Comment on Whatever happened to the blockchain/smart contract 'revolution' we were told about?
spongebue@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoBut how much of that really demands a Blockchain solution in favor of what’s used currently? Aside from some developers’ time, nothing about crypto prevented what you described from happening and (presumably) it never did come to be.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
crypto is a usage of the distributed ledger. not the distributed ledger itself. Its only been popular in implementations like bitcoin which are programicly scammed. Its programmed to increase in value (ie use more energy) and creates the value by burning energy for no useful return (no infrastructure created, nothing manufactured). You could say it provides a service in exchange but its far inferior to what it theoretically replaces since it uses way more energy in transaction (at least the driving popular ones still do) and this is why its not used for purchasing by and large and more like a value store. A proper implementation like gridcoin is not used because its value reflects the energy it uses. In other words its backed by the value of the service it provides. Whats funny is it can use low energy but just isn't in bitcoin. You ask what demands its usage but what does that mean. I pointed out the benefits. No longer needing to keep up multiple databases or clear them out since we are talking point to point. So I buy something at the store and I can scan a QR code to know everything about the product which everyone along the chain added as it transacted and even ones early in the chain can see the eventual endpoint as well as me, the consumer, able to see its sourcing and such. We can all see the full ledger at the time of looking it up because its distributed. Once done there is no real need to clean out a database. Don't get me wrong they would still exist to keep track for the businesses with tons and tons of supply chain items. They just would not need to keep any detail outside of the unique identifier which can be used to get the information from the blockchain.
spongebue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hold up, I’m not trying to talk about crypto, certainly not in a wall of text. You said the distributed ledger has its uses outside of crypto and gave some examples. If those examples were truly clamoring for some kind of distributed ledger solution, why haven’t they implemented it by now? I can’t imagine crypto distracted that much to make it impossible, there must be another reason.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
The old wall of text so im going to dismiss all you said. Im not saying crypto distracted im saying it is unfortunately the thing that got taken up. Like the use of fossil fuels in our society. The answer is things aren't always done in the best way. Its like saying if algorithms are so bad why don't people stop using them. There are many bad things that we do that we don't stop doing and many good things we don't bother to do espcially when looking at things with larger and larger groups up to the scale of humanity.