
You don't need a blockchain in that - marky_nolan
https://theoutline.com/post/3991/you-don-t-need-blockchain-in-that?zd=1&zi=64k76chm
======
cocktailpeanuts
The only thing worse than a useless blockchain project is a useless article
that doesn't provide any value but just parrot what other people say, in the
most distracting an attention seeking way possible.

If you want to make a point about why blockchain is unnecessary, write an
intelligent article about it. This "article" provides 0 value and it's so
obvious that they just want to get traffic.

~~~
Cypher
Now what about a useless comment attached to such an article?

is turtles all the way down?

~~~
maneesh
On the plus side, OPs comment made me not read the article, so time was saved,
thus value was added.

~~~
dboshardy
HNBUX: A new blockchain-based currency using HackerNews comments.

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Bjorkbat
I actually thought the plantoids example was pretty cool.

I’m pretty cautious about blockchain technology in general, but I think using
it to keep a record of digital art and collectibles (including plants and
pets) is a great idea.

Look at digital pets. They’re kind of a dumb waste of money, but people love
them. Now imagine some website dealing in digital pets that has a _limited
edition_ pet. It’s kind of pricey, but there’s only 100 of them. So, people go
for it.

Here’s thing though, as things currently stand you really have no way of
knowing that there are 100 of these things in existence unless all the owners
formed a special club and realized there were more than 100 members. This gets
harder to do once if the limited edition pet becomes a little less limited and
1000 are issued instead.

Now, despite all the ills of the blockchain, it’s a perfect fix for this
problem by virtue of being a public ledger. What’s more, you could trade your
limited edition pet with someone else, possibly for cold, hard cash. In
general, centralized platforms don’t let you do that. You’re still wasting
tremendous amounts of energy on some very non-tangible items, but Neopets at
it’s peak must have certainly burned a lot of coal to keep the servers
running.

When you think about it, the only real difference between a cryptocurrency and
a crypto-collectible is that the latter just has more fun, meaningless
attributes associated. Such as how red it is.

I get where the author is coming from. I know a guy trying to launch an ICO.
He has to be one of the 10 most annoying people I’ve ever met. Still, this
article feels like a strange broad-stroke dismissal against all applications
of blockchain...except currency. Currency is spared with no good explanation
as to why. I would take this article a little more seriously if the author
included currency as well, but then again bitcoin is doing really well so I
guess we’ll call it a success. Everything else is obviously dumb though.

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LogicalBorg
The way I see it, there are at least four criteria for using a blockchain.

1\. The goods are permanent, otherwise you don't need the history of the
blockchain.

2\. The goods are valuable, otherwise they aren't worth tracking.

3\. The goods are identifiable, otherwise you can't tell that the good you
received was the one on the blockchain.

4\. The goods came from a trusted third party, otherwise they can receive non-
compliant goods and pass them off as their own.

Tracking food on the blockchain fails at all four criteria.

Cryptocurrency passes all four tests. It is permanent, valuable, identifiable,
and the third party producer of the coin is trusted because they pass a
mathematical test.

Diamonds might also pass the tests, as long as there are trusted third parties
in the diamond industry who won't receive bad diamonds.

~~~
hoare
One of the biggest advantages of a blockchain is it's ability to trust the
entries written on a distributed ledger and actions that are automatcally
executed when certain criteria is met regarding those entries(This statement
ignores the fact that it's still possible to take over a blockchain if you
control enough of it) There are a lot of industry specific business cases
where the elimination of a 3rd party trust authority would save a lot of
money. Remember that not only physical goods can be stored on a blockchain.
Consider a contract where multiple participants are required to execute
actions in a pre defined order. In theory there are a gazillion use cases for
a data structure with that kind of behaviour. In reality it most of the time
comes down to the scaling ability of transactions executed/s, which is
horrible at the moment.

~~~
Zigurd
The case of eliminating 3rd parties in transactions brings to mind a further
qualifier for blockchain use cases: The application has to tolerate
irrevocable transactions.

------
geraldbauer
Funny. For more articles on why blockchains and bitcoins are overhyped, see
the Bits & Blocks Press Bookshelf collection e.g. Best of Bitcoin Maximalist -
Scammers, Morons, Clowns, Shills & BagHODLers - Inside The New New Crypto
Ponzi Economics [1] or Crypto Facts - Decentralize Payments - Efficient, Low
Cost, Fair, Clean - True or False? [2] Happy Blockchaining.

[1]: [https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-
maximalist](https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist) [2]:
[https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-
facts](https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-facts)

------
erikb
Yes and no. In the examples given it's wrong, since it's not a topic where
blockchain applies. But the moment you order any of these products, having a
blockchain that includes buyer and seller might be nice, since you can lock-in
the agreement of sale with neither side being able to take it back, and
without a third party needed for proof. So it's totally possible to use it for
something else besides coins.

~~~
bunderbunder
The agreement of sale itself is such a very small part of the potential
sources of disputes (not even disputes, necessarily, sometimes just glitches)
between buyer and seller, though. I'd rather have a single system that can
handle all the potential problems, as well as most redress in the event that
something goes wrong.

Since the usual redress when something goes wrong on either the buyer's or the
seller's end, in my experience, consists of nullifying the agreement of sale,
it seems to me like blockchain's solution consists of grossly misinterpreting
the needs and motives of both parties (By starting from an assumption of zero
trust, which is just silly, why on earth would I buy from a retailer in whom I
have zero trust?) and then hyper-optimizing for that misinterpretation. It's
classic solution-in-search-of-problem behavior.

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thisisit
> If it’s not a decentralized currency...Maybe don’t use a blockchain?

It seems people slowly arriving at this conclusion. Another good read with a
similar conclusion:

[https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-blockchain-is-
hard-60416ea...](https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-blockchain-is-
hard-60416ea4c5c)

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moistoreos
It's good to see Topolsky's new site gain attention. I really enjoy the work
he's done the past decade.

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aiCeivi9
Any clear text version? IT looks like deep fried power point with pointless
gifs.

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granaldo
And the list go on here
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/ico](https://www.coingecko.com/en/ico)

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greenhatman
The scroll behaviour on that page makes me angry. Can't read.

