2minutebitcoin on Nostr: It is hard to see a lot of use for some kind of general “blockchain technology” ...
It is hard to see a lot of use for some kind of general “blockchain technology” outside of its application in Bitcoin as a currency and store of value.
In Bitcoin, the blockchain is a way of solving the double-spending problem without privileging any party as to the creation of new units or of the establishment of a consistent history.
This is an extremely costly and complicated way of maintaining an accounting ledger.
How often does one really need to do accountancy in this way?
It is only a good idea when the game being played is so important that no one can safely be put in the position of referee.
There are not a lot of things that one would really need that for, but there is a good argument to be made that a blockchain is a reasonable alternative to the monetary system under which the rest of the world is currently oppressed, at a minimum the monetary system at a geopolitical level.
There are no applications of blockchains which do not involve
a double-spending problem.
A blockchain that was used for an application with no double-spending problem is nothing more than a database, so you could just replace it with a distributed hash table.
People have also used the blockchain for timestamping. This only works because Bitcoin has become well-known as a point of reference. If you had a need for timestamps, you certainly wouldn’t invent a blockchain to do it.
-- an excerpt from It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money (2016), its 2-minute version can be found here: https://2minutebitcoin.org/blog/bitcoin-is-about-the-money-not-the-blockchain-technology
In Bitcoin, the blockchain is a way of solving the double-spending problem without privileging any party as to the creation of new units or of the establishment of a consistent history.
This is an extremely costly and complicated way of maintaining an accounting ledger.
How often does one really need to do accountancy in this way?
It is only a good idea when the game being played is so important that no one can safely be put in the position of referee.
There are not a lot of things that one would really need that for, but there is a good argument to be made that a blockchain is a reasonable alternative to the monetary system under which the rest of the world is currently oppressed, at a minimum the monetary system at a geopolitical level.
There are no applications of blockchains which do not involve
a double-spending problem.
A blockchain that was used for an application with no double-spending problem is nothing more than a database, so you could just replace it with a distributed hash table.
People have also used the blockchain for timestamping. This only works because Bitcoin has become well-known as a point of reference. If you had a need for timestamps, you certainly wouldn’t invent a blockchain to do it.
-- an excerpt from It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money (2016), its 2-minute version can be found here: https://2minutebitcoin.org/blog/bitcoin-is-about-the-money-not-the-blockchain-technology