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Is the blockchain an interesting innovation, aside from cryptocurrencies ?
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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Blockchains come in many forms, the ones you are thinking of are what are called Proof of Work chains, these uses a kind of cryptographic race to secure thier data and use a TON of waste energy as a result. Def not a fan either.
The growing popularity and interest in chains is around forms of Proof Of Stake, these use other internal protocol mechanisms to secure the network and work to run the cryptographic functions as efficiently as possible. Unsurprisingly the fastest blockchains are proof of stake and power wise are similar to traditional applications in utilization.
You don't need any of these networks if you don't want to use them, fundamentally, they arent even networks, they are cryptographic messaging systems. How the data is sent and processed is incidental, you could work out a bitcoin block on pen and paper if you wanted. This concept has extended to a cryptographic tool called Zero Knowledge Proofs, these will be part of next generation identity verification systems and is a fundamental of the W3C standard around DiD, the whole point is for disconnected attestation.
Maybe this is my “too old for this shit” moment, but this all just sounds like convoluted non-sense that’s never going to go anywhere. We still have SMS and ATMs that run XP.
surprisingly small hardware is needed to sign a message. though I do agree that we are still a bit early for workable end-user use cases. People really dont care what the database or app server is, they just want it to work and raw dogging some public node is just a bit much for people, i dont blame them.
more packaged solutions are under development, these will be more like a proper application with the differences of a chain being abstracted by the provider
things like sms, what if i told you SMS would be fine with this, so would smoke signals
I think the problem I have with it is the online enthusiasm for it is acting like it’s already going to change my life yet it’s been more than a decade and no one has shown tangible and understandable utility, just marketing bs and grifting.
But we're still early lol
Yea I’ve been hearing that for a decade. Aside from missing out on bitcoin at $300, I’m still waiting. 🤷♂️
i think there was a lot of hope among some at the public systems, no clue if it will bear out, the tech however is a viable PKI distro strategy that has been proven to work already in multiple large orgs in different forms. We don't talk about how expensive or difficult it is to control your own PKI. Its one of the key reasons why you have to yield so much data and control to providers.
I could go on a long rant about what the internet was built to be vs what "big tech" has perverted it into, using p2p technologies to do it then saying "i dont see what the point is for people to have versions of this for themselves rather than it being only in the hands of big corps controlled by share holders" but thats about as far as Ill go.
as for private systems, this stuff is already starting to rule your world. distributed PKI systems in enterprise require expensive and technically onerous trust ceremonies for each cross system connection. you also require functioning cert trees from root to tip in order to validate anything in most of these systems (tools like pgp are the exception rather than the rule sadly). These systems are expensive to operate and add another single point of attack to the system. There are already chains doing internal asset management at companies, and its quite likely that any DiD standard that becomes a gov ID will be on a ledger network not that it should matter to end users.
the biggest push with the latest wave of the tech is to stop trying to sell to people, sell to enterprise, the usecases are more solid and don't require strange economic games to function.
You will be using blockchain tech, but if its deployed right. You will never know. Do you know or care what app server or db your provider uses? of course not.