HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ jeffreyrogers

I'm very skeptical of the value of blockchains. It seems that people proposing them don't have any idea about when/why you'd use them over a more centralized system, and in many cases (e.g. financial applications) there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems).

⬐ natrius

This exact argument seemed compelling when the internet was rolling out. Private networks were fine and even more useful—who would send financial information over a public network? It turns out that technologies that unlock permissionless innovation are incredibly important. Regulators want blockchains to succeed because they aren't faceless boogeymen who stand in the way of progress for fun.

Blockchains allow me to build economic protocols that require scarcity without inserting myself as a middleman to enforce that scarcity. This is where the most potential lies. There are lots of problems that exist because the transaction costs to solve them are too high: finding someone to solve them, agreeing on a price, and setting the terms for when something goes wrong can be cost-prohibitive. Each time a new economic protocol is built, mankind is permanently given the power to trade frictionlessly in that arena. This is a new thing. Join us in figuring out how to use this new thing.

⬐ dnautics

I think you're right, it doesn't make sense to use blockchains in traditional FinTech - the real value comes from the concept of distributed trust model. The base case (bitcoin, altcoins) though seems sound, but whether or not the value of distributed trust (which is nonzero) exceeds the 'natural' hassle of the respective APIs/limits on the network, or the 'artificial' hassle as will be imposed by increasing regulatory burden moving forward, is an open question.

⬐ XorNot

Also a lot of people don't seem to realize the obvious problem with spending huge amounts of electricity on "busy work" to generate hashes (i.e. "mining" is a very poor term for what's going on).

It's a class of fiscal blindness in the same category as the people who are positive gold is a great investment that will always retain it's value (it won't, the existence of a spot gold price proves this trivially).

⬐ aminok

> there are existing regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g. know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems).

Those regulations don't apply to peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions, just like they don't apply to physical cash transactions.

⬐ mpeg

In the EU the e-money regulation applies to any kind of electronic cash transaction.

If you become an Electronic Money Institution, in most cases you'll still have to follow KYC and AML laws. Bitcoin companies in the EU all do after certain thresholds.

⬐ aminok

Yes, but that's not peer-to-peer. That's like a company ferrying physical cash from one party to another. They become a financial intermediary and become subject to financial regulations. You don't have to take the role of a financial intermediary if you're an enterprise that uses cryptocurrency. Microsoft accepts BTC, but is not a money transmitter.

⬐ jeffreyrogers

They apply when you try to convert from a fiat currency to a digital currency and vice-versa. And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws.

edit: there are also regulations that apply to physical cash transactions if they are over a certain amount.

⬐ aminok

Yes conversion is subject to regulation but I don't see how that prevents cryptocurrency/blockchain applications from being useful.

>And trading derivatives contracts on a blockchain would almost certainly violate US laws.

These laws will eventually be made obsolete, the same way obscenity laws were made obsolete by the internet.

⬐ joeyspn

> It seems that people proposing them don't have any idea about when/why you'd use them over a more centralized system

I think that this diagram is a good starting point...

https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA...

⬐ bernardlunn

Thanks for sharing this. A picture paints...cuts through all the hype.

⬐ cponeill

Perfect starting point. Thank you for posting this.

⬐ fiatjaf

According to this diagram, IPFS should use (or be) a blockchain.

⬐ joeyspn

With the same logic also a BitTorrent tracker should use a blockchain, but obviously it's not the case. You are distributing trust-based units (money, legal and financial instruments, etc), not files (video, images, etc).

⬐ jeeceebees

I think very many IPFS use cases do need / benefit from blockchains.

⬐ mhluongo

This diagram is to answer the private blockchain hype. It's not meant to address any piece of technology- just qualify when a blockchain doesn't provide clear value.

⬐ davidgerard

Note that "private blockchain" means "gives you a Merkle tree", which you literally get just putting all transactions into git. I suspect the "private blockchain" products that actually exist (and aren't just vapour) are git underneath.

⬐ brighton36

This guy understands blockchains like Deepak Chopra understands quantum physics. As pitched by William, there's no difference between a blockchain and a message passing system. (Which begs the question of why this matters)

⬐ mablap

I had never heard of that man before, but as soon as he started talking my bullshit radard beeped. He's talking to an audience of intelligent engineers like they've never heard of the blockchain. Come on give us some meat.

⬐ ikeboy

Obligatory "raises the question" nitpick :)

⬐ mpeg

There's a high degree of bullshit and opportunism around blockchains.

Some people want to believe blockchains are a solution for everything because they are not technical. Like the guy in the video, when all you have is a hammer...

If you understand the tech, it's just another data structure + consensus algorithm. Not everything needs to be decentralised, or to operate in a trustless network.

⬐ koevet

Like the other commenting on this video, I felt the topic is addressed with a bit of superficiality. The guy talks about blockchains as if they were some kind of novel technology which is able to solve pretty much any problem.

Still, I'd like to get deeper into understanding blockchains (I live in Switzerland and financial institutions around here are all excited around blockchains). The best technical resource I have found so far is this series of posts about understanding blockchains from a development perspective.

http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/

Do you know any other developer-related resource worth looking at?

⬐ data37

This guy has no clue about how it works. Only aware of all the hype around it and presenting the hype as facts.

Does he understand about the blockchain size and the need to replicate it in every singe node? Does he understand why a blockchain can't be a database? or even an app platform?

⬐ jph

Great talk. I'm building blockchain mobile projects for ThoughtWorks, and I see the top value within areas of high-stakes security, for secure distributed ledgers that maintain consistency even if a party is unknowingly compromised.

⬐ wslh

Could you give more details about the kind of blockchain projects are you involved in? Are you using public or private blockchains?

⬐ negus

tldr?

⬐ dang

Url changed from http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blo..., which points to this.

⬐ mablap

    because it [the blockchain] has legal implications, you
    have to look at it from a legal perspective as well,
    because its a transaction validation mechanism without
    anybody in the middle. So when these transactions are
    actually validated, they hold, they are true, and they are
    respected - and that is the legal aspect of it.

That man is a "special advisor" to the Ethereum Foundation. (BTW, this was filmed on July 6 2016. Maybe he should have mentioned the DAO.) He then goes on to say that banks, not wanting the legal and business model innovations blockchains propose to affect the status quo, only see/use it as a technological innovation - implying this is bad.

    The blockchain is only one ledger. Once you write a line
    on the ledger, its just like any accounting ledger: you
    cannot erase the line above it. You just write a new line,
    and then you have a chain of history, and everything is
    recorded, and nothing can be erased.

Absolutely clueless in his vision. Just another rich guy evangelizing the blockchain. His explanations are absolutely trivial, he should be going into the details, he's on the Google campus.