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Ask HN: What can convince you that a given blockchain is more than a VC scheme?

1 points by mattwilsonn888 ↗ HN
Obviously the space called 'crypto' which started with the blockchain Bitcoin is marred by scam and scandal - even if one is to sort through the fraud and discover blame often lies where the values of blockchain and open source are most compromised, there exist numerous risks and hazards and most of all: motivated reasoning.

In a space where every founder and investor will evangelize their preferred project faithfully or not (often times somewhere in between), is it at all possible to reliably broach the topic to the savvy uninitiated about problems and solutions in the space, and offer people ideas such that they can develop an informed perspective?

I don't necessarily wish to argue, but I do want to hear the most competent and difficult concerns to address - more than low hanging fruit.

I should add one argument before responses flow in: the perspective that a blockchain can exist without a currency is most often a reflection of ignorance on the special type of 'security' (meaning, cost to rewrite history) a blockchain offers. The view that a blockchain with no currency makes sense does not pan out - and if it did it would be a greater innovation than Bitcoin was.

13 comments

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Double_a_92
It's a real product that I would want to use, and it's just happening to use a blockchain as part of the tech-stack because that was the most appropriate choice.

Is you try to shoehorn just some "blockchain" into a product or usecase, just for the sake of using a blockchain you already lost me.

orbz
Get multiple F500 organizations using it in non-pilot production use that is not treating it as a speculative asset.

Also your last paragraph is wildly off base. There are a number of PoA chains being prototyped by industry consortiums.

mattwilsonn888
The existence of PoA chains, which have existed for many years, does not disprove my point about the special security of blockchains - those chains lack it, they rely on trust and are fundamentally closed. The special security I refer to is a system which anyone can participate in which has objective and significant costs for revision.
jqpabc123
Explain how the blockchain will be operated, funded and reasonably/securely perpetuated without involving either cryptocurrency or a central funding authority.

A blockchain funded and controlled by a central authority or group is just a slow and unnecessarily complex database --- wholly built around trust and easily implemented to better effect with less effort/cost by traditional means.

mattwilsonn888
Maybe I wasn't clear - my OP argues strictly in alignment with your response here.
jqpabc123
So we agree that without crypto, blockchain is a solution searching for economic viability and a reason to exist?
mattwilsonn888
"So we agree that without wheels, a car is useless?"

No, not really. A blockchain without a native currency is imparted no special economic security i.e. insurmountable costs to rewrite data.

If you want a system that allows anyone to participate and secure high stakes transactions, you cannot allow cheap revisionism or censorship which is exactly what traditional systems allow (through power or bribes). A blockchain without a native currency is void of any economic security.

I'm not sure what you believe the "gotcha" is when your hypothetical removes the most crucial aspect in order to try and prove the tech is useless.

Double_a_92
A blockchain doesn't have to allow anyone to participate. Basically replace "blockchain" with "SQL database" everywhere, and if it doesn't make sense then ... well it also doesn't make sense for blockchain.
mattwilsonn888
> A blockchain doesn't have to allow anyone to participate.

A blockchain with authoritative access has marginal use: it can reduce trust (but not realistically defend against economic attacks) - it certainly pales in comparison to the societal application of a network which is robust while allowing arbitrary participation in consensus.

People, skeptics included, get stuck on the word blockchain and build arguments stating that any data structure which is a cryptographic chain of hashes is the true subject of interest. Blockchain doesn't offer the compelling parts of "crypto" anymore than a care without an engine offers the ability to drive.

Economic (or game theoretic, if you like) defense against converging power is the primary draw. It is why technologically minded people so often don't truly grok it - because the cryptography is (important) implementation details. It is the incentives which emerges from those schemes that is primarily important.

Double_a_92
A blockchain doesn't have to be public at all... It's just a tool that anyone can use internally in their project among trusted peers.
jqpabc123
... in order to try and prove the tech is useless.

I don't need to prove anything that the marketplace hasn't already.

The burden of proof is on anyone proposing a blockchain solution --- which I assumed is what you were looking to address.

mattwilsonn888
The market place has placed 1.2 trillion dollars of investment into distributed ledger technology, and we're in a recession - if that's the metric you want to use. Frankly I find such a retreat in reasoning extremely reductionist and not useful or compelling.

One can reason about fundamentals more competently than the average market participant. Isn't that the point of this community? Venture capital adjacent folk who profit off of being more well informed than the market.

tromp
A blockchain is more than a VC scheme when the emission doesn't confer any advantage to its creators or to early miners.