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Explaining Blockchains to Developers

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Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#31

Post by ldiracdelta »

exdsq wrote: post #8

>In simple words, it’s a slow database. Huh?

It's certainly slow at 3.3 to 7 transactions per second[1]. I could make a breadboard TTL chip computer that could do more transactions per second than the entire bitcoin system.

Visa does 50,000/second during the Christmas season. When you're 4 orders of magnitude away from the speed you need to be, you can't just tweak it a little to get it where you need to be, you need to start over on your architecture.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#32

Post by Marazan »

m00dy wrote: post #11

I strongly believe that we need a lot simpler explanations to bring more people on board. Last month, I was in Turkey and explaining Bitcoin to my 60-year-old dad. He got the concept within minutes. His first question was about double-spending, and then he failed to grasp the mining concept and PoW. I think this happened because he lacks some abstraction ability.

Yes, the mining and PoW is the thing that is absolutely insane so most people will assume they don't understand rather than they do understand and it is stupid.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#33

Post by goodpoint »

imglorp wrote: post #30
pluc wrote: post #24

"I can't understand why more developers aren't into blockchain and fintech startups here, let me post an article explaining it!" It ain't the tech, it's the people.

Right, there are two groups and you have to figure out which group you're talking to. One group sees new, distributed consensus data structures with unique properties that can advance civilization. They're out there; I've met them and they're doing good work. The other group are pure crooks and speculators willing to burn everything to the ground as long as they get theirs. But they wear a cute face and tell a flashy…

The first group is small and it feels like it's thinning as cryptocurrencies fail to prove beneficial to humanity.

I'm referring to the promises of 1) giving access to banking to people in the global south 2) giving financial stability to people facing unsustainable inflation 3) doing that while not destroying the environment

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#34

Post by pluc »

imglorp wrote: post #30
pluc wrote: post #24

"I can't understand why more developers aren't into blockchain and fintech startups here, let me post an article explaining it!" It ain't the tech, it's the people.

Right, there are two groups and you have to figure out which group you're talking to. One group sees new, distributed consensus data structures with unique properties that can advance civilization. They're out there; I've met them and they're doing good work. The other group are pure crooks and speculators willing to burn everything to the ground as long as they get theirs. But they wear a cute face and tell a flashy…

The problem is - as it often is with introverts and extroverts, technical and sales, product and marketing - the latter groups make a lot more noise than the former

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#35

Post by exdsq »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #31
exdsq wrote: post #8

>In simple words, it’s a slow database. Huh?

It's certainly slow at 3.3 to 7 transactions per second[1]. I could make a breadboard TTL chip computer that could do more transactions per second than the entire bitcoin system. Visa does 50,000/second during the Christmas season. When you're 4 orders of magnitude away from the speed you need to be, you can't just tweak it a little to get it where you need to be, you need to start over on your architecture. [1]: htt…

Sure, if the entire point of the blockchain was to be a database. But what about it's ability to run applications? I'd consider the idea of a blockchain closer to a computer than a database nowadays.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#36

Post by ldiracdelta »

exdsq wrote: post #35
ldiracdelta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly slow at 3.3 to 7 transactions per second[1]. I could make a breadboard TTL chip computer that could do more transactions per second than the entire bitcoin system. Visa does 50,000/second during the Christmas season. When you're 4 orders of magnitude away from the speed you need to be, you can't just tweak it a little to get it where you need to be, you need to start over on your architecture. [1]: htt…

Sure, if the entire point of the blockchain was to be a database. But what about it's ability to run applications? I'd consider the idea of a blockchain closer to a computer than a database nowadays.

If the idea is to be a computer.... then I'll still take my breadboard TTL chip computer or a $1, 8-bit PIC MCU.

It certainly doesn't work as cash. For digital cash, you would at least need:

1. privacy

2. transaction speed

3. reasonable transaction settle rates of less than 1 minute

4. an easy way to do transactions.

They can probably fix 3 and 4, but for privacy (2) bitcoin is a PUBLIC LEDGER by design. Buy a snickers bar -- everyone IN THE WORLD knows. Go to the strip club -- everyone IN THE WORLD knows. You can paper over the problem with "coin tumblers", which is the WORST name for it. Want to look _exactly_ like you're laundering money? Put your bitcoin in a "coin tumbler". For transaction speed, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem

If it isn't cash, what is it? "A store of value"? Stores of value normally have _intrinsic_ value. What's the value of gold? Many women want it and many men will do anything up to and including murder to get access to women -- _that's_ a real store of value. What's the value of the US dollar? If a resident of the USA doesn't pay their taxes in it, the government takes away all their property and can put them in jail.

--

Personally, I don't disbelieve in cryptocurrency as digital cash, I just disbelieve in bitcoin. Monero and the fork of it by signal known as mobilecoin are heading in the right direction. Privacy by default. Transaction speeds that are within 1-2 orders of magnitude of what is needed. Txn settling rates in the right direction. In the case of mobilecoin, a platform for easy transactions ( the signal app ).

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#37

Post by imglorp »

goodpoint wrote: post #33
imglorp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, there are two groups and you have to figure out which group you're talking to. One group sees new, distributed consensus data structures with unique properties that can advance civilization. They're out there; I've met them and they're doing good work. The other group are pure crooks and speculators willing to burn everything to the ground as long as they get theirs. But they wear a cute face and tell a flashy…

The first group is small and it feels like it's thinning as cryptocurrencies fail to prove beneficial to humanity. I'm referring to the promises of 1) giving access to banking to people in the global south 2) giving financial stability to people facing unsustainable inflation 3) doing that while not destroying the environment

Maybe true with currencies, but I'll point out there are other applications of the blockchain-related datastructures, such as namecoin for global pointers, ipfs for content disemination, ethereum for contracts, iota for iot, etc etc.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#38

Post by lootsauce »

It’s snake oil that is effective to a degree only so that it can be even more effective at convincing others to buy it.

Nobody is going to circumvent the power of government. I can show you proof that you don’t need to pay income tax, but I also promise you that you will go to jail eventually for doing so.

Extraordinary popular delusions take on a life of their own. They reflect the zeitgeist of the time.

Bitcoin is the savior so many tech enthused idealists can believe in, but if it supplants anything it will be legitimated and used by those already running the show.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#39

Post by jfengel »

lootsauce wrote: post #38

It’s snake oil that is effective to a degree only so that it can be even more effective at convincing others to buy it. Nobody is going to circumvent the power of government. I can show you proof that you don’t need to pay income tax, but I also promise you that you will go to jail eventually for doing so. Extraordinary popular delusions take on a life of their own. They reflect the zeitgeist of the time. Bitcoin is…

Blockchain doesn't have to mean cryptocurrency. It could be any time when you want to have a highly distributed but zero-trust database.

Mind you, currency would be the poster boy for that use case, and it doesn't seem to be very good at that. All of the other potential applications seem even less compelling. But it's at least good to know that the distinction between blockchain and cryptocurrency exists.

Re: Explaining Blockchains to Developers

#40

Post by carlosrg »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #31
exdsq wrote: post #8

>In simple words, it’s a slow database. Huh?

It's certainly slow at 3.3 to 7 transactions per second[1]. I could make a breadboard TTL chip computer that could do more transactions per second than the entire bitcoin system. Visa does 50,000/second during the Christmas season. When you're 4 orders of magnitude away from the speed you need to be, you can't just tweak it a little to get it where you need to be, you need to start over on your architecture. [1]: htt…

If Bitcoin did 50,000 transactions/second it would be impossible to keep it decentralized, since the size of the blockchain would be prohibitively large for most people to store/validate locally.

So being slow is actually a good thing to keep it away from centralization. Things like Lightning on top of Bitcoin can manage day-to-day micro transactions.

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