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
blockchains do not do jack shit with reconciliating records.
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
Please go and attempt understanding the thing you are talking about before talking about it.
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.
Cryptocurrency Ledgers can be corrupted?
I was hedging against a particularly snarky commenter showing up. You can do a 51% attack and theoretically corrupt it. In practice, that’s much more difficult.
You dont need 51% attack to corrupt a ledger. Just enter incorrect info and the ledger is wrong. Not a damn thing a blockchain can do about that. Same issue is with any trustless system where you have to trust someone to input the correct info/do the agreed thing/ship the ordered physical item.
Just enter incorrect info and the ledger is wrong.
The concept behind cryptocurrency is that the ledger is the info, because you’re right, a half-assed blockchain ledger used for external (e.g. cash) transactions doesn’t really solve the root problem. Proof of work is fucking stupid though, and it has (rightfully) ruined the perception of blockchain technology among those who can see past their own crypto wallet.
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.
Blockchains aren’t hard, unreliable or expensive
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.
You really don’t get it? Trust is a problem. Anyone, or anything, can and will fail or be compromised.
so I put my trust in software instead. And by extension its developers. You’re saying of all people, we should trust some programmers above all else. You know, the “move fast and break things” guys.
As a programmer myself, this thought is both terrifying and hilarious.
As a fellow programmer: what kind of doomer take is this? I don’t have any opinion on the efficacy of blockchain technology, but all of us put an immeasurable amount of trust in software every single day. And it’s not like current banking practices are different in this regard, either: blockchain tech requires faith in the software implementation, while contemporary banking requires faith in banks and the software they use (including a borderline unmaintainable COBOL stack, from what I’ve heard).
because problems in the bank’s software are the bank’s responsibility. If they lose my money, it’s their responsibility to get it back. Cryptocurrencies are the exact opposite, by design. If you’re fucked, you’ee fucked. unless of course half the participants decide to fork, half don’t and you end up with two “currencies” out of thin air.
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.
How is the blockchain different from a read only ( write only once to be specific) DB that follows ACID?
Blockchains add cryptographic signing and limit actions based on those signatures.
Big words that mean nothing
To you maybe. Maybe other lemmings reading this understand them.
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.
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.
I’ll likely get downvoted but Polestar, the EV automaker that used to build performance variants for Volvo, uses blockchain to track minerals used in their EV’s.
Circulor Circulor’s blockchain technology enables tracing of extracted raw materials, particularly those with significant impact to communities and the environment.
I like that they use blockchain to ensure the minerals they use aren’t coming from negative sources but I’m sure someone will argue and say it’s stupid or that SQL can do the same.
Polestar uses contracts and audits to ethically source materials, not blockchain. It uses blockchain as a shitty append-only SQL database to (apparently) tell you where the materials came from. Let me quote from Circulor’s website:
data can be fed seamlessly to the blockchain via system integration using RESTful Web Service APIs with security and authentication protocols
So the chain is private and accessible only through a centralized, authenticated REST API. This is a traditional web application. A centralized append-only ledger is not even a blockchain.
So you’re saying Polestar is lying about using blockchain?
https://media.polestar.com/global/en/media/pressreleases/500098
Polestar enters strategic partnership with blockchain provider Circulor
Collaboration targets blockchain traceability and CO2e tracking
Progressive in scope and ambition, partnership enables unprecedented supply chain transparencyWell, I’m saying Circulor is most likely lying about their “blockchain” actually being a blockchain, or that they’ve pointlessly set up extra nodes to perform redundant work in order to avoid technically lying.
Blockchain is completely pointless without 3rd parties being part of the network. It’s like me saying I run a personal social network for just myself.
It must be exhausting being so cynical.
This guy ICTs … Keep up the great work!
@itsmect mentioned this too but it is wild how this community just hates cryptpo. There’s a good chance the instance you’re on accepts it for donations. Why would they do that if it is so unusable and bad? Open source everything except the money. Makes no sense.
Lol after this comment Bitcoin surpassed silvers market cap making it the 8th most valuable asset in the world. So glad people who don’t understand it and hate it don’t get to ruin it for the rest of us.
Open source everything except the money.
this is a truly perplexing statement. what about a currency that is controlled predominantly by early adopters has anything to do with open source?
Bitcoin Core is MIT licensed.
There is value in having core functions of society like social medla and money decentralized and running on open source software even though it will not fix wealth inequality.
Like the rest of society, some people get ridiculous wealth by luck of being at the right place at the right time. That is no reason to not have open source money.
There are many issues with bitcoin but that one I do not buy.
Bitcoin Core is MIT licensed.
the software is, but what relevance does that have to people using it as currency?
It is similar to open source social media. No single entity is in control. No single company or government that can use that power to control the users. For the end user the result is that bitcoin is more like paper cash than other digital money. You and only you are in control. It is extremely hard to stop you from sending or receiving money.
Just like with the fediverse, there is no Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to kick you out. With bitcoin there will be no Putin or Trump to freeze your bank account.
It is similar to open source social media.
thats federation, not open source. reddit was open source for a while, but not federated – and now we are here. whatsapp uses an open source protocol, but isnt federated – some asshole hawaiian (resident of hawaii, not the other option) controls it. Signal is open source, but won’t federate, its controlled by people who are way more into crypto than helping their users (moxie was actively against federation, using such examples as email to prove how federation is a failure)
100% that being open source is not enough. Just like the fediverse the protocol is really important.
But if the fediverse protocol and all servers and clients are proprietary we would be in a bad place.
The bitcoin protocol makes it possible for everyone to run a bitcoin core node very similar to that anyone can run a fediverse server.
Btw, that signal is actively working against federation makes me so incredibly disappointed…
we need the blockchainsaw
Man, I remember how back in 2009 we were hyped about this possible chance for a fairer world that a independent currency might bring. Guess we were quite wrong. :)
Not gonna claim any foresight.
But now in 2024. It dose seem rather insane to me. That no one predicted the energy problems of proof of work.
We were well aware of the co2 cost of computing.
I’ve read through this whole thread, and I still haven’t really come to any solid conclusions on it. I’m skeptical of crypto as a kind of idiotic speculative market, but that’s also every market ever. But then, the blockchain is apparently different from crypto, even though they’re both hype-laden marketing terms that have been completely fucked up. I think doing [redacted] with crypto is still potentially cool, though I think it still has limited anonymity, from what I’ve heard, and the speculative market also fucks it up.
Is “the blockchain” just like some nerd shit that’s for internal hospital ledgers, and beyond that it’s all kind of moot garbage, or what? Someone spoonfeed me.
One is the tech, the other is an example of a type of the tech. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square.
For most applications, this isn’t necessary:
There are some examples like in biotech/finance that I personally believe will require a blockchain to be truly “fair” at the end
I’m stupid, can you give me a like, more clear practical example of a good use of blockchain? Cause I get the sense that a good amount of this conflict, going off that flowchart, is going to be due to the evaluation of these situations as like, not needing to arise in the first place, or maybe like, a philosophical objection to the necessity of the technology, maybe. But I think a clearer example could help with this.
Git is not a blockchain. There is no distributed ledger; no consensus algorithm.
Ledger: repository database.
Consensus algorithm: repository access key.
Key word distributed ledger. Git repositories don’t talk to each other except when told to do so by users.
I shouldn’t need to explain why an access key is not a consensus algorithm. Seriously?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_ledger no need to talk automatically, only distribution necessary without single point of failure. say „synchronized“, if you mean realtime synchronized then not in git, but synchronized manually.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science) only need to determine which block to commit to database, access key do that. if meant in term of „which repo is real one“, signed commit optional feature, maybe that speak against it being blockchain because not by default.
You can use blockchain technology for a wide variety of things, just please no more cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Nothing particularly useful though. It’s a very slow, inefficient, trustless, immutable database. There really aren’t many good applications for that.
That highly depends on what blockchain implementation is being used and what it’s being used for. Blockchains used for craptocurrency are highly inefficient, which is the vast majority. But there are a small handful of specialized (proprietary) blockchains that are just efficient enough to be practical in their highly specific use case.
Such as?
Walmarts proprietary food tracking system based on Hyperledger Fabric that they partnered with IBM to tweak & implement, enabling customers to track ingredients back to the farms within seconds, improving food safety, optimizing supply chain operations, enabling efficient tracking of stores and distribution centers, enhancing procurement management by collecting data on product origins, batch numbers, and quality parameters through QR codes and e-certificates.
Hyperledger is just git but with fancy buzzwords. It’s like taking everything that makes blockchain, and then remove everything that makes blockchain special. All you have left is another centralized system.
It’s just IBM’s excuse to stay relevant.
That’s an incredibly wrong oversimplification.
Git doesn’t have any consensus mechanisms, chaincode execution or ledger, is just a history tracker & manipulator. Neither Git or Hyperledger Fabric are centralized, they’re both distributed.
Just because it’s for specialized non-financial related tasks using customizable specialized consensus mechanisms and often distributed only within a select few instead of being a big inefficient permissionless PoW/PoS craptocurrency blockchain with a bunch of clowns waisting energy mining nonsense doesn’t make it any less of a blockchain with smartcontacts and the works.with fancy buzzwords
That’s literally just all blockchain technology ever.
“Just blast them with buzzwords they don’t understand to distract from how fundamentally flawed our shit is and FOMO the shit out of them then rug pull every last dime from them” - NFTs.Git doesn’t need consensus mechanisms because it’s “permissioned”, like Hyperledger. All actors are known and given permission by some entity to contribute.
You can’t contribute to the Linux kernel unless your changes have been approved by someone trusted with permission. You cannot contribute to whatever Walmart is doing, because you haven’t acquired permission to do so.
Even if a particular coin has a finite number of possible coins, it exists in an unbounded universe of other coins.
What is this argument even supposed to mean? Just because other coins exist doesn’t have any effect on a particular coin’s value or use case. I’m not even pro crypto or trying to be a dick or anything, just totally lost.
Haha crypto sux. So funny.
Just don’t ask them to explain why.
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.
As a bitcoiner I couldn’t agree more, please don’t make another cryptocurrency.
You mean like one with actual practical value, one you can program, do actual finance with?
This is how tech people often think because they don’t understand economics and the value bitcoin provides. Bitcoin was distributed fairly, is stable, is scarce, and most importantly, is decentralized. Probably all “programmable” shitcoins have zero of those properties and the market reflects that.
I don’t even know where to begin. Btc was distrubuted as fairly as anything else, it’s not as stable as since we have stablecoins, scarcity means nothing, it’s decentralised as much as anything else.
Must I repeat that it just exists? You can’t do anything with it. It’s like comparing a pretty rock to a computer. Today all what btc does is pollute.
Btc was distrubuted as fairly as anything else
Ever heard of ethereum premining? Or which programmable shitcoin are you talking about?
it’s not as stable as since we have stablecoins
Ouch, fiat thinking. Bitcoin has a stable issuance schedule (changed over and over in eth for example), that’s what I’m talking about.
scarcity means nothing
Like I said, you don’t understand money or economics. Aristotle already knew that money has to be scarce.
it’s decentralised as much as anything else
I guess your dear leader Vitalik doesn’t exist. Or, again, which shitcoin?
Today all what btc does is pollute.
Haha, at least now I know you’re a proof of stake shitcoiner. Probably eth. Proof of work solved a problem proof of stake doesn’t: trustlessness.
You can’t do anything with it.
You know which currency you can do by far the most with? The USD. Are you bullish on that?
git is a blockchain, just without PoW
as hostile as people are to block chain due to NFT’s and bad implementations, the technology itself has its use cases. It’s a great solution for information exchange that requires verification and Immutation. This makes them perfect for ledgers or transaction networks.
It’s just there is so much bad PR regarding it everyone just discredits it. Not all of the block chain technologies are massively energy intensive per transaction, it’s just many of the cryptocurrencies use the most intensive one because it’s also arguably the most secure
the technology itself has its use cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RTC22Z2xI I would love to hear the counterarguments. video is <15 mins, academic setting.
His arguments are:-
We don’t need blockchain to stop problems from happening because we have a [super efficient, cheap, accessible, well constructed] legal system to correct those problems when they occur.
We don’t need distributed ledgers to store the data because we can just trust Amazon Web services.
That’s a unique interpretation
You wanted counter-arguments.
Trusting the legal system (9m23s,11m34s) and Amazon (12m35s) are vastly inferior to what blockchain offers.
I think it’s funny how most lemmy users are pro open source, pro privacy, pro digital rights; but once it comes to money all that is thrown out of the window and they happily get on their knees for paypal and the few other large players.
Yes, the current state of crypto is a mess. People are attracted by the promise of the big payout, rather then seeking an alternative payment system, making them ripe for scammers that promise the world, but in the end only rug “investors”. Even “functional” cryptos are often highly centralized, making them as bad as banks in terms of reliability. Almost none implement any privacy features, and if they do, its typically a tacked on afterthought.
But this does not make the original idea invalid. Will it ever live up to the promise of alternative money? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell if the issues that exist right now will be fixed.
but once it comes to money all that is thrown out of the window and they happily get on their knees for paypal and the few other large players.
I don’t think anybody likes paypal, Visa, Mastercard or any of the other major players. It’s just that blockchain “currencies” are much, much worse.
The idea of “Alternative Money” is a silly idea. Money has always been, and will always be connected to a state. The taxing and spending of the state is what gives money its value.
With cryptocurrencies, the “value” is only “greater fool” value. Someone is willing to pay 70k in dollars for a bitcoin because they think someone else is going to be willing to buy it from them for $71k at some point in the future. If it were a legitimate currency people wouldn’t bother checking its value in dollars because it would be useful in its own right. The only legitimate demand for cryptocurrencies is to pay ransom, and even then, the people who get the ransom immediately transform it back to a useful “fiat” currency.
Lemmy users are knowledgeable about open source, privacy, digital rights and knowledgeable enough to know that cryptocurrencies are a scam.
The idea that money is tied to the state is silly. Many things have been used as money, way before the concept of a “state” existed. Undeniably the money that lasted best across the passage of time is gold. Up until very recently it was the standard to settle cross country currency exchanges with. The value does not come from the state, but from people willing to exchange it for goods and services. Todays fiat money is created at will by a few select people that are not democratically elected. They get to decide how much they debase your savings for the “greater good”, while the ones that profit the most are those who control the source.
Most people do not care about their open source, privacy and digital rights, so they only hear and care about crypto when the price jumps or when it is used for crime. Everything else is simply not newsworthy. So you end up with a bunch of “investors” looking to make a quick buck and people who believe to solve crime with more laws (requesting ransoms is already illegal, has existed before crypto and currently gift cards are scammers favorite form of payment).
I never mentioned the price nor suggested investing, because quite frankly, I don’t care. What I do care about is giving the few big companies that control the internet as little data and influence as possible, and not processing payments through them is a really important step. So I keep about as much crypto as I keep cash in my wallet, and use it preferably when buying or selling.
The idea that money is tied to the state is silly.
No, it’s not. It’s historically accurate. All money is state money, always has been, always will be.
Many things have been used as money, way before the concept of a “state” existed.
Nope. Sorry, that’s wrong.
Undeniably the money that lasted best across the passage of time is gold.
Gold isn’t money. Gold is a commodity. Gold was used for jewelry, and as a bright shiny thing that didn’t tarnish had value because of that. People would sometimes exchange gold or things made of gold, but not gold coins. But, they’d also exchange other useful things: food, tools, cloth, etc. Gold coins were created by various states.
people willing to exchange it for goods and services
Never happened. Sure, there were gifts or donations, but it wasn’t X amount of gold for Y amount of grain. There were debts, but debts weren’t listed as a certain amount of gold, or a certain amount of money. Debts are old, money is new. Trading one thing for a certain “price” didn’t happen until coins existed, and coins didn’t exist until there was a state.
Todays fiat money is created at will by a few select people that are not democratically elected
Oh, blah blah blah. “Fiat money” is the only kind of money that has ever existed or will ever exist. It doesn’t much matter whether the government is “democratically elected” or not, currencies are created by and backed by a state and their ability to obtain a monopoly on the use of force within their area of influence. Most states with currencies are currently democratic, even if the structure of the US federal reserve is confusing to you.
They get to decide how much they debase your savings for the “greater good”, while the ones that profit the most are those who control the source.
More blah blah blah crypto nonsense.
Look, do some research on this stuff. Debt is a good place to start.
Gold being a commodity because its shiny and therefore has value is no different than “I want to use this coin to better protect my data and privacy”. Both are values attributed to a commodity. Also, “It may have intrinsic value (commodity money), or be legally exchangeable for something with intrinsic value (representative money), or only have nominal value (fiat money).”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
You are wrong that money has always existed as state issued. That isn’t true
Gold being a commodity because its shiny and therefore has value is no different than “I want to use this coin to better protect my data and privacy”.
It’s completely different. Gold is a commodity because it is inherently useful in itself. If someone invented a way to create gold out of thin air, people would continue to want gold because it’s pretty and shiny, and because it’s a very good electrical conductor that doesn’t tarnish. Crypto coins are only useful because everyone thinks that a greater fool will come along and pay as much or more. Everyone knows they have no inherent value, but so far there has always been a greater fool.
You are wrong that money has always existed as state issued. That isn’t true
Sure it is.
Hey by the way, after we had that discussion bitcoin surpassed silver to become the 8th most valuable asset by market cap on the entire planet More than coca cola and Pepsi combined.
Also no, money has existed outside of States and Countries before you should look into the Theory of Money and the history behind it
Open source has nothing to do with it. All the things you’ve mentioned is made for the good of the people. Crypto is not. Crypto is for the rich to get richer and exploit the poor.
Anonymous payments is not a good thing and throws any sort of fraud protection out the window. It’s just for libertarians trying to avoid taxes, and criminals trying to launder money. It’s not beneficial to hide from the government that you bought a extra fatty pizza.
Also nothing about Crypto is grass roots whatsoever unlike what you listed before. Crypto took off because it was inorganically and heavily pushed by very rich people knowing they can make a large profit.
Your instance is literally an archaic PoW token that causes a tremendous amount of harm to the environment and wastes energy so you can hide buying drugs. That’s not including the fact either that you have to go through exchanges who require identifying information to withdraw into non monopoly money.
Centralization is not always bad, this is libertarian logic.
Do you what to know the best part about xmr? You can kick and scream and bitch about me using it, but you can’t do jack shit about it. Maybe you can lobby at the side of paypal for more regulations, until the enshittification eventually catches up with you. glhf
It’s too late for you. As soon as you want to turn that monero into cash, you’re going to be asked a lot of questions by the exchanges and the tax man.
Crypto is a liberterian capitalist’s wet dream.
Tax-free, anonymous, with no accountability. Perfect for white washing corporate gain.
Just because it is “open-source” doesn’t mean it will be used for good.
Wait until you hear about cash! We should outlaw that immediately.
Can someone tell me how decentralized money became the enemy? It is decentralized currency that is like everything we stand for literally using mastodon protocol here.
it’s not the creators fault that the first thing the userbase did was centralize it onto these marketplaces lol. I’m reminding people that this is conceptually great but terrible implementation, across the board.
