in this instance it's not about having a public record. It's about every transaction having a hash of the previous. Then it gets hard to forge old data without altering all records after the forgery. It's still possible but takes more work and can make the tampering easier to discover. And for data loggers not connected to the internet this helps. It would be just as good to put it in a central repo if there was a…

That's why I mentioned git, not just putting it in a text file.

Every git commit contains a hash of all the previous commits, and is itself referred to by a hash. So if you change an old commit, all commits descending from that get a new hash, and so a new identity.

If you publish the latest hash in the newspaper, you've locked down all the previous commits also.

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