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Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

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Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#291

Post by theamk »

xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #217
jcfrei wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical argument on a very technical board such as HN where blockchain is synonymous with a specific implementation. But that's an outdated way to think about blockchains. Yes, Bitcoin's implementation is a huge resource hog and slow. But for most newer projects "blockchain" just means an auditable trail of state changes. Whether you implement this with the shiniest newest db paradigm or some simple SQL d…

Then we, as engineers, have failed in explaining things. A blockchain is a linked list where each element of the list contains the hash of the previous element. It's basically a degenerate Merkle tree. That is all that it is. It isn't a metaphor. It isn't throwing off the shackles of an overreaching government, nor is it a takeover of our society by militant right-wing conspiracy theorists. It's a data structure.

Maybe it meant that for some people sometimes, but the general public never knew about that meaning. Even Wikipedia claims:

> The first blockchain was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.

So "degenerate Merkle tree" is not enough, it also needs consensus mechanism, byzantine failure tolerance and so on.

Insisting on meaning of "blockchain" which is different than commonly accepted will just make all arguments more confusing.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#292

Post by selestify »

space_rock wrote: post #281
selestify wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penny stock is a utility token representing governance in a company as well as the privilege of taking its profits — much like crypto governance tokens are.

Wrong. Utility token gives you no equity. It's a gift card voucher to use a network

Ah, my bad. I didn't realize those were different from governance tokens, which are more directly analogous to stock.

That being said, just because something is commonly used for fraud doesn't make it illegitimate. There are fraudulent companies in real life, though usually there's more legal recourse to go after them.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#293

Post by theamk »

RurouniK wrote: post #34
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #6

The "lack of intuitive private key management" is worth expanding on. Would it not be nice if you could, maybe for a small fee, have some trusted entity store your private key for you? One could perhaps imagine storing a printout of the private key in some kind of physical "safe deposit" box, to be maintained by such an entity? But maybe that is to cumbersome and we can do so entirely digitally? In that case I guess…

How is private key management a problem when there are so many battle tested hardware wallets used by millions of people?

Because with a bank, you are never going to lose $240 million because you forgot the password to your hardware walllet.

In fact, you house can burn down and all your documents might get destroyed, and you'd still have access to your money, eventually.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#294

Post by space_rock »

selestify wrote: post #292
space_rock wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Utility token gives you no equity. It's a gift card voucher to use a network

Ah, my bad. I didn't realize those were different from governance tokens, which are more directly analogous to stock. That being said, just because something is commonly used for fraud doesn't make it illegitimate. There are fraudulent companies in real life, though usually there's more legal recourse to go after them.

Governance tokens I haven't seen so much. Don't believe they are sold as or the same as equity in a company. How they are different from equity could be very important to their value as an investment

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#295

Post by pavlov »

selestify wrote: post #249
pavlov wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim is often made and it just makes no sense to me. Let’s say I’m invoicing someone abroad for $100k USD. Today they send me a wire transfer. It costs about 25 USD (fixed fee, but in this case 0.025% of the transaction, i.e. negligible) and normally completes the same day. The payment is made in the currency of my invoice, so I’m guaranteed to receive the right amount. (Any currency exchange is the sender’s re…

Why not just use a stablecoin for the transfer?

What’s the benefit? A stablecoin is like an account at a weird unregulated bank from where you have to move the money to a real bank to use it.

How does using one of these products let me access the money faster than a wire between the sender’s USD account and mine?

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#296

Post by centimeter »

pavlov wrote: post #287
centimeter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has had to make international payments in the US$20-50k range semi-frequently, Bitcoin is by far the easiest way to do it. Your story about it being easy and cheap to do via remittances or whatever is pure fiction. Any traditional mechanism is at least two of slow, expensive, and onerous.

I'm genuinely curious where you're sending money that a wire transfer using IBAN+SWIFT doesn't work but Bitcoin does. What country has the banking infrastructure to support easy $50k-equivalent withdrawals from a local Bitcoin exchange, but not for receiving wires?

If you don't want to get screwed on FX, you need to use a brokerage intermediary with entities in both currency domains. Direct international wire usually causes problems. So if I'm sending FX, it looks like

US Bank -> Wire -> IBKR -> Wire -> SG Bank (or whatever)

Usually this takes at least 5-9 business days end-to-end. (Wire delay, withdrawal hold, wire delay on the other end.)

A bitcoin transaction takes a few minutes, and if your counterparty doesn't want Bitcoin, there's probably an exchange with an entity in the destination country, so you only need to wait for the second wire delay.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#297

Post by centimeter »

jeltz wrote: post #241
centimeter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has had to make international payments in the US$20-50k range semi-frequently, Bitcoin is by far the easiest way to do it. Your story about it being easy and cheap to do via remittances or whatever is pure fiction. Any traditional mechanism is at least two of slow, expensive, and onerous.

It is not pure fiction. I also send transactions semi-frequently in those ranges and have never had an issue. Sure, I have not sent them to Africa and that might be where the differences in experiences lie.

I don't work in Africa, but in SE Asia. I have had countless problems getting medium-sized (tens of kUSD) FX transfers to HK,SG,TH,etc. on a reasonable deadline.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#298

Post by selestify »

pavlov wrote: post #295
selestify wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use a stablecoin for the transfer?

What’s the benefit? A stablecoin is like an account at a weird unregulated bank from where you have to move the money to a real bank to use it. How does using one of these products let me access the money faster than a wire between the sender’s USD account and mine?

Wire transfers take multiple business days, at least in the US, at least for me every single time I do one. Individual banks may also put restrictions on your domestic wire transfers. Maybe it's different for you since you're a business, but as an individual, there's a lot of friction in sending money to my friends.

> unregulated

Depending on your perspective, this is either a feature or a bug. In my opinion, a big feature.

> you have to move the money to a real bank to use it

Well yes, that's one of the main hurdles right now caused mainly by lack of adoption. It's not a fundamental problem with the tech; in fact, it's the very kind of problem that would be solved by it going mainstream.

> How does using one of these products let me access the money faster than a wire between the sender’s USD account and mine?

This one is easy: 6 Bitcoin confirmations takes about an hour, and only a few minutes for Ethereum. Much, much faster than wire transfers.

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#299

Post by space_rock »

selestify wrote: post #292
space_rock wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Utility token gives you no equity. It's a gift card voucher to use a network

Ah, my bad. I didn't realize those were different from governance tokens, which are more directly analogous to stock. That being said, just because something is commonly used for fraud doesn't make it illegitimate. There are fraudulent companies in real life, though usually there's more legal recourse to go after them.

All are fraudulent from the 20 or so I've looked into or talked to the founders and realised they were criminals

Re: Why blockchain is not yet working (2018)

#300

Post by jobigoud »

GuB-42 wrote: post #257
hannob wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Blockchain is a fancy word for something like a Git repository?

That's a question I asked myself a few times. The fundamental part of a blockchain is that each block signs the previous block, making it very difficult to rewrite history. And it is exactly what git does. We could implement a cryptocurrency on a git repository. Just commit and push 'I am X, here is the proof, send Y gitcoins to Z' whenever you want to do that. The only thing git is lacking compared to say, bitcoin,…

Well yes, the chaining uses the same known data structures. The innovation is the consensus mechanism.
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