1260
17 years* (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 6 months ago by not_IO to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 months ago

Then why hasn’t a better blockchain based currency gained any popularity? If they don’t have critical mass then your distinction is meaningless. It turns out there is just zero real world need for an untrusted distributed ledger. Databases and governments solve the problem much better.

[-] papertowels@mander.xyz 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Questioning the technical virtues of an alternative product based on lack of critical mass adoption is pretty funny, when you consider we're on the fediverse. I know that doesn't defray your argument, but just an amusing observation.

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

I see why you might draw the comparison, but I actually don’t think the comparison is valid at all. Forums/communities can still be useful and fun with only a few people. Discord is also massively popular with a small community model, for a more successful example to compare with the fediverse. However a currency that nobody uses or accepts is entirely useless until mass adoption happens. That’s why they typically get mandated by force by governments.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

Or if you need it for some other particular application, like drugs on the dark web.

[-] papertowels@mander.xyz 1 points 6 months ago
[-] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

Two points:

Then why hasn’t a better blockchain based currency gained any popularity?

https://www.forbes.com/digital-assets/categories/proof-of-stake-pos/

Etherium and virtually the whole rest of the crypto scene that is "not bitcoin" has pretty soundly rejected the wasteful Bitcoin design. There was even a fork of Bitcoin that would have used the much more efficient proof-of-stake, but since that would be bad for everyone with a proof-of-work "mining" rig it didn't take over.

It turns out there is just zero real world need for an untrusted distributed ledger

https://git-scm.com/

An "untrusted distributed ledger" is literally the backbone of modern software development. While you could plausibly split hairs and assert that git requires "trust", I don't think you'd wind up in a spot that both supports your assertion and a cognizable difference for anyone but mathematicians and security nerds. (And even if you did, the exact same sort of non-scam usages of blockchains are ones that operate like git, with the ledger used for something else.)

[-] _Nico198X_@europe.pub 2 points 6 months ago

would you recommend any crypto in particular?

[-] neatchee@piefed.social 9 points 6 months ago

Blockchain is not synonymous with crypto. Why are you bringing up crypto specifically? Crypto is garbage. But Blockchain is not crypto

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

If [other applications of the blockchain, which has now existed for an extremely long time] don’t have critical mass then your distinction is meaningless.

[-] neatchee@piefed.social 7 points 6 months ago

Critical mass is not required for internal systems. Not all implementations of blockchain are intended for public use.

I'm really tired of this. Blockchain. Is not. Crypto.

Here's the research I did for everyone four months ago: https://lemmy.world/post/36683795/19677963

[-] scratchee@feddit.uk 6 points 6 months ago

I'm not convinced there's any internal use for blockchain. Internal implies under a specific umbrella, some overarching organisation, who can then be the central trusted server that makes blockchain unnecesary.

That said, non-public but open uses, such as tracking dealings between companies in markets with little trust and no single governments (the shipping example in your referenced comment) is indeed the thin slither of a plausible use-case.

Another limitation is that blockchain loses its benefits if anyone tries to design over the complexity of using it directly (using a ui that under the hood uses blockchain is no different to using a ui that talks to a central database, you're trusting the central ui provider, you need to (at least be able to) build your own interface to realise the benefits of blockchain.

That means blockchain basically will never benefit individuals, it can't. Sure, you could have multiple compatible uis shared around, but that's no different security-wise to multiple central banks with an interoperable transfer system.

The only place blockchain has real benefits is when multiple large corporations/governments are interacting and don't trust eachother/anyone.

[-] neatchee@piefed.social 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

See the link in my other replies for some examples of internal uses that still benefit from immutable, distributed ledgers.

Large organizations still have loss and risk from individual bad actors. Operating a central authority that validates every single transaction in a ledger, and validates ledger history and consistency, can be prohibitively complicated. A well designed blockchain implementation can resolve most of these issues.

A great example is a pharma/healthcare company that wants to manage medicine batch and expiration tracking, as well as distribution/patient assignment. With a traditional infrastructure every participant needs to phone home to a central authority. In a blockchain setup, peers can report ledger events one hop up and propagate it through the chain.

That's a very simple example but I hope it gets my point across

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

Identifying anomalous behavior from bad actors is already a solved problem with databases and governing bodies.

[-] neatchee@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago

Nobody said it wasn't? But different models have different benefits and drawbacks?

[-] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Cryptocurrency development makes a whole bunch of arbitrary value-guided decisions during creation, all of these decisions have tradeoffs such that nobody has figured out a way to feature them all at the same time, or would they want to.

For example, bitcoin is fully auditable. Anyone with a copy of the bitcoin blockchain can review every single transaction in bitcoin's history, and trace the flow of every last satoshi from it's mining to today. This is because the developers of bitcoin place a high value on verifiable auditability and security. Conversely monero was developed for the purpose of being a completely untraceable, unauditable currency that still has a knowable supply. And ethereum was created in a manner that intentionally supported scripting, so that it could be used as a platform for novel applications and contracts. None of these primary features could be ported to either of the other two without breaking them completely, because of the deep programmatic implications of the requirements.

It's not really a question of better or worse, but of use case. The fact of the matter is that the reason these three examples are the leading currencies for their use case is literally because nobody has yet been able to do a better job. And for bitcoin at least, at this point it's security rests just as much in it's wide adoption and interest as it's design intent, so it's unlikely that anyone ever will.

this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
1260 points (100.0% liked)

Microblog Memes

12059 readers
1101 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

RULES:

  1. Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
  2. Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
  3. You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
  4. Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
  5. Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
  6. Absolutely no NSFL content.
  7. Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
  8. No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.

RELATED COMMUNITIES:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS