Haha crypto sux. So funny.
Did you take the decision to comment my meme by yourself or did you have to ask 1000+ strangers to run complicated computations before ?
Did you come up with such a lame joke by yourself or… yes all by yourself, other people would let you embarrass yourself so much.
The only reason the joke might be lame is because it may count as bullying the mentally handicapped at this point
Last time I asked, someone explained to me that bitcoin uses more and more power depending on how long the ledger is :)
These pathetic crypto jokes are popular. People adore them. They don’t adore knowledge about even what the basics of crypto are.
Just read an article that said that restrictions in windows 11 will send an estimated 240million PCs to the landfill this year. I bet a lot of people are quick to comment on their Windows PC about how energy intensive and bad bitcoin and other crypto is, though. At least one is doing something that’s never been done before (crypto). I also wonder how much energy it took us to get to the moon? I guess we should have never done that because of the energy it took to accomplish. I wonder if people were like this about vehicles when they were first mass produced and available to everyone.
Lol I know I hate making money on something and protecting my privacy and data at the same time! How could the “cryptobros” do this to us??
OK but there are actually great uses for blockchain that are completely disconnected from anything you typically see
For example, banks may begin using blockchain for maintaining their internal ledgers. It will help solve a ton of issues around reconciling the transactions from all over the globe
Blockchain has reasonable uses. Really good ones. Crypto and nft bros just completely ruined the image of it
EDIT: I love all the comments demonstrating how little people understand about blockchain. Bitcoin was not the first blockchain, nor is its design the only type of blockchain. Assuming that all blockchain looks like the crypto/nft paradigm is just showing your ignorance.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5nzx4/what-was-the-first-blockchain
Yeah let’s use the computing power of an entire country to pay for a small coffee.
While that is an inherent component of how proof-of-work cryptos work, and utterly stupid, it’s not an inherent part of how to do blockchains.
You can have a blockchain without consuming stupid amounts of energy.
you’ve just demonstrated your lack of depth of understanding of blockchains. congratulations, your opinion was correct about 15 years ago. the technology has moved on
and the “solutions” are all objectively worse security wise. And by thinking blockchains need proof of anything, you too misunderstand what a blockchain even is. Proof of whatever is needed by the concensus algorithm, not the blockchain.
You say so but I guess it’s hard to convince a lot of people who recognize it’s folly to try to fix a social/human problem with a technological solution.
Git is a merkle-tree based system like a blockchain. People have no problem with the tech. They’re just tired of the hype train.
How is the blockchain different from a read only ( write only once to be specific) DB that follows ACID?
It’s distributed so no single entity can take it down. Among many other possible benefits depending on architecture and infrastructure.
It’s far more complex than coins and NFTs. Blockchain is like a new internet. Coins and NFTs are like those shitty GIFs you used to see everywhere. Evocative of old internet, but not the internet itself.
This isn’t true: there are not-distributed blockchains.
The definition of a blockchain is a ledger where every entry is cryptographically signed with a hash of the current entry plus a previous entry. There’s no requirement that this be at all distributed. In fact, QLDB uses a non-distributed blockchain as its audit log.
Blockchain are often used in distributed systems because of the verifiability of the records; its a way of providing security of history in a fundamentally insecure environment. But there’s no requirement that they be distributed, and they add value in non-distributed environments as well - in any case you want to be able to review a history of changes and know that someone hasn’t been cooking the books, for instance.
I’ll give a real-world example. One place I worked we had databases that had data constantly streaming in from many different sources. Something that would frequently happen would be some data issue that would break applications; often, this was bad data from sources outside of our control. Ops*, who’s only priority was to get the applications back up and running, would often track down and directly modify records and fix the data. The issue was that some time later, sometime days later, a customer would call and complain about data being incorrect. By then, it was impossible to figure out what had happened: did we get the wrong data from the source? Did one of the import processes mangle the data? Did someone poke around in the database and change the data? We had no way of telling, and investigations would take many hours, often from several senior people, who would frequently in the end have to shrug and say, “we don’t know.” There were lots of things that could have improved this, with varying levels of success, but a global audit log would have been the first step. A verifiable audit log would have been better, because often it’d come down to us being convinced the data a third party was giving us was bad, and it became an our word vs. their word since we shared the same client. If we’d had a blockchain layer through which every transaction was recorded, we could have rolled back in time and figure out exactly how a record came to be what it was and been able to prove it to the client.
Blockchains are awesome. People who say otherwise have their heads up their asses, and are unable to differentiate between blockchain the technology, and the sometimes questionable uses they’re put to. Iron is used to make guns and bombs; that doesn’t make iron bad.
Edit clarification
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- “Ops” as in “operations”
How can you trust that the database is really append only? Blockchain provides a way to verify the state of the database and the ordering of the transactions. Beyond that, not much benefit to be had. However, for certain situations, that is a very big benefit!
Blockchains add cryptographic signing and limit actions based on those signatures.
i for one would have liked a media licensing system that operates agnostic of any centralized authority
for instance, irrefutable and independently verifiable proof that you own a valid software, music, or visual art license and are therefore immune to prosecution for piracy.
A registry of licenses like this could shield creators from copyright claims on social media applications such as youtube. Could also automate revenue sharing and royalties for artists whose works are used in derivative media so the people who actually perform the work get paid. Would be nice to cut the publisher middleman out. And there is absolutely no reason there has to be anything like a “proof of work” system burning down entire fucking rainforests’ worth of energy to verify every single gods damned transaction because this sort of system isn’t for trading shit, it’s strictly for proving a valid chain of custody between producers and consumers and you don’t need megawatt-hours to just fucking LOOK SOMETHING UP.
imagine if, for instance, fucking warner brothers couldn’t “takes backsies” content that they SOLD to end users through a distribution network; the license is yours, and anyone can look up the fact that the license was sold to the user id you happen to control.
imagine if, for instance, you buy a video game through a digital distributor like steam but then the store goes out of business and no longer exists to serve you a copy or recognize the sale, but on this massively distributed and decentralized database you can prove that you did indeed compensate the developers of that software and thereby legally acquire entitlement to access it in accordance with the end user license agreement.
imagine if ownership of stuff you bought fair and square can never be taken away from you
THAT’S what we could have had
instead of this fucking bullshit.
Well, if those licenses are entries on the blockchain, they could be transferred on the blockchain. You could sell your game used when you’re bored of playing it. You can’t play it after you sell it but someone else can. Publishers hate resale markets though, when people buy used games they don’t make any money. So they’ll probably never go for this.
yeah on top of that, if your computer breaks or something now you lost all of your keys.
say goodbye to whatever you own on the blockchain when the keys are gone. poof!
this is the biggest problem with any scheme tying private keys (digital) to anything in the real world.
I feel like here you get to the NFT problem of having proof of ownership of something doesn’t mean much when that thing is being hosted on servers you don’t control
so if you have an entry with a licence for a steam game, and steam gets closed, you are out of luck
it’s that holding a license for a game entitles you to operating a copy of it regardless of where you bought it.
it’s the whole basis for why emulation and ROM images were LEGAL
because you had a right to retain a backup of the software you own through the license.
with an independent licensing infrastructure, if GoG closes you can take your licenses with you, download the game from anywhere, and if anyone tries to charge you for stealing it, you can just present your license: “See, i bought it fair and square.”
if i bought a dryer from SEARS, it didn’t stop being mine when SEARS closed.
NFT’s don’t show you have proof of ownership of anything other than the NFT. Think of all the people who got their metamask account hacked and lost all their apes with zero recourse.
Why would anyone want anything required for daily life attached to something so insecure and irreversible as that?
imagine if, for instance, you buy a video game through a digital distributor like steam but then the store goes out of business and no longer exists to serve you a copy or recognize the sale, but on this massively distributed and decentralized database you can prove that you did indeed compensate the developers of that software and thereby legally acquire entitlement to access it in accordance with the end user license agreement.
What you’re arguing for is forcing the distributor to distribute in perpetuity, which has nothing to do with how you show ownership of your license.
Right now, I can show steam I’ve purchased, say Delistopolis, and they will agree I am indeed perfectly allowed to have and play it. But they are not required to provide me with a copy.
A blockchain system will not solve this.
no. you’re putting words in my mouth. if the distributor wants to stop distributing they can.
they can take down their servers, they can even cease to be, but it would no longer affect the availability of product they sold.
Blockchain is only potentially useful if there’s no single entity that can be trusted. If banks can’t even trust themselves to manage their own internal ledgers, they have much bigger problems to deal with.
Trustless systems aren’t a bad thing that has to step in when the good thing fails. Trustless systems are inherently better because you don’t have to trust a bank (or anyone for that matter).
Additionally, ledgers can be gamed/corrupted/falsified. This is significantly more complex (bordering on impossible) on the blockchain.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/bBC-nXj3Ng4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
There are often easier, more reliable, and far cheaper ways to achieve the same things without using a blockchain. Some of the principles are even used in normal web browsing to ensure secure untampered connections.
Blockchain just solves a subproblem that only arises when there’s no appointed central entity.
That’s the thing, they shouldn’t trust a single source of assumed truth. If the single source is tampered with, there’s nothing to compare to.
Removing the need to trust a single entity is just a great security feature
You can implement public or semi public ledgers without Blockchain. That’s what banks are doing already by sending huge CSV files internally and externally. Blockchain is not a technology of zero trust. It’s close to the opposite. You trust a few peers and blindly trust everyone they trust. That way you trust a network that you know nothing about and if the network decides on a common truth that you are convinced is incorrect, there is nothing you can do about it. The consensus always wins and there is no single entity to complain to and get it fixed. This is great for making sure that many actors need to be bad actors in order to have the whole system fail. It’s bad if you don’t trust anyone and want to make sure that your standards are always observed. From a technology standpoint I love the concept of Blockchain. But use cases that are not forced are few and far apart. Too few for the amount of hype it receives.
If the bank can’t even trust themselves then there’s no point in having the bank at all.
guys they are putting micro chips in the cheese and using block chains to track the micro chips https://www.businessinsider.com/edible-microchips-on-parmigiano-reggiano-used-to-fight-counterfeiters-2023-8
Blockchain has been around as a technology for nearly two decades. If financial institutions thought it could help them you can bet they would be all-in on it by now. As it is, blockchain has no significant advantages over traditional financial ledger systems, so what incentive is there for them to use it.
It’s not something new or cutting edge any more, just waiting for a bright spark to discover the technology and put it to use.
Well, why would banks replace the system which allows them to charge fees for every other interaction with their services? A blockain solution would allow multiple different banks (and, possibly, even regular people) to access the data with no middlemen, and, therefore, no fees. Or, well, no fees that directly end up in the bank’s pockets as profit, that is.
Getting rid of that is bad for business. So, unless something magical happens and the EU, for example, pass a law requiring the banks to switch to a more de-centralized, more fair system, it’s not going to happen.
That’s kind of my point. Blockchain evangelists have been banging the drum for many years saying “This is a perfect fit for the financial industry. Why won’t fintech wake up and recognise that?”
When in fact fintech took a long, hard look at blockchain a long time ago and decided “nope, there’s nothing here that would tempt us” outside of a few very niche applications.
Maybe do a simple Google search next time?
Rather than resorting to that age-old cry of the cult member “do your own research!” can I respectfully suggest that if you’re aiming to change somebody’s mind, the onus is on you to provide the evidence, not on them. By all means take hours out of your day to search google and compile a list of things that you think will convince me. Me, personally, I have better things to do with my life.
If financial institutions thought it could help them you can bet they would be all-in on it by now.
How do you see memes like this? Because I see them as lame and sad, especially since we have been seeing them for 10+ years now and they are still the same. But apparently you think blockchain has reasonable uses.
Only misguided?
I mean usually they are accompanied by false information and references to stuff like “crypto bros”, “pyramid schemes”,…
Why would you want the computational power of a bank system have anything to do with whether it’s ledger is correct?
Banks/hackers can manipulate data if they want to. Manipulating data on blockchains is way waaaaay harder.
Using a blockchain to maintain their internal ledgers means they have complete control over that blockchain, so they can manipulate it all they want. Blockchains aren’t magic.
Walmart seems to have had success here, and logistics is their whole thing.
https://hbr.org/2022/01/how-walmart-canada-uses-blockchain-to-solve-supply-chain-challenges
I love how you can’t provide even a single example of useful Blockchain functionality. Doesn’t mean it *doesn’t exist, but says something… And no, “banking” and “internal ledgers” is not detailed enough to be a sufficient example.
You just… linked your own comment. I mean, most of us are nerds, but can you just… use language? What benefit does it provide?
I think the only project I’ve seen so far where I’ve felt that a blockchain has actually been the correct choice is Alfis, which is a decentralized DNS that uses the blockchain as the public append-only ledger that it is, and it uses proof-of-work to add arbitrary costs to updates - to make spamming or namesquatting expensive.
Here is why
Web3 is more about smart contracts and alt coins, you didn’t address my point
Edit: you can downvote if you like but your post objectively shows you don’t know the difference between web3 and block chain, and choosing to debate web3 instead of making changes to bank ledgers in my original post is a logical fallacy
Blockchain is a nebulous buzzword with a vague meaning. But I have yet to see a sensible definition of a blockchain that doesn’t include git. At the end of the day they are both just Merkle trees.
Git is pretty useful imo.
Who decides to commit changes though? A human. A human who can be corrupt.
The best use case for blockchains in my opinion is elections. The dude who owns the election server won’t be able to manipulate results in any way.
While manipulating results isn’t impossible in case of a blockchain, it is still very very difficult.
Who decides to commit changes though? A human. A human who can be corrupt
I’m not entirely sure what your getting at here, but git can be run as democratically as a crypto currency where the canonical version of the project is the one with the longest chain. Seems like a bad idea to me though. I think you may be assuming the way most people rely on github/gitlab etc as an inherent part of the system, when it’s really just the most convenient way of doing things.
The best use case for blockchains in my opinion is elections.
I’ll believe it when I see a real implementation. I think the problem is anonymity, I don’t see how we can set a system up such that the results are auditable but also impossible for anyone to tie a specific vote to a specific person.
I’m not entirely sure what your getting at here, but git can be run as democratically as a crypto currency where the canonical version of the project is the one with the longest chain.
Which means elections. Which means a dude/committee in charge of a server. See the problem?
I’ll believe it when I see a real implementation. I think the problem is anonymity, I don’t see how we can set a system up such that the results are auditable but also impossible for anyone to tie a specific vote to a specific person.
This is a very very interesting topic that I’ve spent a rlly long time thinking about. I wish I had more energy to go in depth for this. The gist is this:
There will be a tradeoff between anonymity and “vote buying”.
You can have absolute anonymity by implementing a monero like blockchain. Each registered voter address gets one token. The thing that you can cast a vote for is also an address. The voter sends this token to an unknown address (that theoretically belongs to the voter themselves). Then, the voter votes from this address. This way, absolute anonymity is maintained as noone knows who sent the token to the address in the middle. BUT. I could buy votes like this too. I could bribe a voter to send their token to the middle address, which I control.
To prevent voter buying, you can have an open blockchain where all transactions are visible to everyone. However, you get pseudo anonymity here. Every registered voter address gets one token like above. No one except for the election commission knows which address belongs to whom. So while the election commission cannot manipulate votes, it can leak who voted for whom.
Now that being said, normal elections aren’t as theoretically anonymous as well. For ballots, your name is on the envelope. A compromised election commission could leak this info as well. For EVMs, one line of code could leak who you are. The person granting you entry can note down your information. The EVM can ping this person as to which vote was cast while you were in there.
Hence, in my opinion, the second option of the open blockchain is the best one provided that the election commission is under strict regulation (which it generally is in any case).
The dude who owns the election server won’t be able to manipulate results in any way.
Sure he will. He can just ignore votes for one candidate and not add them to the chain. Blockchains are only resistant to manipulation if they’re distributed and people agree on the canonical version. Even then if enough people agree to manipulate them they can, like they did with Ethereum.
You actually make a better case for replacing politicians with benevolent AI than for replacing ballots with transactions on a blockchain.
How so? AI is not smarter than people.
Even when it becomes smarter than humans in the future, I would still oppose this idea. We humans have seemingly benevolent leaders who become malevolent. At least we can replace them as they are around as smart as us. A malevolent creature that is waaay smarter than us that rules over us? No thanks.
Git might not count because you can have branches that then merge? But yeah, git is useful, it’s decentralized and distributed, it could be used P2P…
Blockchain is pretty well defined.
Git doesn’t have update rules that are only valid if signed by a particular private key.
Please share a source! I can’t find anything as robust as a whitepaper (the bitcoin whitepaper doesn’t use the term).
NIST informally defines it as:
A distributed digital ledger of cryptographically-signed transactions that are grouped into blocks. Each block is cryptographically linked to the previous one (making it tamper evident) after validation and undergoing a consensus decision. As new blocks are added, older blocks become more difficult to modify (creating tamper resistance). New blocks are replicated across copies of the ledger within the network, and any conflicts are resolved automatically using established rules.
Which git certainly meets this.
IBM informally defines it as:
Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. An asset can be tangible (a house, car, cash, land) or intangible (intellectual property, patents, copyrights, branding).
Which git meets.
Git is hash linked, not cryptographicly linked. Only cryptographicly valid changes are allowed to blockchain state. All data can be modified in git.
Yes. IBMs definition is bad and could equally apply to git. They’ve totally forgotten about the private key aspect.
I’ll see if I can source a better definition online, but make no promises.
Edit: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/blockchain/ the last line is not applicable to Git
How does it “certainly meet it”? There is no consensus mechanism in git, new blocks are not replicated across the network, there is no network at all, git works offline. You can replicate changes with remotes but there is no “git network” in any similar sense. And conflicts are definitely not resolved automatically. And the git hashes are certainly not cryptographic.
That’s 4 ways it doesn’t meet the definition. You could maybe stretch the meaning of a network to make it 3.
While blockchain is well defined, it in itself is not a product but a technology. I think what the other commenter is getting at is that simply saying something “is blockchain” means very little because what the blockchain does depends on the implementation, so when used in marketing it’s just a nebulous buzzword in that it doesn’t actually give you much information about what the product is. Same with terms like cloud, AI, virtual reality, etc.
Yes. There were a lot of companies selling “blockchain base” solutions where blockchain wasn’t really needed in the solution at all.
Then it was Metaverse based solutions. (I would argue VR is well defined)
Now it’s AI solutions.
But I think “cloud” is now post that marketing phase, and blockchain is heading that way.
