Can I use the Blockchain to store infinity messages? - page 2.

nullius

copper member

Activity: 630

Merit: 2610

If you don’t do PGP, you don’t do crypto!

Quote from: afriace on March 25, 2021, 08:59:49 PM

Hi All,

I was thinking if its possible to run a website where everybody can leave a message/story on the blockchain.

If I understand the blockchain correctly, the data storage is decentralized and theoretically the blockchain could run infinitely.

So maybe people in the future can read what we did in our time

Thanks in advance if someone bothered to give me an answer.

Nas

It depends. Do you have infinite money to pay infinite fees to store your infinite spam in the world’s slowest, most inefficient, most expensive database?

My gentle suggestion for you:

Go to https://ipfs.io/ (off-topic for discussion here, unless your use case relates to Bitcoin).
Don’t use hammers to cut wood, or saws to drive in nails.
Understand that the blockchain is not magic pixie dust that can be sprinkled onto any problem. The blockchain is a tool. For some jobs, this tool is better than any other—the best tool ever invented! For others, it is the wrong tool for the job.

HTH, HAND.

willoweb7

newbie

Activity: 27

Merit: 0

Maybe infinite was meant figuratively if you read anything by Marvin Minski you know that an "infinite machine" is not really infinite at all. It should have been called perpetual as infinite is just a value-judgment (that is an ethical injunction) rather than an actual calculable value (something quantifiable as opposed to something of ethical consequence).

NotATether

legendary

Activity: 1568

Merit: 6660

bitcoincleanup.com / bitmixlist.org

Quote from: afriace on March 25, 2021, 08:59:49 PM

If I understand the blockchain correctly, the data storage is decentralized and theoretically the blockchain could run infinitely.

It's not actually infinite.

The blockchain is located on each node's hard drive. Many people are running nodes using hard drives like the ones you have, so, if we let a large amount of messages get written on the blockchain, here node's will run out of disk space.

Also, real people who are trying to send money now have to wait longer for their transactions to confirm because of a bunch of message "transactions" in the mempool (unconfirmed transaction waiting list).

pooya87

legendary

Activity: 3472

Merit: 10611

Quote from: afriace on March 25, 2021, 08:59:49 PM

So maybe people in the future can read what we did in our time

It is possible but the real question you need to ask yourself is "wouldn't a blog or a website achieve the same thing?" You could write "messages" in that blog/website and it will remain on the internet for a very long time so that people in the future can read what you wrote.
The difference however is that a blog/website is designed to "store messages" while bitcoin blockchain is not.

bitmover

legendary

Activity: 2324

Merit: 6006

bitcoindata.science

Quote from: afriace on March 25, 2021, 08:59:49 PM

Hi All,

I was thinking if its possible to run a website where everybody can leave a message/story on the blockchain.

If I understand the blockchain correctly, the data storage is decentralized and theoretically the blockchain could run infinitely.

The problem with this idea is that all the messages, running and recording infinitely, will be replicated to all bitcoin nodes.

You will need mine each block with useless "infinity" messages. And mining a block costs energy, and energy is a world resource. You are basically wasting world resources. This is why ranochigo said it isn't cheap. You are going to pay for all that energy.

Alternatively, there are people storing messages is not in the blockchain, but they use lightning network to communicate

https://www.coindesk.com/how-bitcoins-lightning-can-be-used-for-private-messaging

Quote

Jager told CoinDesk:

“Lightning is a peer to peer network in which anyone can participate. There is no central entity that has the ultimate power to decide on [what] users are allowed to communicate.”

Private messaging is a hot topic in the digital age, as it’s easy for bad actors to intercept messages that aren’t encrypted. Apps such as Signal and Wire give users more privacy, but private messaging is still far from everywhere.

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2394

Merit: 5531

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: afriace on March 25, 2021, 08:59:49 PM

I was thinking if its possible to run a website where everybody can leave a message/story on the blockchain.

It is possible but I wouldn't advice it since it adds unnecessary bloat to the blockchain aside from the limitations explained above.
In addition to that, here's a reply from stackexhange about OP_RETURN: Maximum size of data Bitcoin OP_RETURN tx can handle?

ranochigo

legendary

Activity: 2982

Merit: 4193

Your idea isn't new there are sites that can already help their user to embed messages into the Blockchain.

It is not cheap however. Transaction fees are fairly huge and even for 1 KB of data, it'll take up to 10K satoshis. Each transaction can have up to 80bytes of arbitrary data in the form of OP_return. If you were to split the file, it'll take quite a few transactions which will inflate your costs significantly regardless.

FinneysTrueVision

sr. member

Activity: 1680

Merit: 379

Top Crypto Casino

I think Bcash used to have something like this called memo.cash. With Bitcoin you can do the same thing but there is a limit to how much arbitrary data can be included in a transaction. Your message will be stored on the blockchain forever but I am not sure why it is necessary to do this. It is not what the Bitcoin blockchain is intended to do and it creates bloat.

Charles-Tim

legendary

Activity: 1512

Merit: 4795

Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform

Literally anything can be stored on blockchain, but stored not for privacy, but for easy accessibility and robustness internet. This seem more like young for now, but there are more approaches towards achieving decentralized internet (web 3.0) which will make your aim fulfilled. In this case, there will be miners that will make use of their computers or maybe other powerful equipments to store the data on blockchain which will be available for public to access.

afriace

newbie

Activity: 74

Merit: 0

Hi All,

I was thinking if its possible to run a website where everybody can leave a message/story on the blockchain.

If I understand the blockchain correctly, the data storage is decentralized and theoretically the blockchain could run infinitely.

So maybe people in the future can read what we did in our time

Thanks in advance if someone bothered to give me an answer.

Nas

Topic: Can I use the Blockchain to store infinity messages? - page 2. (Read 403 times)