Ask Lemmy

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:

• partially-anonymous participants
• service of all customers, even illegal ones
• immunity to court orders

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 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

Yes. Tracking stock shares would prevent dark pools and naked short selling to some degree.

That's also why it will never happen.

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.

blockchains are a solution looking for a problem.

Yes. Public append-only data structures. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_Transparency

Any application where you want to record something publicly without the possibility to alter it and in absence of a central authority.

A database requires a central authority so it doesn’t cover the same use cases.

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.

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/

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

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.

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.

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.

it's really difficult to be anonymous with a credit card

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

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.