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What Problem Blockchains Solve

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Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#71
post #35

The comments here show, again, that this is maybe the most charged topic in hackernews. Why is this topic so charged? Is it because the environmental damage (but then PoS should change it)? or because there's money involved (but then ENS+IPFS are poor, so should be good)? Or is it just because it's complex and takes a lot of effort to understand?

It's because of the non-stop barrage of bullshit projects that don't solve actual problems besides "I wish I bought Bitcoin at $100 so here's my attempt to recreate that magic". TFA makes a solid argument about the limited problem space where blockchain tech is useful. > Or is it just because it's complex and takes a lot of effort to understand? Look, I see that you're deep into the ecosystem and you're excited about…

"It's the human factors surrounding all of it that make it so fucking tiresome thread after thread."

But that is also what makes it so interesting. Nobody forces people to use and assign value to Bitcoin. It all happens only because people want it. No government mandates, nothing.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#72

Ethereum has only been around since 2015. Naturally smart contracts, DAos and NFTs are somewhat newer technology, still exhibiting flaws. Block chain as a concept with the single use case of store of value has been around since 2009 in the form of Bitcoin. So let me only pick one battle here: The problem is federally-issued inflationary currency. Bitcoin solves it.

I don't want to live in a society where some unknown shadowy figure(s) may or may not still hold the keys to the greatest fortune in human history.

You don't have to. Inventing BTC and being rewarded for it is very much based on merit. You are free to live in a society based on other values if you want to.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. They don't work outside blockchain 2. You've replaced a natural language that people understand with a program in an esoteric programming language How is this a unique solution etc.?

Two words: Cost, Speed. One concept: Kill the middleman Easy, next one.

As a general rule, middlemen provide value, which is why they exist. If they didn't we'd just disintermediate them.

We have a mechanism for getting rid of useless middlemen already, it's called capitalism. It's by no means perfect, of course, but the incentive to remove middlemen is codified in cold hard cash and shareholder value.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#74
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that the whole thing has somehow kept going despite the same lack of legitimate use cases that it's had from the start.

It's amazing that I can transfer wealth across borders with zero bank involvement using this technology and I still have to see people like you claim the sky isn't blue. Like that's nice and all but you sound like sour grapes.

[deleted]

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#75
post #24

They also allow for micro transactions in a way we’ve not been able to do so far. You can use the original Bitcoin protocol to stream (and pay) for each packet of data. We can now make a pay-to-use netflix, something we haven’t done yet. https://xiaohuiliu.medium.com/netflix-over-bitcoin-payment-c...

Why couldn't this be done with traditional electronic transactions?

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#76
post #8

I think a good resource to give you an idea of what blockchain can actually do comes from the "Blockchain use cases " and "Blockchain solutions" sections of IBM's Blockchain marketing page: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain This gives you an idea of some real world business problems that have been solved with the technology. Still, personally, I find the question of "when do I decide to consider using a blockchain as an…

You do know that IBM essentially shut down its blockchain division? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-blockchain-shell-former-s... .

Azure Blockchain followed suit, shutting down in September 2021. [1]

[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/microsoft-quietly-closing-dow...

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#77
post #8

I think a good resource to give you an idea of what blockchain can actually do comes from the "Blockchain use cases " and "Blockchain solutions" sections of IBM's Blockchain marketing page: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain This gives you an idea of some real world business problems that have been solved with the technology. Still, personally, I find the question of "when do I decide to consider using a blockchain as an…

> Still, personally, I find the question of "when do I decide to consider using a blockchain as an implementation choice?" a difficult one to answer.

Luckily, there's a helpful guide available, if you hit Learn More on the first "most probably NO." [1] It's based on this paper. [2]

[1] http://doyouneedablockchain.com

[2] https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#78
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed at the end of 2021, I still get to see these responses about blockchain on hacker news. Somehow Reddit looks smarter when it comes to blockchain topics.

What are the uses cases of blockchain that have been deployed outside of financial schemes, where the blockchain solves a problem in a unique way that could not have been addressed with non-blockchain? Sure there were probably blockchain projects that got traction and use blockchain, but the only reason it’s blockchain was that it’s easier to get funding for that. Genuinely curious.

You will probably consider these as "financial schemes", but having worked in finance for many years my impression is there are a number of problems in financial infrastructure that are extremely annoying and costly at the moment which could be much better addressed with blockchain based solutions. Blockchain is not the only way you could solve them, it just has the potential to be much better.

One example: Trade reconciliations. Lots of things (eg swaps contracts) that trade "over the counter" (not on an exchange) start off crazy bespoke but over time end up being largely standardized. So these days if you trade a swap, the contract is a standard contract called an "ISDA Master" with essentially a one-pager referencing the isda master filling in the blanks in the standard contract - what the legs and key numbers are, who is long vs short the legs etc. 10s of thousands of these are traded every day.

In order to settle these so can people actually start paying each other money, there needs to be a reconciliation (ie I need to agree with you on the contents of the one-pager so we both know exactly what we are both holding). Because the two sides don't trust each other (they are adversaries in the market), both will have entered the details of the trade in their own systems as they understood them and there will be errors and breaks and things are hard. Armies of people and systems are employed to solve this problem. If there was just a central database it would all be so much easier[1] and this whole reconciliation problem would go away, but how do things get into the central database in the first place and how do the participants trust that the record there is good? Well, you can see you would still have the same reconciliation problem.

Blockchain could resolve this by having a single definitive contract record stored in a trustless fashion. You could make it so if both sides put in the same details the trade is matched and otherwise both sides get the trade rejected until they can resolve. It becomes trivial because you have a database that can be shared without trusting any central party. There are trusted central parties (eg clearing houses) in these systems by the way, but they behave as another counterparty so they don't solve the matching and reconciliation problem described above. You still have to match the two potentially-conflicting versions of the real contract for the clearing house to novate (step into) it.

Now are there other ways to address this problem? Of course - they are doing that now. They just suck.

I'm sure other industries have similar issues around reconciliation between parties etc that would work the same - I'm just not personally familiar with them.

[1] It would also be far easier to report these trades to the CFTC btw so that's another pile of cost that could get taken out by such a solution.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#79
post #68
post #51

What blockchains solve is the whole pesky problem of following the law and paying taxes, and being a normal member of society. No wonder that much of the early crypto literature was all about anarchy. To this day, the only useful thing that crypto has enabled (on a very small scale) international asset transfer that bypasses mainstream financial systems. As Diehl[1] wrote, decentralized trustless systems are only use…

I dont know if by anarchy you mean anarchism but crypto has always been about libertarianism. Anarchism is generaly social and left leaning. At some ofcourse crypto libertarians wanted to coopt cool word and invented cryptoanarchism. But thats what they love to do (web3).

Possibly means anarchy in the game theory sense. Rules are not enforced by a superior authority.

Re: What Problem Blockchains Solve

#80
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always tell people of how my mother was smuggling Soviet rubles stitched into her coat when she flew to NYC to immigrate to America and in the real world people are aghast at the unjust laws of the USSR while on the internet everyone is like "but the law". Fuck the law. Law != Justice. Use some critical thinking skills for once. You earned your wealth. It's not the government's.

I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy, but to put it bluntly, you can just apply logic applicable to the fucking Soviet Union for any country and law system. > You earned your wealth. It's not the government's A common misconception among libertarians and alike; that's outright false. Pretty much everyone in a regular developed/ing country, especially in a centrally planned economy like the USSR, has wealth becaus…

Argue with nerds on the internet and someone will always claim a 100% tax is both legal and just.
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