Blockchain is for cryptocurrencies. There are many scenarios where having your own currency for your project can be useful. It can be used like a loyalty token for example.
Except even if you want some kind of loyalty token, why do you need a blockchain for it? Are you going to let users... mine coffee loyalty points? Do all of your coffee customers need to verify the integrity of the count for all other customers on a ridiculous bit of software?
Just create a db table called ledger and +1 | -8 it when they buy a coffee or use the reward.
I was excited about blockchain too, right up until I became a blockchain dev and realised about an hour in to the job that the whole thing was a dead end. The requirement for blockchain to be useful is that literally everything in the world happens on one giant monochain. Without this, smart contracts are useless for anything other than gambling on the chain about the chain. The second you leave the box - all of that POW is for nothing.
I might have a very cynical look here, and if so, I apologize. I do not agree with this cynical look (in terms of taking action on it), but I do think that this is how a part of the blockchain world operates.
While blockchain is a revolutionairy technology, to some degree, it's a much more revolutionary political tool in order to raise funds.
The revolutionary technology part is that we have a new P2P technique that allows for decentralized consensus, which is amazing! However, as the author implicitly points out, there are quite a few limited uses for this.
Blockchain as a political tool however means that the project founder is suddenly able to raise money. I personally know a few people that simply said "yep, we're doing blockchain" only because it allowed them to raise million(s) of dollars. And otherwise they couldn't.
I know from one founder that he is serious with that project had that idea for years, and blockchain was the political tool in order for him to raise money. The other founder simply wanted to use 50% for development, 25% for community engagement and he wants to take the other 25% as profit.
I'm not here to judge. I'm simply writing this comment, because I feel that some people look too technically at blockchain and disregard the rest, while I feel that people need to be aware of this political side of blockchain. The strong idealism and believe in a high ROI is what fuels the IPOs (still to this day). Because of that, people will invest in it and create new projects with it.
> Solutions that provide the required level of privacy typically have to compromise on performance through zero-knowledge proofs or other kinds of encryption, which is costly.
The Mimblewimble blockchain protocol is atypical in combining enhanced privacy (hidden amount and hidden recipient) with improved scalability (4x smaller chain than typical transparent chain, 20x smaller than typical privacy chain).
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 16.0 ms ] threadJust create a db table called ledger and +1 | -8 it when they buy a coffee or use the reward.
I was excited about blockchain too, right up until I became a blockchain dev and realised about an hour in to the job that the whole thing was a dead end. The requirement for blockchain to be useful is that literally everything in the world happens on one giant monochain. Without this, smart contracts are useless for anything other than gambling on the chain about the chain. The second you leave the box - all of that POW is for nothing.
While blockchain is a revolutionairy technology, to some degree, it's a much more revolutionary political tool in order to raise funds.
The revolutionary technology part is that we have a new P2P technique that allows for decentralized consensus, which is amazing! However, as the author implicitly points out, there are quite a few limited uses for this.
Blockchain as a political tool however means that the project founder is suddenly able to raise money. I personally know a few people that simply said "yep, we're doing blockchain" only because it allowed them to raise million(s) of dollars. And otherwise they couldn't.
I know from one founder that he is serious with that project had that idea for years, and blockchain was the political tool in order for him to raise money. The other founder simply wanted to use 50% for development, 25% for community engagement and he wants to take the other 25% as profit.
I'm not here to judge. I'm simply writing this comment, because I feel that some people look too technically at blockchain and disregard the rest, while I feel that people need to be aware of this political side of blockchain. The strong idealism and believe in a high ROI is what fuels the IPOs (still to this day). Because of that, people will invest in it and create new projects with it.
The Mimblewimble blockchain protocol is atypical in combining enhanced privacy (hidden amount and hidden recipient) with improved scalability (4x smaller chain than typical transparent chain, 20x smaller than typical privacy chain).