
Ask HN: Basically and for dummies, what to do with blockchain? - DrNuke
Blockchain is the new buzz tech on the block and there is increasing interest from devs worldwide and the big corporations. In your opinion, are we going towards a new global and original software ecosystem or it will be a transactional &#x2F; smart contract tool on top of existing software only? Thanks.
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trentmc
Hi! I've been working on blockchain tech professionally since mid 2013, and
been writing software since the 80s. I'm CTO of BigchainDB.

Here's how I see things. Blockchains are distributed databases (e.g. MongoDB)
with three new characteristics: decentralized (no single entity owns or
controls), immutable (tamper-resistant), and assets (you own the asset if you
have the private key).

Each new characteristic of blockchain tech leads to business benefits.
"Decentralized" helps organizations share resources; e.g. music labels sharing
a database of who-wrote-what. "Immutable" gives better audit trails; e.g. to
see history of ownership of art. "Assets" can now live on the data store
itself, which enables decentralized exchanges and more.

Details: [https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-
ae3a2a...](https://blog.bigchaindb.com/three-blockchain-benefits-
ae3a2a5ab102#.k5wi3ccyv)

Let's use this as a basis to answer the question...

You can use blockchain tech in your existing centralized stacks. E.g. it would
run side-by-side with your instances of Postgres, MongoDB, etc. Typically the
blockchain would incorporated as a database-as-a-service. This would make the
stack partly-decentralized.

Or you can go for a fully-decentralized stack. You'd have decentralized file
systems (e.g. IPFS), decentralized processing aka "smart contracts" (e.g.
Ethereum), and decentralized database (e.g. BigchainDB).

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jenkstom
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are quite amazing. Whether they are the "end game"
for their technologies has yet to be seen. But we are only beginning to see
the applications of this technology. Bitcoin was more or less the first to
practically solve the double spend problem, but depends on independent mining
to make that work.

I suppose if a blockchain were secured - that is the nodes were all trusted
and there was no way for a third party to interject into the blockchain - it
could be very useful for solving conflict of interest problems. I believe it
is being used for situations similar to "letters of credit" already, and
that's a good application scenario.

I haven't been involved with any non-bitcoin blockchain implementations, so
I'm not familiar with the specific issues companies face. But I know both
Microsoft and IBM have blockchains-as-a-service and I imagine somebody is
working on it. I'd love to hear of their experience.

~~~
jenkstom
I'm back with a bit more information, discussing applications. Which mostly
seem to be other X-as-a-service offerings.

Microsoft has a blog related to their blockchain-as-a-service at
[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/topics/blockchain/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/topics/blockchain/)

Both IBM and Microsoft talk about Hyperledger, which appears to be where the
service side of the technology is converging.
[https://www.hyperledger.org/](https://www.hyperledger.org/)

I'm sure somebody who is actually familiar with these things will come along
shortly and explain them to us. Or I hope so.

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vladsanchez
I recently watched Steve Hoberman's ["The Blockchain
Billionaire"|[https://youtu.be/HzxX9raADzg](https://youtu.be/HzxX9raADzg)]
video. It succinctly explains the what, why and how of the blockchain
technology.

Watch it; it will change your perspective and understanding.

~~~
k__
This isn't a fundamental change in economy, it's like all the other changes we
had.

I mean, back in the days we had the Church and the Nobility which had all the
wealth. Now we have what? The Stars and the Businesses?

Sure, all in all more "normal" people got a bigger piece of the pie, but it's
still a bad system. Also, many old wealthy families still own their money,
look at the nobility of countries like UK. Millions of pounds in the hands of
people who did basically nothing for it.

Now what will blockchains change? People who got the know how and money to
make it work their way will be the winners and this means basically a big
bunch of people who are the winners right now.

Yeah, way to stick it to the man! Those pesky bankers now get it...

But we only swap them out for some companies who put in the know how and money
to control the whole thing.

The problem isn't that bankers are bad or monarchs or businesses, the problem
is that concentrated power is bad and today this means concentrated wealth.

~~~
27182818284
>Now what will blockchains change?

Blockchain applications can differ from Bitcoin. I think you are aiming your
comment more at Bitcoin--or rather not even that but decentralized currencies
in general. In that case, a possible change hoped for by many is the removal
of central places of trust that can fail. For example, Satoshi Nakamoto used
the text, "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for
banks" for the Genesis Block—it was because of a concern for placing trust in
something central like the banks.

~~~
k__
How do other decentralized currencies differ from bitcoin?

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tboyd47
"Blockchain" is basically just the process of doing a long math problem with
distributed computing and showing your work.

Bitcoin does not rely on new breakthroughs in any science. The thing that's
revolutionary about it is the idea of a people's currency, not the
technologies used. The technologies that make that possible are all quite old.

Bitcoin's "blockchain" is not even the most efficient way to solve a given
problem. It is intentionally inefficient by a variable factor (difficulty) to
provide economic stability.

After Bitcoin's rise, a lot of people in banking wanted to believe that there
is some magic element of Bitcoin that makes it technologically better than
what they offer, because that would mean they could use that technology to
create their own Bitcoin. But there isn't. People use it precisely because it
allows them to store and exchange wealth outside of banks and nation states.
The tech is irrelevant.

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DeBraid
Pertaining to bitcoin:

> Electronic cash for online payments is possible without financial
> institutions.

Above is taken from a post where I summarize and/or paraphrase the original
bitcoin white paper. Goal was to answer question posted by OP: communicate the
features (of bitcoin) and blockchains with clear language anyone could
understand.

HT to Ben Graham, it's "Bitcoin White Paper for Intelligent Investors" and is
here:

[https://github.com/DeBraid/bitcoin-notes/blob/master/btc-
for...](https://github.com/DeBraid/bitcoin-notes/blob/master/btc-for-
intelligent-investors.md)

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douche
Step 1.) Blockchain!

Step 2.) ??????

Step 3.) Profit!!!

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wayn3
blockchain is just a data structure, and its already being used by a bunch of
financial institutions to do the distributed ledger thing.

~~~
cmdrfred
Is there a good block chain implementation to play around with? I've looked
but I don't know where to begin.

~~~
wayn3
Probably hundreds, but I can't point a particularly great one out.

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itamarst
Perhaps nothing at all will come of it?

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catenthusiast
The only problems the “blockchain” solves are money laundering and bypassing
capital controls.

