Author

Topic: Private Blockchains. (Read 433 times)

legendary
Activity: 1418
Merit: 1002
March 30, 2016, 09:11:55 PM
#8
I notice that the Australian Securities exchange  have selected Digital Asset Holdings to develop a private blockchain for settlement purposes.
www.asx.com.au
http://digitalasset.com/

What are some of the issues with a private blockchains? 


Listen to what this VC says about private/public chains (about 5 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9CjWz2N5Hs&feature=youtu.be&t=58m22s

Says it's a good way for a company to 'test the waters' out on a private chain first, then if needs be move to a public/global chain.

NEM(public) is somewhat doing this with mijin(private).
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
March 30, 2016, 09:02:39 PM
#7
Thanks for that. I’ll have read of it.
One thing I don’t understand is how a “hyperledger” works…do you understand it?
From the link above…
Quote
Others, like Hyperledger, predetermine a primary rotation for the entities that will order transactions and closely monitor behavior for erroneous or malicious activity (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, ‘PBFT’).
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
March 30, 2016, 07:21:19 PM
#6
If you can find no real world Nash equilibrium use cases, the system probably has no value.  Read my following posts and you'll see what I mean:

What about company shares which are freely traded on exchanges. System of extortion by default?

The network effect is a double edged sword that causes this extortion/coercion in a system that isn't permissionless.  In Bitcoin, you can go straight to the system itself and pluck the money off the tree.  It never ends, you can always do this.  It has removed friction from the economic system by removing the ability of the middle men to insert themselves and extort you.  The fact that it has permanent coin turnover means Bitcoin is essentially always running a decentralized exchange in the background to allow you to always bypass humans and you will always be paying fair market price.  In permissioned systems, that's not the case.  Most people don't even realize Bitcoin has it's own decentralized exchange, but it does.

Since, like I said, money is a unitary instrument, an engineering problem to create a decentralized price peg so that you can say 1 hat = 1/10th a chicken, the entire purpose of money's existence is to become a monopoly.  If the money is built by design as a permissioned ledger, it's usefulness to any person or nation on earth will be minimal and negative if it was to become a monopoly because it's too wide open to abuse.  It will either not be adopted at all, or scammers will try to force it onto people to extort them.  A permissionless system would have mutual value for all parties involved.

As for the company stock example, there are few companies that make things all humans are required to have.  When they arise, they're usually referred to as "monopolies" and broken up by laws, pitchforks, whatever.  The company isn't exactly the same category as "permissionless currency".  The main reason a country would want to resist a real permissionless currency, is so they can do things like devalue it to raise their exports, thus cheating other nations via currency wars.  There is a Nash equilibrium in every country adopting the permissionless currency to prevent each other from doing this.



Ok IOTa is permissioned ledger. So what? Why does it matter?

It matters because any system that isn't a permissionless ledger is a system of extortion by default.  Somewhat explained in the following quote, then real world example after:

In the Austrian school of money, "money" is required to have scarcity, but because money is a unitary instrument, it's also required to have accessibility.  Gold accomplishes this permissionless and unitary system because most any nation can acquire it, even if they have to go straight down a few miles.

When I say, "unitary instrument", it's because you have to have a price peg in which all other objects are pegged to so that you can say "one chicken = 1/10th a hat".  Bitcoin follows and actually improves upon gold in this case of accessibility.  It can be acquired wherever you want, and the accessibility never stops due to permanent coin turnover via transaction fee block reward.  If there is no accessibility, there can be no unitary price peg, and the entire thing just turns into an extortion scheme, so here we are in this thread.

The way Bitcoin is designed is honestly somewhat of a work of art by someone with the understanding of a renaissance man.  CFB either did not understand why that coin turnover was required or did not care because he wanted to issue an IPO at all costs.

Real world example

Let's say North Korea is sanctioned by every nation on earth for smoking too much marijuana.  They're now cut off from all international trade and economically suffering.  If Bitcoin is the world reserve currency, they can use their technological know how to start mining Bitcoins because it's a permissionless system.  They now have a currency they can use to buy food and supplies from a semi-friendly but not complete ally proxy nation like China.

If IOTA was the world reserve currency, they do not have a permissionless entry point into the system at all because Bitcoin is a system of permanent coin turnover and IOTA isn't because it's a permissioned ledger.  They're now forced to attempt to trade something with China to acquire IOTAs, but maybe they don't have anything China wants so they can acquire no coins at all and they're completely locked out (obviously not a permissionless decentralized currency). 

Their best case scenario is, since China only sees them as useful idiots and not a real ally, they will then charge them with a markup for coins, along with another markup for whatever proxy goods they want through them.  Let's not forget the Come from Beyond day 0 extortion tax either since he cornered the market by design at release.  Thus, you have now been extorted three times in this chain of command due to it being a permissioned ledger and not a real decentralized currency.

legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
March 30, 2016, 07:10:17 PM
#5
What are some of the issues with a private blockchains?  

Is this a serious question?  Private chains/federated chains = counterparty risk, central point of failure, no anti-fragile attributes, no reason for anyone to keep the system up and running if it's no longer profitable or beneficial to the federated administrator.  The list goes on?  The fact that the "trusted parties" can cease functionality of the chain at will makes it impossible to use as a real store of value unless the counterparty is maybe the government and you're already forced or held hostage to "trust" them.  But those systems already exist...it's called central banker IOU notes.

Using the blockchain to recreate legacy financial systems is a Rube Goldberg machine.
I don’t see these things  as necessarily  an issue for an entity like the ASX though. The members would run nodes, and as it can’t be changed it could not be the only record.
Some of these  things are touched on  here.



https://digitalasset.com/faqs.html
x13
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Things are called shit for a reason, dear.
March 30, 2016, 05:25:35 PM
#4
I think private blockchains are similar to intranets. The blockchain is only used within a closed network where only particular units or persons are able to participate. For instance, a company with hundreds of subsidiaries world wide. Each subsidiary is a client and / or runs a node and has to confirm transactions of each other subsidiary / client / node.
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
March 30, 2016, 05:13:46 PM
#3
What are some of the issues with a private blockchains?  

Is this a serious question?  Private chains/federated chains = counterparty risk, central point of failure, no anti-fragile attributes, no reason for anyone to keep the system up and running if it's no longer profitable or beneficial to the federated administrator.  The list goes on?  The fact that the "trusted parties" can cease functionality of the chain at will makes it impossible to use as a real store of value unless the counterparty is maybe the government and you're already forced or held hostage to "trust" them.  But those systems already exist...it's called central banker IOU notes.

Using the blockchain to recreate legacy financial systems is a Rube Goldberg machine.
legendary
Activity: 2002
Merit: 1051
ICO? Not even once.
March 30, 2016, 05:05:35 PM
#2
As long as it's properly decentralized I can't think of any major issue.
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
March 30, 2016, 05:03:52 PM
#1
I notice that the Australian Securities exchange  have selected Digital Asset Holdings to develop a private blockchain for settlement purposes.
www.asx.com.au
http://digitalasset.com/

What are some of the issues with a private blockchains? 
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