Why “blockchain” is BS in 4 slides

Post by hndamien » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #207

as300 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud can occur when a party lies about assets it owns when entering into an agreement, which would be prevented if you had to present proof of ownership for any asset you claim to own? Most ponzi schemes would never happen.

You can own something, accept payment for it, and never actually relinquish ownership. Besides, the blockchain is only proof of ownership of things on the chain. Real world things are not covered at all.

Post by hndamien » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:29 AM UTC

asfgjadfgionoin wrote: post #85

mjamesaustin wrote: post #2

Isn't he discussing cryptocurrencies in particular rather than blockchain in general? There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm not an expert in blockchain by any means.

>There are many uses for blockchain other than as a cryptocurrency. Name one.

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

JimmyAustin wrote: post #194

_betty_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is: * Website gives person a unique code to broadcast on the blockchain to prove they have control over that identity * 'Approved' services claim things publically about identities (eg age, allowed to drive) which others can use to verify claims What I don't get is: * how you know which 'approved' services to trust in the first place * why you'd want all of that information public * how it'd fix the…

You can treat the 'approved' services list using a whitelist, like a CA. The other issue is that none of this is necessary. If I want to prove to Person X that Gov Y says that I have property Z, why can't I just present a cryptographically signed certificate saying I have property X. You could even have a similar revocation list as CA.

Post by EthanHeilman » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

jason_slack wrote: post #209

EthanHeilman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no consensus definition of what a blockchain is. In fact the Satoshi whitepaper that introduced Bitcoin does not even use the word blockchain it talks about a hash chain of blocks a concept which predates Bitcoin by ~30 years. The real innovation of Bitcoin was to use PoW to both limit Sybil attacks and to make additions to the hash chain computationally expensive to revert. Often however when people talk ab…

If so many companies are doing things for the blockchain, are they storing in the same blockchain as bitcoin or are companies creating more blockchains and needing miners to help mine, etc,

Post by kthejoker2 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

dozzie wrote: post #77

kthejoker2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain? My understanding is we're all working on the same hard math problem, once a certain number of us have verified the answer (ie distributed consensus) one of us is given a reward to encourage further problem solving.

This is very much not what distributed consensus is. You don't "work on the same hard math problem" and you don't get "a reward to encourage further problem solving". Consensus is agreeing on a value among (almost) all protocol participants, and "distributed consensus" is proper technical term, not a vague definition by hand waving like "object oriented programming". Read about Byzantine Generals problem first.