For a long time, I thought of the blockchain as almost synonymous with cryptocurrencies, so as I saw stuff like “Odyssey” and “lbry” appearing and being “based on the blockchain”, my first thought was that it was another crypto scam. Then, I just got reminded of it and started looking more into it, and it just seemed like regular torrenting. For example, what’s the big innovation separating Odyssey from Peertube, which is also decentralized and also uses P2P? And what part of it does the blockchain really play, that couldn’t be done with regular P2P? More generally, and looking at the futur, does the blockchain offer new possibilities that the fediverse or pre-existing protocols don’t have?

  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    76·
    1 year ago

    I see blockchain technology and it’s potential as analogous to a globally shared spreadsheet where nobody can go back and change history.

    Now, just imagine what billions of humans could do if they could all work on the same spreadsheets without needing to trust each other.

    • Many financial institutions would be unnecessary
    • Ownership can be verified without need of paper and it’s risks of destruction, or trusting corporate computer networks. This applies to houses and boats just as much to movies and songs. Imagine commodity/utility music streaming validating your ownership of music via NFT ownership, not locked down by Apple, Amazon, or anyone else?
    • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      142·
      1 year ago

      What?

      I just wrote in Cell A5441 that you owe me 354000,- EUR.

      Ownership has to be calculated by all participants, making a Blockchain unneccesary environmental load. You should revisit more reliable sources about the technology.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Cryptocurrency does work. It wasn’t so good at scaling or maintaining a stable price. Or converting between other currencies. Really, it was more of a speculative gambling or money laundering vehicle than a currency, but it can handle transactions. Both sides have to cryptographically sign the transaction (using their wallet’s private key); one side can’t just unilaterally decide that transactions happened and now it’s rich.

        Edit: I realize I just addressed part of your comment. For the other part: the high environmental load was a choice, intended to be used to control how new currency is issued. There is a computational cost for maintaining the ledger, but it doesn’t have to be as ridiculous as Bitcoin/ether mining got.

          • TriStar@lemmyfly.orgEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            I understand your point but that is the worst attempt at discussion I’ve ever seen lmao

            “Too lazy to formulate an argument, look one up yourself”

            • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
              4·
              1 year ago

              You are right and I did think about it and the comment wasn’t written easily. I did open scholar.google.com but I didn’t wanted to put energy into an argument online about a topic I have no passion about.

              I once wanted to get an overview about Blockchains because I wanted to see if the hype was real. There was no citable literature I could make use of in order to link it to my own understanding. A literature research can’t ne done by somebody else.

              This topic is too hard for me. I just felt some medium-knowledge vibes, so I did post a rude comment. But I did attempt to do good and point one to building his own opinion.

              Sorry to be not helpful.