
50+ real world use cases built on blockchain architecture - vickiitb
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*cVeTQYLF5Z35yGoZ23Sfmw.png
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3pt14159
Almost all of these would have been possible without a blockchain. Either
through a web of trust or even simple cryptographically signed messages with
timestamps stored in a normal DB. Some of these aren't even "real world use
cases" like Hawaii trying to boost tourism by something-something blockchain.

Civil is a notable exception, though I'm not unconvinced that it couldn't be
done without one.

In the end though, if blockchain is sexier / more marketable than signing
messages with GPG or SSH keys then fine. At least we're getting higher
integrity guarantees on data one way or another.

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realusername
Namecoin is the best example of a real world use case, a proper replacement of
a DNS with no central authority. This is clearly one which is very difficult
to replicate reliably without a blockchain.

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aitrean
Even if blockchain DNS systems were production quality - which they're far
from - why is a 'central authority' inherently bad? The entirety of cloud
computing, and the modern internet, is based on the pretense of giving your
entire infrastructure to a centralized authority. "Oh, but what if your
centralized cloud provider is actually evil and incompetent", the free markets
allow you to change providers until you have a provider with absolute highest
quality.

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realusername
If my cloud provider is bad, I can switch to another one or self-host.

You can't switch from the ICANN, no matter which domain you chose, it depends
on them, they effectively have a monopoly. I want to self host my domain name.

~~~
aitrean
There's a fair point to be made there. But then I would ask which solution is
best: lobbying hard enough to democratize the organizational structure of
ICANN, creating a competitive ecosystem, or resorting exclusively to a ledger
of entries with no capacity to be modified according to legalities, attacks,
or otherwise? What if someone spams the ledger with too many names? What if
someone takes domains that should be illegal for them to possess? What if
someone takes someone else's private key? What if an organization gets their
private key stolen? The vectors for exploitation don't just disappear because
you have a decentralized system. The exploitative behaviour just changes.

~~~
realusername
All these issues currently exist with the existing domain name system as well.

> What if someone spams the ledger with too many names

You need to pay in coins to register a namecoin domain so this attack won't
work.

> What if someone takes domains that should be illegal for them to possess?

This should be up to courts to decide if the name is illegal and handle it
over, not to some random organisation like the ICANN which has no legal basis.

> What if someone takes someone else's private key?

Same as if some gets access to your registrar password right now, nothing
changes with that.

> What if an organization gets their private key stolen?

Again, same as before, nothing is improved or changed by a blockchain here.

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DanBC
About that fine art project they mention (it doesn't work):
[https://twitter.com/edent/status/1006248586395508737](https://twitter.com/edent/status/1006248586395508737)

> I don't understand the blockchain hype. A startup has certified my artwork &
> placed their verification on the bitcoin blockchain. Now art dealers &
> auctioneers can feel secure that I am the original artist. One small
> problem… I am not Leonardo da Vinci!
> [https://www.verisart.com/works/23f2c64a-08c6-4a42-8013-84ac8...](https://www.verisart.com/works/23f2c64a-08c6-4a42-8013-84ac8422dffb)
> …

~~~
EnFinlay
That's the part that I can never understand with blockchain applications.
Blockchain technology is excellent at maintaining a ledger or variables of
information within the blockchain - these processes are completely trustless
due to the properties of the blockchain. The problem is getting that
information INTO the blockchain. This part DOES require trust and all those
nasty things people say blockchain solves. I think it's called the oracle
problem?

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thisisit
This is just a list of current ideas (mostly) and implementations using
blockchain. Calling it a list of "real world use case" is far fetched. We have
yet to see whether it actually works.

~~~
deyan
Agreed.

It seems to me that a reasonable test whether these ideas make sense is to ask
whether they can be done without the blockchain. Most of these seem to
obviously fail this test (eg the government of Hawaii is a centralized
institution that clearly does not need the blockchain to mandate a change on
any of the islands).

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scrumper
There are only 30, it's full of typos, doesn't include any finance stuff, and
some aren't actually real use cases.

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zelos
And a lot seem to be "...is experimenting with..."

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scrumper
Yeah those are the "not real use cases" I was calling out.

And I am heavily exposed to enterprise blockchain... This kind of half-assed
thing doesn't build much of a case in favor of the industry.

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EnFinlay
> Rare Species Protection

I can't think of a part of meatspace more removed from the special properties
of a blockchain. That's honestly dumber than blockchain iced tea or KodakCoin.

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egwynn
I don’t think the “Giant Graphic” format was the right choice for this kind of
post.

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Gaussian
Even if these were all full-fledged businesses/ventures/operations -- most of
them don't answer what is, to me, the real question of the day: in what
applications are the benefits of blockchain an actual imperative to the use
case? Most of these don't seem to clear that hurdle.

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ljoshua
"But why???" is the question I keep asking myself after reading each entry.

~~~
dstroot
I wrote a Blockchain to learn the tech. I now have a pretty good
understanding. Now that I get it I keep looking for legitimate reasons to use
it and frankly I haven’t found many. Eliminating property title insurance via
an immutable set of property ownership records/txns is one that seems
reasonable. It fits because the txn volume is low. Many “forced” uses would be
better served by more standard architectures.

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pofilat
This is just a spam ad for a Blockchain promoter "Internet of Blockchain"

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homakov
Ripple? Mobile payments? How can a bloated ledger with thousands of tps be
good for running on mobile. It's more like interbank thing.

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spickelmier
Seems like most of these can be done without blockchain. Some are not even
'real world' at this point, but just experimenting. As others have pointed
out, when in doubt - 'do you need a blockchain? no'. Overhyping them for use
cases where they are not needed will have a negative effect on trying to get
support for the places where they might actually be useful.

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realandreskytt
Blockchain is a collection of technologies rather than a single one. Like a
car. Yes, one can claim their motorboat runs on “car technology” because of
the internal combustion engine. But it would be strange to do so.

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tobltobs
Real world use cases?

is developing a, that would use, will be using, it is possible to, as it seeks
to, is building, which will be, seeking a way, has been experimenting, ...

Sounds more like a maybe future fantasy world.

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adwhit
Time to mount a 51% attack and steal land in Georgia.

"It doesn't work like that"?

~~~
pdpi
Indeed it doesn't. 51% attacks don't allow you to steal something you've never
owned, because there's no valid transaction that transfers ownership to you.

The only way a 51% attack allows you to steal anything is by reverting a
transaction you made that sends something from you to me, and immediately
replacing it with a transaction that sends the same thing from you to
yourself.

This is only useful if you convinced me to give you something in return for
the money you paid me in between you sending the original transaction and
subsequently reverting it. Once all is said and done, even if I can't prove it
(for some definition of proving it), I still _know_ you stole from me, which
has its own consequences.

51% attacks _do_, however, allow you to wreak havoc on the chain state, which
can sometimes be an attack worth performing.

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greiskul
You can prove it, you have the signed transaction from him that can't be
included in the blockchain because their inputs were spent. If you know who
you were dealing with that did the double spend, you likely would have a very
good case against them of fraud.

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pdpi
There's two potential issues: Can I prove they control the private key that
goes with that transaction? Can I prove that that transaction was originally
used to settle a specific invoice (or something equivalent)? Sometimes, one of
the two will be true and I have a strong case. In others, I have neither and
it's my word against theirs.

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RIMR
I'm shocked IOTA isn't on this list.

Companies like Bosch and Fujitsu are already creating uses for it in IoT.

There're already a few IOTA-powered electric vehicle charging stations in
Europe. It's instant and fee-free, with very little overhead (no power
consumption problem).

Since it cannot be mined via PoW, there are already efforts to create "mining
pools" were universities can rent CPU/GPU power from "miners" using IOTA, that
way miners are performing valuable computations rather than just a bunch of
redundant math.

~~~
Uberphallus
Honestly the list would be even more cringy if IOTA was there. The codebase is
so terrible, the wallet management so cumbersome, and it has so many security
concerns that I can't even understand how any company would push for that
other than fad of riding the blockchain train.

Plus the IRI is written in Java, that's totally rock the socks off the IoT
world, right?

