is there any legitimate use of blockchains?
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People will easily list a lot of credible legitimate usecases
that are hypothetical
and have remained hypothetical for 18 years.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Being on Lemmy, I like the idea of decentralized and permissionless stuff, including money. The problem I have with crypto is that they're either clearly scams (Trumpcoin, Melaniacoin etc) or they were not intended as a scam but the market fails to fairly price them because they speculate (e.g. Bitcoin).
Also I don't understand why people keep insisting in buying Bitcoin when the energy to "produce" it is enormous and is responsible for a lot of CO2 emissions when there are greener cryptocurrencies.
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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.
Honestly, cryptocurrency is an example. Some cryptocurrencies don't have mining and so aren't all that bad, and there is a use case for it, even if most of what we see today is hype.
Another example might be something like a way of proving something happened before a certain time. Like how people can send themselves sealed letters in the mail, and claim that the postmark proves that it was sealed before that date. If you put cryptographic signatures only into a public blockchain, that could be used as evidence that the document existed at that time.
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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.
The lack of a trusted central authority is key. If you have at least one authority you can trust just barely enough, the whole idea of a blockchain collapses. There needs to be an urgent trust crisis for this to work.
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Being on Lemmy, I like the idea of decentralized and permissionless stuff, including money. The problem I have with crypto is that they're either clearly scams (Trumpcoin, Melaniacoin etc) or they were not intended as a scam but the market fails to fairly price them because they speculate (e.g. Bitcoin).
Also I don't understand why people keep insisting in buying Bitcoin when the energy to "produce" it is enormous and is responsible for a lot of CO2 emissions when there are greener cryptocurrencies.
@tired_n_bored @Deestan the mining aspect is what makes it secure.,. In theory Proof of Stake is greener, but once someone archive 51% of stake he became the owner of the network, while with proof of work the cost of securing the network is permanent... Saying this, i do agree that bitcoin energy spend is ab issue...
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Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
wrote last edited by [email protected]An easy way for employers to verify that your certifications are authentic.
Tangentially, a lot of scientists do research on topics that do not see application in everyday life immediately.
I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I remember reading articles on how some research bear fruit - ones with huge impacts - only decades later.
To stop research into a topic because there is no practical application now is short-sighted IMO.
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@tired_n_bored @Deestan the mining aspect is what makes it secure.,. In theory Proof of Stake is greener, but once someone archive 51% of stake he became the owner of the network, while with proof of work the cost of securing the network is permanent... Saying this, i do agree that bitcoin energy spend is ab issue...
@tired_n_bored @Deestan I think monero made the right choice of making ASICs useless and be mined on traditional PCs... Anyone can join the mining at anytime what makes mining farms (like the ones with ASICs or GPUs) way less common
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Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
Basically, no. At least, not until everyone has the knowledge and resources to run their own compute, which is never.
Decentralized systems must be accessible and maintainable by the majority. Blockchain is neither of these. It's also why the internet moved to platforms rather than remaining as many niche forums.
Additionally, network effects and economies of scale make decentralized systems difficult. See Lemmy. Even here, World is the biggest because it's simpler and easier to do everything in one place. People don't have to make decisions. People don't have to do their own work.
Basically, human psychology and economics suck
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@tired_n_bored @Deestan the mining aspect is what makes it secure.,. In theory Proof of Stake is greener, but once someone archive 51% of stake he became the owner of the network, while with proof of work the cost of securing the network is permanent... Saying this, i do agree that bitcoin energy spend is ab issue...
That's true, but also the algorithm plays an important role. Do we really need ASIC farms in order to secure the network? Ideally, and how it was thought at the beginning, the individual nodes should also be responsible for its validation, using consumer grade hardware.
There are greener algorithms like the Monero's. Also Nano uses something called "block lattice" in order to secure the network, with close to 0 required energy
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That's true, but also the algorithm plays an important role. Do we really need ASIC farms in order to secure the network? Ideally, and how it was thought at the beginning, the individual nodes should also be responsible for its validation, using consumer grade hardware.
There are greener algorithms like the Monero's. Also Nano uses something called "block lattice" in order to secure the network, with close to 0 required energy
@tired_n_bored I totally agree with that (I did made a thread on my last reply where I states monero approach), not sure about nano tho.. Dont it have the same 51% issue as PoS?
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Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
Maybe Odysee and monero????
Those are the only BlockChain technology platforms I can think off -
The lack of a trusted central authority is key. If you have at least one authority you can trust just barely enough, the whole idea of a blockchain collapses. There needs to be an urgent trust crisis for this to work.
It’s also a problem of ownership. For exchanges between banks, a blockchain is better because no bank would be the owner of the database.
Plus it’s safer because altering a database is usually trivial while altering a blockchain is virtually impossible.
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Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
Not a scam but maybe over engineered and difficult to sell for most uses? Theoretically blockchain could be used for all sorts of applications, but apart from a bunch of startups it's not taken off. Maybe it's just not compelling financially for businesses.
For an established business or organisation It'd be a big leap to switch over to blockchain but the benefits are not immediately relisable or tangible in a business setting. In a world where short term profits already trump long term investment, it does make sense that business are not rushing to adopt blockchain.
I'd think of it like this - companies don't have the foresight to invest in IT and security; they slash IT budgets, use equipment until the last possible moment deferring expensive upgrades and don't put money in to protect themselves from cyber crime. For example, big banks quite literally still use systems that are decades out of date.
If companies behave like that already why would they invest in switching to the block chain? The benefits are long term and not easily understood. It's hard to sell investment in a technology on blockchain when most people struggle to understand what it is, let alone what it's benefits may be.
Most people only know about it because of cryptocurrency but even then don't really understand how it works, and that usage scenario is world's away from the other theoretical uses. Cryptocurrency makes money because it's a speculative asset (at the moment at least). Other uses at best prevent fraud and companies are generally useless at trying to prevent fraud. When they do, it's focused around the actual transactions not the ledger. They don't see someone "cooking the books" being the priority problem to solve.
Data security and verifying is not a priority for companies. If companies are spending money at the moment, it's short term nonsense such as the AI bubble. And public organisations seldom have the imagination or freedom/resource to be an early adoptor a new technology.
So, no I don't think it's a scam. I think it's something that is difficult to implement and sell in the real world. And all people can see at present is "crypto currency goes up in value" not the actual underlying benefit of cryptocurency as a currency. Crytpcurrency is doing well currently because it is scarce and has become an asset bubble, not because the blockchain itself is the star.
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Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It's not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
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.
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Could this be a true voting record? Votes would be transparent, but as you say, unalterable.
wrote last edited by [email protected]
I appreciate that when you find a relevant xkcd, the explainxkcd page also has relevant information to the discussion:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2030%3A_Voting_Software
When the reporter follows the interview up with a mention of blockchain technology, Megan and Cueball reflexively tell the reporter to avoid any voting system using the technology at all costs. Blockchain is a relatively new technology that is intended to solve some computer security issues by making it difficult to doctor old data. However, in the process of solving the old computer security issues, it has introduced new computer security issues that have not yet been ironed out; for instance, it doesn't solve input fraud issues, only data-doctoring fraud, so if a program caused the voting machine to record a vote for candidate B whenever a vote for candidate A was cast (such a program could be uploaded to the voting machines through USB, or through the internet which the voting machine must be connected to for blockchain), blockchain would not prevent it. Blockchain has also had a large number of high-profile scams, thefts, and implementations with critical security holes. Thus, Megan and Cueball may not trust this blockchain solution because of this history.
Blockchain is really great at preventing post-facto data changes. With blockchain you can somewhat guarantee that no one comes in after the election and changes the votes on the machines. (Unless they're handling the blockchain in a stupid fashion, for example without the distribution.) But you cannot prevent tampering with the machines themselves, such as making them record votes that didn't happen, or tampering the data before it's written to the blockchain.
Also, the security issues that Blockchain solves could also be solved via write-once memory, which would be more secure and more difficult to doctor.
Most computer security specialists are more worried about programs that randomly and/or deliberately misreport a vote, than people changing the votes after they're already recorded, so blockchain would solve an issue that most computer security specialists are less worried about, while causing new issues (the perpetual internet connection among them).
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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.
Swift exists though? There is really no need for Credit cards or other payment processors.
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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.
Good summary, a few additions from my side:
- Being public is not required. E.g. banks could form an internal block chain shared only with other banks.
- Blockchains are a database. An immutable and usually distributed database.
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However git can be considered to be based on blockchain so in that sense, absolutely.
How would that work?
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Swift exists though? There is really no need for Credit cards or other payment processors.
Why can't I use swift to buy anything of eg steam? I genuinely don't know but there has to be a reason.
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Just a big scam.
The only remotely valid use case I ever head was for a Write Once Read Many (worm) audit log but regular databases are still a better fit.
That's effectively what git does.
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However git can be considered to be based on blockchain
That’s really stretching the definition of blockchain.
Blockchain is about providing consensus without relying on a central authority. If there are two variants of the same blockchain, anyone should be able to independently verify which one is the real one. Git doesn’t do this.
