• upto60percentoff@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    98
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    A distributed pseudonymous ledger for use by a centralised authority that will hold sensitive, personal information.

    I think the paper was right.

  • mhague@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 months ago

    I wonder how many sites will bother checking for Spanish pornpasses. Seems they’re just playing people and waiting for the inevitable, “Turns out the Internet isn’t respecting our kids, we need to ratchet up the control. We tried to give you a good deal though, right?”

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Bad research based on subjective opinion? I dont see how anyone would see blockchain in itself as useless. It provides a verification method without the use of a centralized system. Are all peer-to-peer systems useless now? Its not to be used as a tool for everything. It will not fix everything. I’d be more interested in research of what happens when reactionary practices are used. Such as using blockchain just because it’s the hot new trend without thoroughly thinking about the consequences of such actions. blockchain = bad / blockchain = good is not good enough, each implementation needs to be studied independently and answers derived from that. Replace blockchain with AI and it’s the same.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      It’s a way of verification and trust in a system where no one trusts any central authority, but does trust an algorithm. That seems too specific to ever actually be useful. People will end up relying on services or instructions that make the system digestible and usable for them, but as long as they still rely on those giving the instructions, the same problem arises.

      And when an example case is brought up, it’s always one central authority that is pushing the idea - and could achieve the same more easily and without power waste using a central server.

      • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        I mean, if one party pushes for use of blockchain, you’d just need to trust that specific system (algorithm, network…) and not explicitly the party pushing for it.

        I also wouldn’t call it power ‘waste’ since it does useful work - confirmation. It may be more inefficient compared to a centralized authority though. There are other ways of doing confirmations than proof-of-work as well, though each have their own drawbacks - just like a centralized system does,

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      I dont see how anyone would see blockchain in itself as useless.

      it’s chewing through tremendous amounts of power and water to improve…? what?

      I have yet to see the upside.

    • TootSweet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      One of the crucial differences between blockchain and Git is that Git is fully subserviant to humans and anything can be undone by humans.

      If your blockchain house title is stolen by a hacker, either the courts (rightfully) aren’t going to put any significance on the state of the blockchain and are going to say “yeah, you still own your house” (in which case what was the point of using blockchain in the first place rather than a SQL database or some such where mistakes and problems and fraud can be undone without cryptographically-hard obstacles in the way) or if in this hypothetical the Libertarian dystopia has progressed to cartoonish extremes, you’re just SOL and lost your house, which just isn’t even remotely realistic.

  • alekwithak@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    18
    ·
    2 months ago

    The Blockchain is amazingly useful, that’s why the establishment did their best to make sure people associate with incels and little monkey pictures to ruin its credibility. A banking system running on Blockchain is one where the Pentagon can’t lose trillions of dollars annually.

    • miridius@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      A banking system running on Blockchain

      Is an astronomically terrible idea. It:

      • would use as much electricity as an entire country
      • payments/transfers would be both much slower AND much more expensive than via a bank
      • would have no protection against fraud. You got scammed? Your money’s gone. You paid for something online and it never arrived? Too bad
      • would have no way to stop money laundering
      • would have no way to help people who forgot their password, they’d just lose their life savings permanently
      • would tie up a bunch of capital, preventing reinvestment and growth. There would be no way to get a bank loan to buy a house for example
      • the list goes on
      • abruptly8951@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        2 months ago

        Relative point to point

        • which Blockchain are we talking here? How does it compare to the current banking infrastructure?
        • again, which one? How does it compare to the current pricing?
        • escrow is a thing, someone can build up a PayPal equivalent on top of a Blockchain, the list goes on
        • the current system doesn’t do great here, some Blockchains makes it way more traceable, in fact
        • skill issue, but also solvable with a PayPal equivalent
        • not a fact, what does this even mean?
        • does it?

        You could say the Linux kernel is an astronomically terrible idea because it doesn’t do anything…but it is just the platform, the good comes from what people build on top of it that add all these quality of life features you miss

        Buy ydy

      • Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Just to elaborate here. You are describing one implementation of a blockchain that provides a cryptocurrency. Blockchain is literally just another form of a database. It’s just that it can contain traits that would allow the database to be shared and distributed unlike typical databases. Currently there are some companies that are utilizing blockchain for their inventory systems. They aren’t using any more energy than they would with a typical system. They are just doing it to keep an unchanging record of past transactions which helps with fraud and loss prevention.

        P.S. Money laundering using a system that is publicly distributed and has every transaction involving usd paired with an ID, social security number and enough pictures of your face to make a 3D model is genuinely idiotic.

      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        2 months ago

        You seem to have conflated blockchain technology with cryptocurrency. Most cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology, but that’s not it’s only use case. Literally every problem you have listed relates to crypto and not blockchain itself. Blockchain is just a ledger of transactions. A private company using it to say, keep track of their inventory, or track their payments, or use it for document control, can implement it however they want.

        • miridius@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          Ok so firstly you’re not the OP I was replying to, so neither of us know for certain whether they were talking about replacing the banking system with a decentralised currency vs keeping the existing centralised private banks and just having them use a blockchain as their database. I assumed the former because of their wording (“replace the banking system”), and because the latter offers no advantages that I know of.

          Secondly if you think a blockchain would offer some advantages over other more efficient write only databases, I’d be interested to know what those are, because to me if you’re not running a decentralised system then you’re only getting the downsides of blockchain (such as it being single threaded, slow, and space inefficient) without any of the upsides.

          For some background, I’m well aware of how both blockchains and crypto work, having been obsessed with them for a little while in 5 or 6 years ago like many of us were before becoming disillusioned. I’ve also got professional experience as a developer on both immutable databases and banking ledgers.

      • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        2 months ago

        Bitcoin only consumes the energy people put in it. It literaly would adjust to only consume 20W if that’s what was available. But that also means it can absord an infinite amount of excess energy if necessary

    • vxx@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      How are they going to implement it, I guess by linking your identity to your porn-blockchain key.

      I guess there’s no better way to track your habits.

  • djreefa@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    2 months ago

    HA! you think the pentagon is in control? You think the people responsible for this debacle are actually following orders? These are all absconders and expats who are doing all this garbage. Pentagon is seemingly powerless to stop them.

  • makeasnek@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    You can downvote this because you’re mad that blockchain exists, for those who don’t know the actual real life use case: Bitcoin has been around for 15 years, it is a blockchain. It has a real life use case.

    I can send money, with my android phone, from my couch, in my underwear, to anybody else on planet earth who also has a phone and a halfway reliable internet connection. The transaction is not only sent, but actually settles, in under a second with Bitcoin lightning. And I pay pennies in fees. No going to the bank, no bank holidays, no paying wire fees or making sure their bank can talk to my bank. It’s just simple and instant and it works. It doesn’t matter if they are a dissident or if their country doesn’t allow women to own bank accounts, the transaction goes through anyways. In many countries, their app can also instantly convert that BTC into the currency of their choice and deposit it to their bank account. That’s assuming they have access to stable banking infrastructure, which billions of people do not.

    Bitcoin has delivered on its promise of being a currency with a capped supply (21 million coins) and transaction system consistently for 15 years without a single hack, without a single hour of downtime, without a single hiccup. It just works.

    You can argue that Bitcoin isn’t better than <insert local currency and transmission system>. You can argue that there are “better” solutions. But it has a clear use case. I use it on a daily basis and it has a fifteen year trend of continued growth whether you are looking at total market cap (bigger than Sweden’s GDP), number of nodes, number of transactions, whatever.

    Most everything negative you’ve heard about Bitcoin is either hyperbolic or about other crypto. FTX wasn’t Bitcoin. Crypto coins collapsing or people being rugged? Not Bitcoin. For more information, FAQs, and myth-busting, check out http://bitcoin.rocks