
HSBC to shift $20B worth of assets to blockchain-based Digital Vault - sahin-boydas
https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/28/hsbc-to-shift-20-billion-worth-of-assets-to-blockchain-based-digital-vault/
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ipoopatwork
> a digital ledger that can be instantly and transparently updated.

If it's "instantly" it means PoW is useless, and this thing is just a
marketing stunt. Who would have thought.

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namdnay
Yes it sounds like they’re just using Git ;)

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mirekrusin
Yes, it's like git but access to the repo is defined in the repo itself (using
public key cryptography); likely with virtual machine (if it's ethereum, which
is likely). There's not much more conceptually there.

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obayesshelton
Working in a bank and seeing what we are doing, I doubt very much they are
putting all of their eggs into one basket. It will be replicated on a
ledger/chain/vault or whatever you want to call it and they will be still be
using their core legacy system.

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simonebrunozzi
A database to digitize financial details, labeled a "blockchain" so people get
more excited about it.

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brighton36
A blockchain is a database with virtue.

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0xname
A public blockchain (one where consensus is derived from the masses, or rather
an abstraction of the masses like PoW) would have “virtue”, but obviously this
has yet to be executed perfectly.

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brighton36
Why?

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nogabebop23
Alternative Headline: "One of World's Largest Banks Looks to Upend Financial
Model That Generates Them Obscene Profits"

I'm somewhat skeptical they're going all-in or adhering to the vision of the
zealots...

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blowski
Zero details on what it actually does with blockchain that couldn't be done
more easily, quickly and cheaply with an old-fashioned RDBMS. I'll assume it's
just a puff-piece for some "innovation manager" until I see otherwise.

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eli
Virtually every application of blockchain is better off as an old fashioned
RDBMS

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zozbot234
Except git, of course.

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dilutedh2o
Git is a Blockchain? Did I miss a meeting?

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api
Sort of. It's a similar cryptographic hash chain type structure. I believe
it's a DAG.

Block chain skepticism has gotten as silly as block chain hype. A block chain
is a perfectly valid and sometimes useful structure with some very interesting
properties, but it won't cure cancer and make a unicorn fly out of every nose.

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ownagefool
> Block chain skepticism has gotten as silly as block chain hype.

Is it though?

My admittedly simple understanding is that blockchain is a distributed ledger
that suffers from consensus based attacks; as in it's pretty much useless
unless the cluster is massive and shared between lots of parties that couldn't
really out-compute each other.

Thus the criticisms aren't really "this can never work" but simply, this is
usually a waste of compute power and energy compared to a non-distributed
version, especially when it's one of these singular company examples.

Would be interested in hearing what's the use cases are.

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mifreewil
> especially when it's one of these singular company examples.

Blockchain is most useful in situations where there is a lack of trust between
parties. Seems like a lot of people on HN distrust PayPal because of being
bitten by frozen accounts or having their earned money revoked. That’s why
money is a good use case for blockchain.

Voting is another - maybe you don’t trust that your vote for the radical will
be counted correctly.

Smart contracts are another. If the other party decides they don’t like the
current state of affairs (they are losing) then it’s much easier and less
expensive to have the contract auto-enforced than using a army of law
enforcement and lawyers.

If HSBC is actually using this to create an immutable record of transactions
that ensures integrity of the logs then it would be a good use case, but I
have my doubts.

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nloladze
The trust issue is far overblown. Blockchain is much more about digital
ownership of assets. You own your Facebook, your Google search results, etc,
etc. You may not physically host it, but own the data that is generated from
it and can decide to co-opt it into a larger tray for money if you wish or to
remain private. It's much more about freedom on a conceptual level if we zoom
out then about simple immutable ledgers; which are just shared key-value pair
databases across many nodes, nothing special.

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mifreewil
The immutable ledger and consensus algorithm is the basis for allowing
ownership of digital assets and freedom.

Solving the trust issue is what an immutable ledger and consensus algorithm is
all about.

Without a way to agree on who owns what and a way to enforce that then there
is no way to have digital ownership or freedom without an army of lawyers and
law enforcement, or trust.

You probably already have ownership of digital assets without blockchain: it’s
called a bank account, equities, bonds, and maybe a title or deed to a car or
home. But that ownership is all enforced by an entire system of laws,
attorneys, law enforcement, and other fallible human beings. If you remove the
reliance on that system and fallible human beings, you then begin to enable a
greater amount of ownership and freedom than previously possible.

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perl4ever
"If you remove the reliance on that system and fallible human beings"

If you throw away a crutch, you've removed your reliance on it, indisputably.
But that doesn't cure a broken leg.

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mifreewil
I don’t follow your analogy

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perl4ever
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga_Fintech_Solutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga_Fintech_Solutions)

"Cotten, it turns out, was a serial operator of “exit scams: Ponzis that,
after reaching a critical volume, abruptly close up shop.” He ran his first
pyramid scheme at age 15. Cotten and his partner in Quadriga, Michael
Patryn—an alias!—met on a message board for Ponzi schemers, where they bonded
by running Ponzi schemes on each other"

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mifreewil
I'm well aware of the multitude of scams, hacks, etc. involving [centralized]
cryptocurrency exchanges, but it doesn't actually have much to do with
blockchain technologies itself, at least not in the context being discussed
here.

If you give over control to cryptocurrency by sending your cryptocurrency to
some entity that exists outside of a trust-less blockchain system (centralized
exchange or otherwise) then that entity can do whatever they want with it
(technically-speaking), and you are essentially then reverting back to and
relying on non-blockchain technologies at that point (The exchange was
probably just a typical web app built with some common web framework and
RDBMS). Obviously, ponzi schemes are possible without blockchain technologies
and in a purely blockchain world, because of the transparency of transactions,
it would be very difficult to pull off without having willing-participants.

There is a separate discussion to be had of how to use blockchain with
"legacy" centralized systems and how to make it user-friendly for non-experts,
but it's not an actual problem with blockchain technologies itself, but more
of a second-order problem.

The main thing being discussed was digital assets, so if you have 2 pure
digital assets that are compatible with smart contracts, you can exchange
without any trust and it prevents things like ponzi schemes. Government money,
like in the example, really is more of a "legacy" centralized system, which
allows for this. That's partly why you are seeing entities like Coinbase try
to create "stable" cryptocurrencies [1] that try to mirror the value of
government money.

[1] [https://www.coinbase.com/usdc](https://www.coinbase.com/usdc)

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perl4ever
"you are essentially then reverting back to and relying on non-blockchain
technologies at that point"

Yes, my point is that's not a choice. It's like making the "choice" to fall
down after you free yourself from the shackles of the "conventional crutch
system".

Clearly this is not an actual problem with walking without crutches - millions
of people handle walking that way all the time!

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eznoonze
Fluff to boost their stock price much the same way like "dot com".

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arcticbull
In other news, HSBC plans to re-brand as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Blockchain
Company. [1] _Stock skyrockets_.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp).

