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There's beginning to be a lot of movement in the alt-coin space where people are trying to DO things with the blockchain, far beyond just a store of value. The

There's beginning to be a lot of movement in the alt-coin space where people are trying to DO things with the blockchain, far beyond just a store of value. There's not a lot of love here on HN for a lot of that effort, but it's not terribly controversial to say that there are a large number of dev teams working on products in a multitude of fields that are putting the blockchain to work. The controversy seems to be whether blockchain tech is a sensible solution to some of these problems (that is, people ARE actually building lots of things, but the verdict is contentiously out on how sensible/lasting those things will be).

balefrost 9y ago
I guess it depends on how you define "blockchain". If it's a system that involves distributed, untrusted participants and the need for proof-of-work, then I too wonder how useful that ends up being in the general case.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  The general case is: federation of individuals can compete with single large corporation because cryptocontracts provide equivalent operational stability to what a single controlling entity can provide. When corporate bylaws are written in code, you can replace a single legal entity with thousands of former employees operating as sole proprietorships.
  - balefrost 9y ago
    Sure, but you don't need proof-of-work for that. All you need is for every participant to ratify the bylaws-as-code, which you can do with simple public/private signing. The only reason that proof-of-work is needed for a currency is that the ledger is changing constantly. For something that changes infrequently, the double-spend problem (or the contractual equivalent) isn't nearly as big of a deal. Like I said, it depends on how you define "the blockchain". Many problems don't involve an open set of untrusted peers, and many problems don't require proof-of-work. So if you include those in the definition, then the blockchain isn't appropriate for a lot of those problems. And if you exclude those aspects, then what do you have left? A chain of cryptographically signed nodes that each point to their predecessor? That's been an underpinning of x.509 for, what, over 20 years? It's nothing new.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      How do you verify the ratifications without a blockchain? You’d need to meet in person ahead of time right? (I do agree that 99% of the decentralization of protocols can happen off the blockchain, amongst trusted parties... just saying that doesn’t get you all the way to “McDonalds Corp Replacement”.)

balefrost 9y ago

I guess it depends on how you define "blockchain". If it's a system that involves distributed, untrusted participants and the need for proof-of-work, then I too wonder how useful that ends up being in the general case.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
The general case is: federation of individuals can compete with single large corporation because cryptocontracts provide equivalent operational stability to what a single controlling entity can provide. When corporate bylaws are written in code, you can replace a single legal entity with thousands of former employees operating as sole proprietorships.
- balefrost 9y ago
  Sure, but you don't need proof-of-work for that. All you need is for every participant to ratify the bylaws-as-code, which you can do with simple public/private signing. The only reason that proof-of-work is needed for a currency is that the ledger is changing constantly. For something that changes infrequently, the double-spend problem (or the contractual equivalent) isn't nearly as big of a deal. Like I said, it depends on how you define "the blockchain". Many problems don't involve an open set of untrusted peers, and many problems don't require proof-of-work. So if you include those in the definition, then the blockchain isn't appropriate for a lot of those problems. And if you exclude those aspects, then what do you have left? A chain of cryptographically signed nodes that each point to their predecessor? That's been an underpinning of x.509 for, what, over 20 years? It's nothing new.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    How do you verify the ratifications without a blockchain? You’d need to meet in person ahead of time right? (I do agree that 99% of the decentralization of protocols can happen off the blockchain, amongst trusted parties... just saying that doesn’t get you all the way to “McDonalds Corp Replacement”.)