Topic: "Blockchain technology will pervade, but not bitcoin." - page 2. (Read 8926 times)

thats not decentralized. sure tesla may be incentivized to keep a blockchain ledger going in that instance but i am not nor is some random dude in africa. and if the incentives aren't entirely democratic, corruption etc will be pervasive.

It seems to me that bitcoin as a unit of value and the blockchain are inseparable. Saying you can use blockchain technology without bitcoin is sort of like saying you can use stock market technology without listed companies.

The ROM dump will give you a single Tesla Motors mining license. By sending a sudden flood of TM-blocks with your TM-license ID you'll identify yourself as a thief and fraud. Your GPU scheme will collapse and all Tesla owners will be made aware of that.

The rest of your message where you switch back to talking about Bitcoin and anarchy can simply serve as an entertainment when contrasted with a nearby message:

It is just above: Flashman's example of a blockchain specific to cars made by Tesla Motors. The incentive would be tracking of ownership and detecting counterfeits. I just don't know much about those cars besides that they are electric, expensive and a status symbol.

give me one example of how anyone is incentivized in a decentralized manner to support the blockchain with no bitcoin reward.

So stepping into the persona of a Russian mafia hacker, I'd rent a Tesla, dump the ROM to steal the ID, and knowing that the crappy low power SOC they are using manages a kilohash at best, and there's only a few hundred online at any one time, I'd gin up something with a few GPUs and probably be able to not just 50%, more like 300% the network for minimal cost. Using other avenues, I can probably deduce which cars are fully charged by length of time on the net, and direct the ops guys as to the best ones to steal, who knows, even where they are by IP location, and owners address is probably no trouble for me....

Bitcoin works because of its assumption of anarchy, it's trustless, because nobody can be trusted, you start adding trust back into it, "oh that node must be okay, it has the right token", then you add points of failure. Then too, who is the fountain of trust? Something central.

The innovation is the whole thing, and how it interlocks and supports itself. You want a tank but don't want tracks in it, it's a sitting duck, okay, lose the turret, put in a convertible top instead, it's no longer a tank, it doesn't do what a tank can do, it's too heavy? Make it out of cardboard instead of steel? sorry, not a tank again. As a tank, it takes another multimillion dollar tank to take it on, with any substantial variations, you can take it on with a kitchen knife.

Characterizing Bitcoin developers as anarchists is a red herring. They don't make those sorts of irrational arguments. Besides, you are talking about Smart Contracts and that concept was pioneered years ago by fellowtraveler.

Issuing licenses for mining has been discussed on this forum many, many times. For Bitcoin it is unacceptable because of its anarchist origins. But for any non-anarchist endeavor it is a viable choice. Each Tesla car could do a little mining while being charged, with the certificate of ownership stored somewhere in its management computer.

It would work fine if the mining was licensed (with public key crypto) by the Tesla manufacturer. Such distributed database could then outlive the Tesla manufacturer itself and be invulnerable to legal attacks in various localities.

Issuing licenses for mining has been discussed on this forum many, many times. For Bitcoin it is unacceptable because of its anarchist origins. But for any non-anarchist endeavor it is a viable choice. Each Tesla car could do a little mining while being charged, with the certificate of ownership stored somewhere in its management computer.

I'm not very familiar with Tesla cars, but I presume that they already have some sort of public key infrastructure installed in them to verify signatures on their software upgrades.

Okay, imagine some piddling little alt, worth satoshis, market cap of a few thousand bucks, a couple of gigahash of diehards hashing on it.... now tell me why it would not be a good idea to use that blockchain to store cryptographic proof of ownership records for, say, Tesla cars...

. The consensus record can contain any kind of data. In Bitcoin the data are the records of transference
of value. But it could be easily be any other data, and the incentive to maintain it
would not necessarily have to be private profit, but could arise from the internal
needs of some organization for instance, and so the custom blockchain would be
restricted to that organization. I'm pretty sure various companies and organizations
are experimenting with this right now.

I have a little trouble deciphering the analogy. To me Bitcoin (and by extension,
cryptocurrency, or crypto-something) is a network  comprising of nodes that both
produce and maintain a record of their communication. It could be said that they
both compose and uphold a common reality on which they all agree. The consensus
record is organized as a linked list of proven work-units (the blockchain). The consensus
record can contain any kind of data. In Bitcoin the data are the records of transference
of value. But it could be easily be any other data, and the incentive to maintain it
would not necessarily have to be private profit, but could arise from the internal
needs of some organization for instance, and so the custom blockchain would be
restricted to that organization. I'm pretty sure various companies and organizations
are experimenting with this right now.

I've heard that phrase thousands of times, and I've thought about it enough to be sure I don't agree.
Bitcoin is necessary for the blockchain to exist, without the incentive, there are no miners and there is no network to rely on.
If you assert that the blockchain will pervade, you necessarily imply bitcoin as a currency will too.

What do you think?

I'll try an analogy...

It's the early 1800s and hot air balloons are getting popular, and the possibilities of air transport begin to blow minds.... annnd you get a section of the theoretically "thinking" classes go apeshit about baskets, (gondolas)  "yay, baskets, imagine what all you can put in the baskets, baskets is where it's at, corner the market in baskets!!!" and you ask if it isn't rather the portable high density liquid or gaseous fuels, the burners of same or the envelope materials that are maybe the most important, as the source of buoyancy, the means of leaving the ground, annnnd they'll be like "No, baskets! Look what you can put in them, we'll drag them around with horses..." ... and you'll be shaking your head and thinking they missed the point, things can be transported, but the medium of transport is the egg laying golden goose, not the damn egg carton.

The blockchain technology does not belong exclusively to bitcoin which means anybody can use it

That's the way I see it. I get the idea that all these blockchain bandwagon jumpers have this notion that they can create a new blockchain and that all the SHA-256 ASIC owners will joyously switch over their hash to it for free, just because it's cool.

I'll try an analogy...

It's the early 1800s and hot air balloons are getting popular, and the possibilities of air transport begin to blow minds.... annnd you get a section of the theoretically "thinking" classes go apeshit about baskets, (gondolas)  "yay, baskets, imagine what all you can put in the baskets, baskets is where it's at, corner the market in baskets!!!" and you ask if it isn't rather the portable high density liquid or gaseous fuels, the burners of same or the envelope materials that are maybe the most important, as the source of buoyancy, the means of leaving the ground, annnnd they'll be like "No, baskets! Look what you can put in them, we'll drag them around with horses..." ... and you'll be shaking your head and thinking they missed the point, things can be transported, but the medium of transport is the egg laying golden goose, not the damn egg carton.

Engines...

Did a network of railways pre-exist the steam locomotive? did a network of asphalt roads pre-exist the motor vehicle? did the internet pre-exist commercial mini-computer adoption? NO, because all those were not especially fucking useful without the engines that demanded and supported their development and use.

So to me, the vaunted blockchain applications that seem to completely ignore the incentivisation to attract hashpower to secure and enable them, make as much sense as talking about trainless railways, vehicle free roads and computer free internet.


Flash.

I don't see why both can't suceed, but because bitcoin is two things it gives it double the chance to IMO. The only thing that is hampering btc as a currency is the price instability, but it is also this instability which makes it potentially a good investment.