12 ms·

> Blockchain is amazing technology - but it is a solution in search of a problem. True.

by sahoo 8y ago

SolarNet 8y ago
Yea exactly, there is only one problem it really solves, and it's already found it. Currency (and sure some stuff that touches it like smart contracts) is the one use case where all the blockchain's properties are useful. Everything else, just use a public/distributed cryptographic ledger, save yourself a ton of money. Use technology that's worked for 30 years.
drexlspivey 8y ago
No it's not. Blockchain was created to solve a very specific problem, "how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant" and it did so with great success. It is the thousands of startups that try to apply this solution without having this exact problem.
- smnrchrds 8y ago
  Then "consensus on a distributed ledger" is a solution in search of a problem.
  - lmkg 8y ago
    One could be generous and call it a problem in search of an application.
  - tylersmith 8y ago
    No, it's not. The problem is clearly laid out in the Bitcoin whitepaper. The problem was known long before the solution. The root problem is how to make functional and secure trustless money which doesn't rely on third parties. Decentralizing the control is the best solution known to date to remove trust from the system. This introduces the problem of ordering distributed events in a trustless environment. The solution to that is the timestamp server proposed in the Bitcoin whitepaper. That timestamp server is what has been rebranded "blockchain". It's useless for 99% of things it's proposed to solve, but it's the only known solution the original problem.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Except that we don't want trustless money. We want reversible transactions, and funds that can be seized. Given how My.Gox and the DAO thefts went down, so do people actually using cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin does a great job of being trustless money, and a terrible job of being money. I don't need trustless money in my life.
      - robotrout 8y ago
        You may not need it, but I am thankful that it now exists. You may be happy with centralized services such as banks and credit cards. But those institutions are vulnerable to intimidation and so proved unsuitable for pot growers in Colorado and for Wikileaks. In the cases of Wikileaks and Colorado pot farmers, they angered a government, even if many other governments (and the state of Colorado) supported them. So it's not about being some bad-ass who fights all forms of government. It's about pushing the boundaries enough that somebody powerful may choose to intimidate your financial provider. Given the number of powerful entities in the world with conflicting world-views, if you're doing anything interesting, you may run afoul of one of them. Even if you personally will never use trustless money, having it exist in the world is making you a little bit more free.
        vkou 8y ago
        It does make the world a little more free, and I have some sympathy for some of those causes. It also seems to come at a great price, in terms of pollution and energy waste. Your right to buy heroin, or child pornography, or organically grown cruelty-and-cartel free marijuana is great, but your externalities are horrific.
        robotrout 8y ago
        I really don't want to get into a global warming fapping session with you, on a thread that has nothing to do with that, but casually dropping the "horrific" bomb is difficult for me to ignore. I will just remind you that there is a thing called a carbon cycle. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere. Carbon is not a poison, but is instead, a fundamental component of all life on earth. It does not accumulate forever, but instead, is reabsorbed back out of the atmosphere at some often debated rate. Climate scientists know this, but people who drop the "horrific" bomb, generally do not. Please reserve the word "horrific" for things that actually are. I'm sure you'll find something that is legitimately horrific if you try.
  - drexlspivey 8y ago
    This video does a very good job explaining what exact problems you would face if you tried to create a decentralized payment system and how bitcoin solved these problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&vl=en
- rtkwe 8y ago
  > how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant The problem is that that is just a solution in disguise as a problem. Why do we need to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant? It works, I think, for bitcoin because the ledger is an end unto itself and didn't have to interface with any existing system (no existing accounts/items/entries to assign to existing owners).
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses. The 'cash-like' quality of Bitcoin, that the sender cannot take it back or contest the transaction after the fact, is a solution to a real problem.
    - rspeer 8y ago
      You think online small businesses are transacting directly with their customers using Bitcoin?
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      On the opposite side of the coin the same reversibility is also great for fighting fraud from scammy sellers. For consumers anything interacting with real world items really needs to be reversible or scammers will have a field day with it and damage the brand.
    - spiralx 8y ago
      > Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses. Unless you're talking adult businesses, gambling or one of the other industries with known issues with card fraud and/or excessive charge-backs, they aren't a significant problem for legitimate businesses at all. Even a 1% charge-back rate is unusual enough that card providers will flag the retailer for investigation.
      - cwkoss 8y ago
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  It's ironic how the blockchain claims to let you do all these things without trusting any of the participants, yet it attracts some of the most untrustworthy participants the world has ever seen. #BrockPierce from @AnOpenSecret on #LastWeekTonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAnAYa8gas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAnAYa8gas Brock Pierce posing with his "Make Bitcoin Great Again" at Trump's inaugural lounge: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&set=a.112810102781.118888.749357781&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&se... DEN Sources: A document-in-progress compiling firsthand reporting on DEN, Bitcoin, Brock Pierce and the Mike Egan / Bryan Singer lawsuit: https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b
  - nickrivadeneira 8y ago
    That's not surprising at all. Untrustworthy people doing untrustworthy business are the people most in need of a platform that doesn't rely on trust.
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      So you're saying the Bitcoin Foundation should let anyone like Brock Pierce be the director, because the Blockchain globally and completely eliminates the need to trust anyone, and EOS shouldn't have parted ways with Brock Pierce, and should hire even more untrustworthy people, because the Blockchain makes it perfectly safe and wise to work with untrustworthy people? Black is white! Good is bad! It's wonderful for scammers to be in charge! The Blockchain is the solution to everything! You can trust the Blockchain so much, that you don't need to trust people any more! Nothing could possibly go wrong! No snake oil! You're the snake oil! ;)
      - nickrivadeneira 8y ago
        I didn't say any of those things even remotely. It kind of feels like you've imagined both sides of an argument in your head, and are projecting the other side on me. The only thing I'm saying is: If I'm a known con man, and I'm trying to do a deal with another known con man, I'd like to have a platform that supposedly doesn't require me to trust a con man. I never said anything about whether blockchain can or cannot do that, never said anything about globally eliminating the need for trust, nor that blockchain is a solution for anything, nor what is "safe and wise". I'm not even a proponent of blockchain...I can just see why some types of people are attracted to the advertised benefits.
this_user 8y ago
I disagree. Blockchain and crypto currencies that use PoW are a terrible invention. Bitcoin mining alone is now using more electricity than Ireland, and this figure is only increasing even more. In an age where the global effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent while still too little is done to mitigate it, maybe we should not exacerbate the problem even further This applies especially to something like crypto currencies that, so far, provide very little in terms of tangible societal benefits. We could of course discuss PoS solutions, but those have their own drawbacks, and that still would not change the fundamental fact that crypto currencies and blockchains have yet, after roughly a decade, to find any kind of non-niche use case. Google needed far less than a decade to become the dominant search engine. Netflix did the same of video streaming. Modern smartphones exist for about as long as Bitcoin, and they have become globally ubiquitous. So how good can the blockchain really be?
- quadrature 8y ago
  I think the two of you are violently agreeing with each other.
- kang 8y ago
  sorry, but blockchain should be compared to internet, not google & yes packet-switching took a decade to become TCP/IP and took more than 2 decades, to become the internet. Bitcoin should be compared to google.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Good thing there are no negative externalities from our current financial system! /s
optimuspaul 8y ago
I disagree, I don't think there is anything amazing about blockchains. But I do agree that it is a solution in search of a problem.

> Blockchain is amazing technology - but it is a solution in search of a problem. True.

by sahoo 8y ago

> Blockchain is amazing technology - but it is a solution in search of a problem. True.

Yea exactly, there is only one problem it really solves, and it's already found it. Currency (and sure some stuff that touches it like smart contracts) is the one use case where all the blockchain's properties are useful. Everything else, just use a public/distributed cryptographic ledger, save yourself a ton of money. Use technology that's worked for 30 years.

drexlspivey 8y ago

No it's not. Blockchain was created to solve a very specific problem, "how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant" and it did so with great success. It is the thousands of startups that try to apply this solution without having this exact problem.

smnrchrds 8y ago
Then "consensus on a distributed ledger" is a solution in search of a problem.
- lmkg 8y ago
  One could be generous and call it a problem in search of an application.
- tylersmith 8y ago
  No, it's not. The problem is clearly laid out in the Bitcoin whitepaper. The problem was known long before the solution. The root problem is how to make functional and secure trustless money which doesn't rely on third parties. Decentralizing the control is the best solution known to date to remove trust from the system. This introduces the problem of ordering distributed events in a trustless environment. The solution to that is the timestamp server proposed in the Bitcoin whitepaper. That timestamp server is what has been rebranded "blockchain". It's useless for 99% of things it's proposed to solve, but it's the only known solution the original problem.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Except that we don't want trustless money. We want reversible transactions, and funds that can be seized. Given how My.Gox and the DAO thefts went down, so do people actually using cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin does a great job of being trustless money, and a terrible job of being money. I don't need trustless money in my life.
    - robotrout 8y ago
      You may not need it, but I am thankful that it now exists. You may be happy with centralized services such as banks and credit cards. But those institutions are vulnerable to intimidation and so proved unsuitable for pot growers in Colorado and for Wikileaks. In the cases of Wikileaks and Colorado pot farmers, they angered a government, even if many other governments (and the state of Colorado) supported them. So it's not about being some bad-ass who fights all forms of government. It's about pushing the boundaries enough that somebody powerful may choose to intimidate your financial provider. Given the number of powerful entities in the world with conflicting world-views, if you're doing anything interesting, you may run afoul of one of them. Even if you personally will never use trustless money, having it exist in the world is making you a little bit more free.
      - vkou 8y ago
        It does make the world a little more free, and I have some sympathy for some of those causes. It also seems to come at a great price, in terms of pollution and energy waste. Your right to buy heroin, or child pornography, or organically grown cruelty-and-cartel free marijuana is great, but your externalities are horrific.
        robotrout 8y ago
        I really don't want to get into a global warming fapping session with you, on a thread that has nothing to do with that, but casually dropping the "horrific" bomb is difficult for me to ignore. I will just remind you that there is a thing called a carbon cycle. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere. Carbon is not a poison, but is instead, a fundamental component of all life on earth. It does not accumulate forever, but instead, is reabsorbed back out of the atmosphere at some often debated rate. Climate scientists know this, but people who drop the "horrific" bomb, generally do not. Please reserve the word "horrific" for things that actually are. I'm sure you'll find something that is legitimately horrific if you try.
- drexlspivey 8y ago
  This video does a very good job explaining what exact problems you would face if you tried to create a decentralized payment system and how bitcoin solved these problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&vl=en
rtkwe 8y ago
> how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant The problem is that that is just a solution in disguise as a problem. Why do we need to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant? It works, I think, for bitcoin because the ledger is an end unto itself and didn't have to interface with any existing system (no existing accounts/items/entries to assign to existing owners).
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses. The 'cash-like' quality of Bitcoin, that the sender cannot take it back or contest the transaction after the fact, is a solution to a real problem.
  - rspeer 8y ago
    You think online small businesses are transacting directly with their customers using Bitcoin?
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    On the opposite side of the coin the same reversibility is also great for fighting fraud from scammy sellers. For consumers anything interacting with real world items really needs to be reversible or scammers will have a field day with it and damage the brand.
  - spiralx 8y ago
    > Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses. Unless you're talking adult businesses, gambling or one of the other industries with known issues with card fraud and/or excessive charge-backs, they aren't a significant problem for legitimate businesses at all. Even a 1% charge-back rate is unusual enough that card providers will flag the retailer for investigation.
    - cwkoss 8y ago
DonHopkins 8y ago
It's ironic how the blockchain claims to let you do all these things without trusting any of the participants, yet it attracts some of the most untrustworthy participants the world has ever seen. #BrockPierce from @AnOpenSecret on #LastWeekTonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAnAYa8gas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAnAYa8gas Brock Pierce posing with his "Make Bitcoin Great Again" at Trump's inaugural lounge: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&set=a.112810102781.118888.749357781&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&se... DEN Sources: A document-in-progress compiling firsthand reporting on DEN, Bitcoin, Brock Pierce and the Mike Egan / Bryan Singer lawsuit: https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b
- nickrivadeneira 8y ago
  That's not surprising at all. Untrustworthy people doing untrustworthy business are the people most in need of a platform that doesn't rely on trust.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    So you're saying the Bitcoin Foundation should let anyone like Brock Pierce be the director, because the Blockchain globally and completely eliminates the need to trust anyone, and EOS shouldn't have parted ways with Brock Pierce, and should hire even more untrustworthy people, because the Blockchain makes it perfectly safe and wise to work with untrustworthy people? Black is white! Good is bad! It's wonderful for scammers to be in charge! The Blockchain is the solution to everything! You can trust the Blockchain so much, that you don't need to trust people any more! Nothing could possibly go wrong! No snake oil! You're the snake oil! ;)
    - nickrivadeneira 8y ago
      I didn't say any of those things even remotely. It kind of feels like you've imagined both sides of an argument in your head, and are projecting the other side on me. The only thing I'm saying is: If I'm a known con man, and I'm trying to do a deal with another known con man, I'd like to have a platform that supposedly doesn't require me to trust a con man. I never said anything about whether blockchain can or cannot do that, never said anything about globally eliminating the need for trust, nor that blockchain is a solution for anything, nor what is "safe and wise". I'm not even a proponent of blockchain...I can just see why some types of people are attracted to the advertised benefits.

this_user 8y ago

I disagree. Blockchain and crypto currencies that use PoW are a terrible invention. Bitcoin mining alone is now using more electricity than Ireland, and this figure is only increasing even more. In an age where the global effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent while still too little is done to mitigate it, maybe we should not exacerbate the problem even further This applies especially to something like crypto currencies that, so far, provide very little in terms of tangible societal benefits. We could of course discuss PoS solutions, but those have their own drawbacks, and that still would not change the fundamental fact that crypto currencies and blockchains have yet, after roughly a decade, to find any kind of non-niche use case. Google needed far less than a decade to become the dominant search engine. Netflix did the same of video streaming. Modern smartphones exist for about as long as Bitcoin, and they have become globally ubiquitous. So how good can the blockchain really be?

quadrature 8y ago
I think the two of you are violently agreeing with each other.
kang 8y ago
sorry, but blockchain should be compared to internet, not google & yes packet-switching took a decade to become TCP/IP and took more than 2 decades, to become the internet. Bitcoin should be compared to google.
cwkoss 8y ago
Good thing there are no negative externalities from our current financial system! /s

optimuspaul 8y ago

I disagree, I don't think there is anything amazing about blockchains. But I do agree that it is a solution in search of a problem.