is there any legitimate use of blockchains?
Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
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Good summary, a few additions from my side:
Also worth noting that the computations don't have to be expensive either, it's only there in cryptocurrencies to artificially limit the number of blocks generated on a public system and tie it into the reward system.
So for a bank, that could be a plain single iteration of a sha256 hash, and once share everyone agrees those were the transactions and you can't go back and change one without having to change the whole chain.
Make it sha1 and you basically have git.
A blockchain is more or less just an append-only database. Or even an append-only replication log with built-in checksums.
I would argue against blockchains being a database... its more of a 'signed sequential log' than a database.
Well, Wikipedia describes it sufficiently vague: "a database is an organized collection of data". But is a linked list on its own a database? I'd say the blockchain itself is the data structure but any software using it is most likely a database.
The lack of a trusted central authority is key. If you have at least one authority you can trust just barely enough, the whole idea of a blockchain collapses. There needs to be an urgent trust crisis for this to work.
Also, if you have no trusted parties, you have a huge "First Owner" problem.
If we were to set up a blockchain to track the ownership of fluffy hats, what's to stop me from seeing your fluffy hat, and quickly registering it as mine?
That is a good point. If there’s a dispute about the first owner, there’s no clean way to solve it. However, the current owner is clear, so we could just start tracking the history from the current time onwards, and ignore the history that’s shrouded in mystery and controversy.
That's not the first-owner problem. I'll try to explain in more detail. The problem arises when you're using the blockchain as a "reciept". You can only ever trace the ownership of the reciept, not the item it represents, without a trusted party.
Say we made a blockchain that determines the ownership of all fluffy hats in the world. It starts at june 1st 2026. Lets just assume there's a trivial way to perfectly describe fluffy hats that we can put in a token. Or hell, pretend it's super complex, that changes nothing.
You bought a fluffy hat in 2002, and made one for yourself in 2008. You own both, wearing one to bed when you go to sleep on may 31st, 2026.
At 1 second past midnight, june 1st 2026, I make two tokens, one for each of your hats.
I am now officially the first owner of those hats. You are suddenly a thief holding my property, even though it never left your head.
That's the first owner problem. Without a trusted source, there is no way to ensure the first owner in a blockchain is actually the owner under the current legal definition (as in, you made the hat from homespun wool, it's on your head right now). It gets even worse though, because I can even make tokens for nonexistent fluffy hats that haven't been made. As soon as someone makes it, i'm already the owner.
The ONLY application for a blockchain with a trustless system is if the entire property is directly on the blockchain, and that doesn't work.
Oh… Well that’s pretty bad. It’s like Wild West at that point. Anyone can make these fraudulent tokens. Someone would need to prove that there exists a connection between the token and the real world item it represents.
I guess therein lies the problem. These tokens shouldn’t represent physical objects. If you really want them to, you need a certification authority. If you can find one, it means that you actually can trust someone, so you don’t even need to use a blockchain for tracking these things. Why not just use a trusted authority to handle a traditional database.
So what does that leave us with? What can you do with a blockchain that doesn’t require the tokens to be connected to real world objects?
If you have multiple banks, you can have multiple copies of the same database. If any one bank modifies their copy, it is obvious who modified it and what was changed. No blockchain needed.
How do you sync those copies? Whatever sync process you use could be abused to propagate wrong transactions into other banks unless you figure out a solution to the bizantine generals problems, other than a Blockchain I mean.
Something similar to the way files (and bank transaction records) are modified on a drive. A first message indicating that a specific transaction is starting, a second message with the transaction, and a third message indicating the transaction is complete.
If any message is not acknowledged, it can be resent (with an ID so it's recognized as a duplicate), and if all else fails, flag a human.
The system doesn't need to be 100% accurate, just good enough that only a few humans are needed to fix the problems.
The Byzantine Generals problem is only a problem if you need 100% certainty from both sides. If you're willing to put up with 99.99% certainty, then network engineers have solved this problem many years ago.
Sure, but you're making the assumption that no bank is a bad actor, which is the thing blockchains solve, you don't need a Blockchain to circle money around between your friends, but it is needed when you introduce random persons who can screw the system.
For example, let's assume that you're using public/private keys to ensure that only one bank can sign their own transaction and it's easily verifiable, let's also assume your id is the transaction hash which consists of sender, recipient, value and datetime (otherwise it's super easy to send the same transaction with different values). Now I'm a rogue bank, how can I screw that system? Simple, I need to pay bank B for something, so I send him a transaction for it and at the same time I send every other bank that I'm draining my account to my friends bank C. B thinks I paid him, but every other bank thinks I gave my money to C, if B tries to spend it he will figure out that other banks don't recognize that transaction, and even if he shows the transaction they also see the other one made to bank C with an earlier time which bank B never saw, which means I never actually paid bank B, even though B thought I did.
i’ll add a concrete example to this… i’ve described a startup i built in another comment but TLDR:
compliance obligations when protecting kids from sexual predators are difficult to prove: sexual abuse usually comes out 30 years later, so standard record keeping is pretty fraught… companies (like the company monitoring compliance - our startup for example) might not exists any more, paper gets lost, database formats become difficult or impossible to read
writing signed proof of compliance to the blockchain is a way of ensuring that an organisation was doing what they could at the time… how this is achieved is tricky for anyone but the source of record, but with blockchain it’s possible (described in the post)
Could this be a true voting record? Votes would be transparent, but as you say, unalterable.
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https://xkcd.com/2030/
I appreciate that when you find a relevant xkcd, the explainxkcd page also has relevant information to the discussion:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2030%3A_Voting_Software
Whereas voting with a piece of paper can be tracked and validated by a severely myopic 6 year old. And you can recount it. You can't "recount" a blockchain if that's your only source.
And if you do both, then why bother with the blockhain?
What are you trying to say here?
If each vote is a block in the chain them it is definitely recountable.
If I get a reciept of my vote's hash in the chain, I can confirm it's being included.
The real issue with using a blockchain is it would anonymize the process.
That's not what it means. With this system, you can't independently verify what happened. You can only also look at the blockchain and see that some hash has registered some vote.
But you don't know if that is actually true. You can't see if pushing the red button makes the red vote come out. You can manually count if you want, but the original billet doesn't exist, only a processed form of it on the blockchain.
Only THAT it's included. Otherwise you have something linking you to your vote, which is bad
That was.. Very well said
this was a no nonsense answer, unlike the others discussing Cryptocurrency ;~;
Anything that requires a public, immutable database. Land registry would be one example. Notary public for electronic documents would be another.
You can leverage the majority consensus to create a trusted software build system. Each block would be a package build
If you have to have someone enforce the land registry or the documents, what is the benefit of the database being zero trust?
Yes! No more need for title insurance if ownership records are clear and public.
They already are in most countries. E.g. in Poland land registry is maintained by court system and any changes are made only as a result of court order or a filing made by a notary public, who has a real incentive to check all the documents, because they are on the hook financially for any false filings.
In other words, this is a solved problem without any blockchain nonsense.
Updates lag 4-6 months after filing, so not 100% solved.
also you can only guarantee the records have not been tampered with if you maintain a full copy of the records to compare. Even if you do have that full copy you will have a problem proving your copy is the correct one. A full crypto-verified ledger solves that.
If you empower e.g. every change filer (court, notary public) to run a node fudging records becomes effectively impossible.
Usually, lag like that is due to an ancient codebase, database, and process setup. If you were to solve that, you still wouldn't need blockchain. The software and process engineering does need careful consideration--almost all the stuff like this has had at least one major attempt to replace it over the decades, and it obviously failed--but again, nothing you would be able to solve just because blockchain.
But them the government can't unilaterally take your property from you for a pittance under eminent domain. Who wants a system like that?
Yes they could? Just append a block with the government stating they now own the land.
I guess you could fork the blockchain and don't accept this change but this would be useless. Even if no one accepted the claim, the government can just do whatever they want with that land.
You can only guarantee the records have not been tampered with if you maintain a full copy of the records to compare. Even if you do have that full copy you will have a problem proving your copy is the correct one. A full crypto-verified ledger solves that.
If you empower e.g. every change filer (court, notary public) to run a node fudging records becomes effectively impossible.
It's just a data store (database kind of implies extra features) that's trust-free and decentralised. It's not even the only way to implement one; Ripple for example uses a slightly different scheme.
How has nobody linked the XKCD on this exact question? Randall Monroe compares them in the alt text to grappling hooks: something cool that might have uses, but only in very specific niches. https://xkcd.com/2267/
Using it as a currency which requires no third party for transactions is a legitimate use case. See current payment processors vs Steam conflict for why it may be a good idea. There are a lot of times when it's not a good idea either.
However the price must be reasonably stable and transaction cost low. Don't think any of the major CCs qualify.
Swift exists though? There is really no need for Credit cards or other payment processors.
Why can't I use swift to buy anything of eg steam? I genuinely don't know but there has to be a reason.
SWIFT is pretty low-level, e.g. a bank transfer you start in your bank app could be processed through SWIFT. But Valve probably doesn't want to deal with reconciliation of manual transfers, so they either use payment methods running on SWIFT or other options.
Doesn't that bring in a lot of fees
Not really, SWIFT fees are pretty low. Lower than MasterCard and Visa generally charge afaik. For individual customers banks often offer it for free.
Good question why corporations turned to payment processors when we were simply able to wire money from our bank accounts to others.
Reconciliation is a big reason, people suck at copying a reference for their manual transfers.
Like most of the tech bro industry, they take something with real value, completely misunderstand it, creates fake value, pumps.
LLMs are awesome, but the current AI industry is terrible and completely misses the actual value of LLMs.
NFTs are actually a great way to digitally prove ownership, basically the future of digital ownership certificates.
Crypto is a way to make money for the people by the people, and not for the rich, by the rich, through the people.
Blockchain is the core idea that makes crypto and NFTs possible. You can think of it as a decentralized DB, it's useful because it means that the majority controls the data and not a centralized authority.
Imagine that the government decided to print a million dollars and give it to some politician, it's small enough to not be noticed by the market, but it still devalues the money. They could only do it because they own the money management system. In Blockchain each transaction is confirmed by external parties (often multiple ones) and it has to align with the already existing db (which everyone has a copy of) so in that scenario if the government tries to "print" money it will be conflicting with the existing db and it will not be accepted, so they will have to either continue with an incompatible db (making it as worthless as monopoly money) or cancel the transactions by realigning with the common db.
Blockchain is not meant to be a database like the ones in web servers, it is meant to be a database for a consensus of users.
Only until it doesn't. A centralized authority could overwhelm and become the majority. Or more concretely, the US government has the resources to more than double the contribution to Bitcoin, thus giving it complete control.
Nothing is perfect, but once a blockchain network is big enough it becomes near impossible to overtake.
Maybe currently, if the US government really wants to, they could dedicate a few trillion dollars to take over the bitcoin network. But it would make no sense to put that much effort into what would be mostly pointless. And if bitcoin ever reaches a point where it is a full on threat to the dollar then it's network would probably be too big for any nation to overtake alone.
So you are not wrong in theory, but in practice it is near impossible.
The conventional wisdom is basically that that's never going to happen, though, and the barrier to becoming the majority is strong enough to stop any actual attacker.
The money required to double the bitcoin hash rate and maintain double is immense. It's specialized hardware that would need to be manufactured (lead time while network continues to grow, plus who even has the capacity to do that other than TSMC or Samsung) and the network would see it coming and have a chance to do something about it.
It was a risk when it was smaller, but the ability to pull an attack off like that now and maintain the attack isn't practically in the realm of possibilities. (Edit and that's not even getting into where they'd get the power to power the network which is estimated at 173Twh a year and the need to keep expanding that power to maintain the attack in adversarial conditions.)
Attacking the network in other ways via corrupt laws with multi government cooperation would be far easier.
It's cheaper and easier to manipulate the stock markets through politics than to build/take over the majority of the distributed ledger.
Some countries are considering using blockchain in the future for their land title registry.
here is an article about it
I read something about potentially using blockchain the future while using onland (ontarios land registry service) but i can't seem to find the page that mentions it.
here is a similar system proposed for Bangladesh
There's a few issues with that approach:
Totally agree. And my problem with the example of land use that a single entity (the government where the land is) will be the sole enforcer of it. So who cares if the information is slightly less centralized, when the actual product is just as centralized as ever?
In theory, yes. I can't think of a practical example, but it's basically a decentralized, public, write-only database. I'm sure there are niche applications for use as a public ledger or similar.
Honestly, cryptocurrency is an example. Some cryptocurrencies don't have mining and so aren't all that bad, and there is a use case for it, even if most of what we see today is hype.
Another example might be something like a way of proving something happened before a certain time. Like how people can send themselves sealed letters in the mail, and claim that the postmark proves that it was sealed before that date. If you put cryptographic signatures only into a public blockchain, that could be used as evidence that the document existed at that time.
Yes. Tracking stock shares would prevent dark pools and naked short selling to some degree.
That's also why it will never happen.
Besides money laundering, you mean? Not as such.
Merkle Trees were thought up in the 70ies or so. A blockchain is a Merkle Tree without branches. They are used in a number of application; for example git which predates bitcoin.
The actual innovation behind bitcoin is mining. A payment system needs someone who runs it. Bitcoin introduced a way for these people to get paid by creating new currency for themselves. That way, there is no single entity in charge. There is no contractual relation that would require government enforcement.
If a Merkle Tree is the only thing a blockchain is to you, then it has legit uses. But that was already widely used before a simplified version became called blockchain.
If you're thinking about a bitcoin-type blockchain, then evading government oversight is its sole use. The technical overhead and the economic inefficiencies exist only to obscure identities and legal responsibilities.
It was an innovative way to use a blockchain/Merkle path, too. Even if you'd argue money but made in a different, harder to police way is a bad thing, it was new.
It's really clever. I also think it was unintentional. They did not want to create a money laundering tool but a currency in its own right. That failed.
Also, this scheme only works with money involved. The miners run the system, and they get paid by creating new coins. If they cannot sell the coins to cover their costs, then there is no blockchain.
Sort of? Satoshi had anti-government objectives for sure, although you're right that Bitcoin was supposed to be usable for small and everyday transactions as well.
You know at a point there will no longer be a block reward for miners, instead only fees on transactions
For Bitcoin, you mean. That will be in 2040 or so. Plenty of time to patch it.
Yeah I assumed we were talking about bitcoin, scarcity argument goes out the window at that point though.
The point of the blockchain is to achieve distributed consensus of what's in the database. That way, one entity can't unilaterally change what the database says.
If you have a public non-profit institution maintaining the database, obligated to serve all legal customers, with serious consequences for tampering with it, you can get pretty much everything blockchain can do, for a billionth of the computing power.
But with that system, you would lose these features:
People will easily list a lot of credible legitimate usecases
that are hypothetical
and have remained hypothetical for 18 years.
Being on Lemmy, I like the idea of decentralized and permissionless stuff, including money. The problem I have with crypto is that they're either clearly scams (Trumpcoin, Melaniacoin etc) or they were not intended as a scam but the market fails to fairly price them because they speculate (e.g. Bitcoin).
Also I don't understand why people keep insisting in buying Bitcoin when the energy to "produce" it is enormous and is responsible for a lot of CO2 emissions when there are greener cryptocurrencies.
@tired_n_bored @Deestan the mining aspect is what makes it secure.,. In theory Proof of Stake is greener, but once someone archive 51% of stake he became the owner of the network, while with proof of work the cost of securing the network is permanent... Saying this, i do agree that bitcoin energy spend is ab issue...
That's true, but also the algorithm plays an important role. Do we really need ASIC farms in order to secure the network? Ideally, and how it was thought at the beginning, the individual nodes should also be responsible for its validation, using consumer grade hardware.
There are greener algorithms like the Monero's. Also Nano uses something called "block lattice" in order to secure the network, with close to 0 required energy
@tired_n_bored I totally agree with that (I did made a thread on my last reply where I states monero approach), not sure about nano tho.. Dont it have the same 51% issue as PoS?
@tired_n_bored @Deestan I think monero made the right choice of making ASICs useless and be mined on traditional PCs... Anyone can join the mining at anytime what makes mining farms (like the ones with ASICs or GPUs) way less common
Yes, your honor. My buying of drugs online was only hypothetical, it never happened.
Yes. Decentralised certificates (NFTs) for the likes of digitally owning something non fungible (think like a concert or plane ticket that isn't tied to Ticketmaster, etc), or more commonly, cryptocurrency. A way of storing wealth digitally without anyone controlling it centrally.
I would argue against this stance, but not completely. The need for decentralized authorities only comes about due to a lack or trust or failure of the custodians of the product.
From your example, you could turn concert tickets into verifiable tokens (I do think this would be a good idea), and it would solve a lot of after market sale and validation issues. The only reason we have these issues in [checks current year] is because monopolies like LiveNation/TicketMaster have so throughly turbo-fucked the system that venues and customers cant do anything about it.
IMO, blockchains are a cool concept, and I love that cryptography is now a common topic of discussion because of it. However, its a solution looking for a problem and the problems up until this point are manufactured by the people selling the product or straight up ponzi schemes.
Most techbros trying to sell the Blockchain are just ponzi schemes/scams. It does have a legitimate use. But not for whatever the techbros are yapping about. It is essentially a decentralised database under nobody's control.
Exactly, and such things that require or could be improved by decentralized systems tend to be managed by companies (monopolies, or close to it) that already are acting like enshitifying goblins instead of responsible curators.
The ticky part is that when these decentralized systems are involved, the true costs (power, hardware, network, etc.) are distributed and not easily collected.
You'd still have risks with a centralized db of the tickets which the tokens would solve.
Ticket master recently had an incident being hacked and that could literally happen to any company.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/have-you-bought-tickets-thru-ticketmaster-recently-check-your-account-and-make-sure-theyre-still-there
Granted a user could be hacked as well because of improper storage of the NFT. To really solve the problem it would also require everyone to be using good hardware wallets which I think is where things are going long term, but it's yet another complicated step which will slow adoption.
One day having a hardware wallet will just be normal.
Yes. Public append-only data structures. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency
Basically, no. At least, not until everyone has the knowledge and resources to run their own compute, which is never.
Decentralized systems must be accessible and maintainable by the majority. Blockchain is neither of these. It's also why the internet moved to platforms rather than remaining as many niche forums.
Additionally, network effects and economies of scale make decentralized systems difficult. See Lemmy. Even here, World is the biggest because it's simpler and easier to do everything in one place. People don't have to make decisions. People don't have to do their own work.
Basically, human psychology and economics suck
Not really, blockchain technically has been around for almost two decades and there still isn't a good use for them. It's very interesting piece of tech that could potentially be useful, but still isn't in a practical sense.
Think of it this way, blockchain tech is a solution looking for a problem to solve rather than the other way around.
They are a write only database that doesn't rely on a centralised point of authority.
Transactions are a perfect use case and objectively better than the current fiat currency method. Unfortunately the pure intentions based in cryptography and mathematics has been spoiled by grifters trying to make a quick buck.
Monero has stayed true to the ideals of crypto completely decentralised. Truly anonymous. Faster than fiat. Cheaper than fiat. More power efficient than fiat. Real value tied to real goods not just a speculative asset.
Just a big scam.
The only remotely valid use case I ever head was for a Write Once Read Many (worm) audit log but regular databases are still a better fit.
he’s talking about the tech not the stuff that runs on top of it
That's effectively what git does.
since a lot of replies branched towards Cryptocurrency, which is where blockchains are implemented the most in. But it isn't the sole purpose of blockchain.
It's a distributed, append only(theoretically), tamper proof data structure. Look up merkle tree, certificate distribution, etc. These comes in different shapes and sizes for storing transaction logs, to keeping track of online identity and false impersonation.
You can implement a blockchain that might not get as power hungry as crypto block chains(because mining), and it's a cool solution in distributed systems
it's really difficult to be anonymous with a credit card
it cannot really replace a simple database. it has an integrity guarantee. not in the way that data won't get modified accidentally, but that it won't get modified onesided.
the git version control system also uses a kind of a blockchain structure. git was made by the creator of linux. a major difference is that git does not use proof of work for consensus, I think it just does not use anything for that, other than the web server's access control mechanism.
commits are built on top of a large chain of histories, and the commit ID verifies that the current state and the history of it is the exact same when you checkout that commit ID on any other computer. if you go find in the repository a commit made 3 years ago, and change that commit (this is supported by git but not recommended), either the content or the metadata like time of commit, the whole history after that also need to get rewritten to remain valid, and so all those commits will now have a new commit ID
It absolutely can't be replaced by a simple database, saying that makes me question that you truly understand the technology. Here's the important question, who owns the database and how do you know you can trust them?
Would you trust me to manage a database that holds your money? What about someone who's actively opposing you? How about a foreign nation? That's the thing blockchains solve, a decentralized 0-trust way to have an append only ledger, yes a database can be an append only ledger, but it can't be decentralized or 0-trust, that's the important thing here.
Let me give you a very recent example, Steam has been censored, and has had to remove certain games from their catalog, this happened because PayPal and other payment providers forced their hand. This is the sort of problems that arise from having someone own the database, they can dictate what you do or don't. Let me be extra clear, this sort of censorship is essentially impossible in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies because no one controls the database.
Maybe Odysee and monero????
Those are the only BlockChain technology platforms I can think off
OpenCerts
An easy way for employers to verify that your certifications are authentic.
Tangentially, a lot of scientists do research on topics that do not see application in everyday life immediately.
I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I remember reading articles on how some research bear fruit - ones with huge impacts - only decades later.
To stop research into a topic because there is no practical application now is short-sighted IMO.
OpenCerts does require institutions to be trusted partners, so this isn't permissionless. Why not just make the normal database searchable if it relies on trusting someone?
It's not that blockchain doesn't have any applications. It's just that it only solves problems in ways that are easier and better solved by other implementations. It's not that are no practical applications, it's that there aren't even any realistic theoretical applications.
Here's the neat thing about research: the researcher themselves may not even know the kind of outcomes their research would bring about in the future.
It is not necessarily a known unknown in which we work towards a theoretical application; it could very well be an unknown unknown.
I have a PhD, I know how research works. But the new for a new data distribution system isn't caused by a technological advancement, it's driven by social systems.
The usecases for blockchain technology are wellknown, and they are basicaly the antithesis of the technology itself. You need a massive breach of trusted institutions, while maintaining free, open and fast electronic communication throughout the network. You also need to solve the first-owner problem without introducing a trusted party, which is a huge issue in almost every practical application.
So yeah, it can be an unknown unknown, but it's one in the same way that research into moonratpoison has potential applications. Maybe something vastly unlikely happens, and then it'll be a good thing we have the tech.
This is it. This is the real answer. The same goes for AI. The really good uses for both aren't lucrative enough, so the people with the money try to shoehorn it into places that aren't a good fit in order to justify their outrageous valuations. Rinse and repeat until the bottom falls out of the market, then sweep up the pieces and try to come up with a new grift.
blockchains are a solution looking for a problem.
Not a scam but maybe over engineered and difficult to sell for most uses? Theoretically blockchain could be used for all sorts of applications, but apart from a bunch of startups it's not taken off. Maybe it's just not compelling financially for businesses.
For an established business or organisation It'd be a big leap to switch over to blockchain but the benefits are not immediately relisable or tangible in a business setting. In a world where short term profits already trump long term investment, it does make sense that business are not rushing to adopt blockchain.
I'd think of it like this - companies don't have the foresight to invest in IT and security; they slash IT budgets, use equipment until the last possible moment deferring expensive upgrades and don't put money in to protect themselves from cyber crime. For example, big banks quite literally still use systems that are decades out of date.
If companies behave like that already why would they invest in switching to the block chain? The benefits are long term and not easily understood. It's hard to sell investment in a technology on blockchain when most people struggle to understand what it is, let alone what it's benefits may be.
Most people only know about it because of cryptocurrency but even then don't really understand how it works, and that usage scenario is world's away from the other theoretical uses. Cryptocurrency makes money because it's a speculative asset (at the moment at least). Other uses at best prevent fraud and companies are generally useless at trying to prevent fraud. When they do, it's focused around the actual transactions not the ledger. They don't see someone "cooking the books" being the priority problem to solve.
Data security and verifying is not a priority for companies. If companies are spending money at the moment, it's short term nonsense such as the AI bubble. And public organisations seldom have the imagination or freedom/resource to be an early adoptor a new technology.
So, no I don't think it's a scam. I think it's something that is difficult to implement and sell in the real world. And all people can see at present is "crypto currency goes up in value" not the actual underlying benefit of cryptocurency as a currency. Crytpcurrency is doing well currently because it is scarce and has become an asset bubble, not because the blockchain itself is the star.
No. From the most base concepts, some authority still needs to recognize and enforce the contents of the blockchain (ownership, currency, whatever). If an authority is already trusted to act on this data, they might as well be the secure custodian of it. Or, if not entirely trusted, a third party trustee. At very best the blockchain offers complete transparency and auditability, but this is the trust you place into any given system on your end. If you do not place trust in a system, what are you doing engaging with it?
Supporters of blockchain generally don't accept these arguments because they are anti-authority, and without passing further comment on that, fair enough. But that means it will only ever be relegated to buying drugs on the internet and scams.
What authority is needed when blockchain is used as a currency, what is there to enforce?
You can buy much more than drugs using cryptocurrency, so this is absolutely false.
Gods unchained is a digital TCG that is the only good use of NFTs (and thus Blockchain) that I can think of.
The idea of NFTs is you have a specific instance of a thing that you can trade around. NFT art is stupid, because at the end of the day it's a jpg. However, with a digital TCG, each NFT can represent a singular copy of a digital trading card. It brings back the "trading" aspect of a digital TCG, made more convenient than physical cards due to digital transfers.
Could you elaborate a bit how blockchain enables something unique here? I see that it enables trade between users, but if a single company controls the game and I assume supply of new cards, does the blockchain aspect for trading really matter?
Trading itself is basic and doesn't need a blockchain. I guess with it you have it implemented in a public and tamper proof way, but that second part doesn't seem to matter to me if the source is centralized.
So what exactly is gained from this approach over just your average ingame auction house?
i feel like the only real 'advantage' here would be that the cards couldn't be proxied which sounds like only an 'advantage' to the people on the rent-seeking end of the bargain.
If blockchain could be used for DRM, we'd see more of it.
That's the thing, it's not centralized - in this game, for the first time ever in a digital TCG, if the company hosting it closes it's doors, you still have something in your ownership that corresponds to your cards, opening up the possibility of others re-implementing everything.
It ain't much, and it's a long shot, but for the first time ever it's possible.
But who is able to mint/create those cards? Anyone or just the company? That is what I was primarily getting at.
Yes, proof that you owned cards in a now defunct game. The question is how much value is left at that point.
Barring copyright/IP law allowing it, or are we disregarding that? If someone wanted to take over they might just buy out the old company and take over.
And even when starting from scratch they'd have to evaluate if honoring/adopting the existing tokens would be worth it (would give an existing player base, but in return you don't get any money from them and probably less than from a customer that starts from scratch).
A third option would be some form of foss project reviving the game. But the game seems independent of the blockchain aspect, which only tracks card ownership. Why would any such effort want to adopt a system build on artificial scarcity and profit?
Full disclosure, I've never played the game, just stumbled across it in the past and acknowledged that it was the only "use" of an NFT that leveraged the aspects of the technology well, or at least better than the ones linked to jpegs.
Probably just the company, but your ownership of that card (or something that a community can acknowledge represents the card) is independent of it
Regardless of the value of the NFT, the technology enables something that wasn't possible before.
Not a lawyer, so the easiest solution is just to wait until it's in public domain. Might be impractical, but again, we're just talking about what this technology enables.
The secondary market of the "cards" can take place in between someone buying the company out, which is another boon.
At the end of the day, I'm just sharing a neat use of Blockchain. You can argue it's not popular enough to be useful, etc., but it's undeniable that the technology is enabling something that wasn't possible before. I'm not going to due on the hill defending it, just thought it's neat.
How is this different from MODO?
Not sure what that is, searching doesn't help
Magic Online with Digital Objects, also known as Magic Online
If wotc closes down modo, you're left SOL.
Because transactions and ownership are not controlled by the hosting company, I believe there's opportunity to keep the game going even after the company closes doors.
Long shot, but it's the first peek at "digital ownership" where you actually own something, independent of the company that gave it to you, they can easily be traded.
I know this is dodging your point, but WotC has already divested themselves of MODO and a third party now runs it. I know what you mean, a central server going down destroys access to the game you pay for. And indeed we see that happening with plenty of live service games, to the point that its starting to weigh down the entire industry, or at least that sector of it.
But I ask, is it really that different? Various NFT projects have come and gone, and most of the NFTs people have paid for have succumbed to link rot already my guy. The average life span for a live service game is like, what? 2 years? And even the successful ones, what? Like 7? I haven't played God's Unchained, but I can't imagine being a blockchain game will make any difference, especially because the games that do survive and are remembered have the following factors:
Can easily be modded/ hacked Can be easily emulated Were cherished and beloved
Deus Ex can be downloaded for free. Pokemon red and Sim Tower and Oregon Trail can be run in a browser. Breakout can be run in a search engine. As far as the comparison to MODO, those cards were fungible. When you completed a whole set, you could contact WotC to take them out of your account, and they would send you a copy of the whole set in paper. It's why MTGOexchange was called that; before bitcoin, you could trade magic cards for drugs.
I haven't played the game before either - I just know that for once folks can own a digital aspect of a game independent of the creators of the game, which I think is notable and qualifies as a "legitimate use of Blockchain".
That's real neat re: MTGOexchange! I played in the past and knew about card redemption, I didn't know about drugs lmao
Before we start blaming a digital trading card game for the sins of capitalism, let's both acknowledge that "artificial scarcity" is built into games. Mario suffered "artificial scarcity" when he didn't have a red mushroom at the ready. Anything that requires "unlocking" can be argued to be artifical scarcity. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter because these are aspects of a game and not real world resources.
Every digital TCG - Hearthstone, mtg arena, etc. all already have artificial scarcity.
This is just allowing for you, as a player, to actually have a semblance of ownership over the digital goods you obtain, independent of the company you purchased it from, which is far more than any other digital platform will allow for.
It sounds like your issues are with that of games in general, which is outside of the scope of this discussion, so I don't have much to say in response. Hope you have a good day!
Did they release that shit for free or something? Are you claiming "they" released dozens of versions of it after "they" stopped using the game as a source of profit?
A database is not an alternative to the blockchain.
The decentralized idea is great, but with so many shitcoins out there...it's tough.
Are you really going to build an entire car title company stop something like Binance or Trump Coin or Ninja Bits? Hell no.
I think the concept is good, but the execution thus far remains to be seen.
In theory you could use them for ERP systems like SAP to track components in global supply chains
Recording data on an "eternal" digital data storage is incredibly useful. You don't need much imagination here but I think we overestimated how much people actually want this and how ok we are with less perfectionist systems given that they work now just fine. Storing something on the web is usually just as good in practice despite being less perfect data store mechanism.
That being said what if we have incredibly important information that is difficult to share or preserve - an immutable blockchain with so much financial security is a really powerful tool here.
Thats what got me into bitcoin at the beginning but disappoingly it never reached the point where it would outcompete non-blockchain tech. Mostly because we live in a better world than many believe 🙃
Blockchain has been ”the next big thing” for 10+ years without making any real impact outside of cryptocurrency speculation (which is mostly a pyramid scheme). If it had any legitimate use, it would be widely used today.
What are the alternatives?
How else can you create decentralized permissionless money (you know, the thing it was created for in the first place, before people got an idea of putting monkey jpegs there)?
https://www.taler.net/en/features.html
So, I haven't read much about it, but right on the page you've linked it shows banks on a diagram explaining how it works. If banks are involved, it is not permisionless - banks can block and censor transactions, they can refuse to open an account for you at all, etc.
Why is mining a nessecary part? Is it only to keep the quantity of units in circulation in check? And why is that nessecary? Is there an equivalent fixed amount of USD that is in circulation?
Why can't it just be a ledger of fixed qty where nodes get paid a fee for handling transactions and keeping the blockchain updated instead of proof of busywork? Why does it need to be so wasteful of electricity? Why is it so slow? Will it ever be as fast and cheap as an osko payment? I can (and have) sent $40,000 to another person from my bank account and it took under 10 seconds for them to receive it, even though they bank with a different entity.
Lotsa questions. I'll give brief answers that will be a little incomplete.
Transactions need to be recorded so that it is known who controls how many crypto coins. This service needs to be paid. That is done by creating new coins or alternatively by subtracting a fee from transactions. Creating new coins has the advantage that it spreads coins to people with a stake in the success of the cryptocurrency. If there was only a fee, then you would have to find some other way to get coins to the people wanting to use them.
Crypto is for transferring money outside the banking system and thus beyond the reach of the law. People buy and sell crypto coins for that purpose.
The value of coins depends on how much money people want to transfer and how many coins are on the market. If people want to transfer $10M and there are 10M coins available, then the price of a coin is $1. If there are only 5M coins, then the price is $2. People wanting to transfer money do not need to consider the price. If you want to transfer $20, you buy that amount of coins. It does not matter how many coins that is.
When miners sell new coins, that causes a little bit of inflation. That way, real money is transferred from the users to the miners. If someone holds a large amount of coins, they can extract a lot of money without having to do anything. So people will not be very keen on promoting that currency because that person can skim off the gains. That means it's simply preferable to slowly introduce new coins to a wide audience.
People who "invest" in crypto cause a bit of deflation. They spread real money to the users but there is no actual value created.
Removing coins from circulation increases the price in a purely mechanical way. If the price rises further, they are able to make a profit by selling the coins and skimming off money from the users. That does create an incentive to promote that crypto coin. That's why we are seeing so much crypto spam.
It's not necessary for adoption to increase to see a profit. If other people can be convinced to buy and hold coins, then the price increases mechanically. This makes it possible to skim off more money from actual users than was spread to them by buying the coins. Obviously, that's economically nonsense. It's another fatal design flaw.
The record of transactions, the ledger, is public and unprotected. You could have different, competing versions of that record. The version that is adopted by the majority is adopted as the correct one. This creates a problem. It would be possible to spam the system with lots of copies of a fraudulent record. Proof of work mitigates that risk. Originally, it was an idea to combat email spam by increasing the cost of sending each mail.
A more efficient alternative would be to only allow a limited number of known entities to keep the ledger. If they attempt manipulation, they can be prosecuted for fraud. That's basically the banking system.
But the whole point of crypto is not to do that. If governments could prosecute the people involved, then they could also be made to crack down on ransomware, drug dealing, tax evasion, and so on.
A more crypto-compatible scheme is proof of stake. Miners have to put up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as a stake. If other miners find that one is not following the rules, then they can be fined. Also, because they own a substantial amount of currency, they can be assumed not to act in ways that harms the network. That would lower the price of their crypto.
The overhead necessary to avoid law enforcement means that it will always be slower and more expensive than mainstream systems.
Bitcoin, in particular, is just not suited for such wide adoption. It's actually amazing how well it does actually work, considering its humble origins. Because of the amount of money that rests on its reputation and its decentralized nature, it is extremely difficult to get people to agree on updates.
No. Money is created every time someone takes out a loan and destroyed when it gets paid back. Physical currency (called central bank money) is manufactured as needed.
If you make more money, then you have a larger share of all the money in circulation. That means, you are devaluating everyone else's savings and pretty much gaining some of their money.
And there's some system where people who have joined through you, somehow also produce to you some small percentage of the money they mine. So, the ones who got in first are getting richer and richer out of others' work.
i think op asked for Blockchain not Cryptocurrency
in the spirit of reddit:
*peddling
No less than 8 spelling or grammar mistakes, and barely on topic.
Git uses blockchains to store pretty much all of the worlds software...
There is debate over whether a git history is a blockchain or a DAG (Directed Acyclical Graph). I'd say it was the latter.
Who says blockchains cant also form a DAG?
Its a blockchain because each block contains a digest of the previous block(s), which creates a tamper-evident chain of digests for all history.
Its just a type of blockchain, just like a subaru is a type of car.
You might have grown up thinking "all cars have 4 wheels", but my subaru has a fifth wheel in the back and its still a car because having exactly 4 wheels it not the defining charcteristic of cars.
Personally I'd say the distinction comes with the decentralisation being enforced. Git has it as a feature but each copy of a git repository isn't reliant on every other copy. It's asymmetric.
Git uses signed blocks for centralization... you can see that the official linux kernel is signed by linus torvalds... but all of this is irrelevant because blockchains are a datastructure that is indepenant from the concept of centralization. It is just a chain of blocks... proof-of-work and signing are about centralization but they are different concepts.
I'm not sure I follow how (de)centralisation can be a different concept from blockchains when the definition of a blockchain is something like a ledger-like data structure which is immutable, decentralised and distributed.
Meanwhile with git, one user can unilaterally change the history by hard resetting and force pushing; then the other "nodes" just have to accept the changes.
Idk where you got that definition.... a block chain is just a chain of blocks....
If someone unilaterally forces a history change, that will be apparent to everyone and they can choose to reject those changes...
Ok, I think we've established that we disagree what a blockchain is. Doesn't really matter I suppose, nice talking with you!
"Blockchain" as commonly meant as used in cryptocurrencies - no. Only for Bitcoin - all other *coins are scams.
However git can be considered to be based on blockchain so in that sense, absolutely.
That’s really stretching the definition of blockchain.
Blockchain is about providing consensus without relying on a central authority. If there are two variants of the same blockchain, anyone should be able to independently verify which one is the real one. Git doesn’t do this.
No a blockchain is a chain of blocks. Its an append only datastructure that provides a cryptographically verifiable history. Proof-of-work is what allows for public concensus in crypto currencies like bitcoin, where as git uses signed blocks to identify different chains.
Git doesn’t sign commits, at least not cryptographically. I can download the Linux git repo and add whatever commits I like to it. I can even create my own commits under Torvalds’ name and email if I’d like, or rewrite all his commits under my own name.
It’s highly unlikely I can fool anyone it’s the real deal though. They will just download the kernel from the official repo instead.
Yeah, it does...
If you barely know shit about git why wouldnt you at least try googleing before posting??
It’s a bonus feature used by almost no one. I’ve never encountered a git repo which signs its commits.
The linux kernel, which git was created for, uses signed commits...
That's one definition of blockchain. Since the solution to the Byzantine Generals' problem in Bitcoin is done by Proof of Work it can't be said to be a part of the blockchain definition since there are many (most?) blockchains that don't use PoW. Some companies peddling "blockchain solutions" even use central authorities.
So, with "blockchain" just being a chain of cryptographically verified blocks then git indeed fulfills that definition.
How would that work?
I think parent is referring to Merkle trees.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/f5474941-059e-4f7e-9914-ed0d15b8e41e#1
Believing all the cryptocurrency ecosystem is a scam is just a big indicator that you know nothing about it
The main thing is to have a trustless currency that is decentralized (can’t be easily censored), and that isn’t owned nor controlled by some centralized organization (ex: a country). Its uses are best seen in countries where the government goes bankrupt or fucked up the currency by printing a lot of it, or for currencies that no other country trust
It will be niche and useless to most people, but it’s a verifiable way to check money is not being tampered with. It’s also the best way to transact online anonymously or pseudonymously, and not relying on a company that’s trying to make as much money as possible
Due to the way some cryptos are, they became a speculative investment. The fact that they’re not well known increases this use. Some cryptocurrencies are designed to be inflationary. Some are straight up pump and dump scams, like a lot of things. There will be assholes everywhere