
Blockchains: Past, Present and Future [video] - vram22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl1U0Mu0qEU
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mablap

        because it [the blockchain] has legal implications, you
        have to look at it from a legal perspective as well,
        because its a transaction validation mechanism without
        anybody in the middle. So when these transactions are
        actually validated, they hold, they are true, and they are
        respected - and that is the legal aspect of it.
    

That man is a "special advisor" to the Ethereum Foundation. (BTW, this was
filmed on July 6 2016. Maybe he should have mentioned the DAO.) He then goes
on to say that banks, not wanting the legal and business model innovations
blockchains propose to affect the _status quo_ , only see/use it as a
technological innovation - implying this is bad.

    
    
        The blockchain is only one ledger. Once you write a line
        on the ledger, its just like any accounting ledger: you
        cannot erase the line above it. You just write a new line,
        and then you have a chain of history, and everything is
        recorded, and nothing can be erased.
    

Absolutely clueless in his vision. Just another rich guy evangelizing the
blockchain. His explanations are absolutely trivial, he should be going into
the details, he's on the Google campus.

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jeffreyrogers
I'm very skeptical of the value of blockchains. It seems that people proposing
them don't have any idea about when/why you'd use them over a more centralized
system, and in many cases (e.g. financial applications) there are existing
regulations that make it difficult for a decentralized system to work (e.g.
know your customer laws and centralized counterparty systems).

~~~
joeyspn
_> It seems that people proposing them don't have any idea about when/why
you'd use them over a more centralized system_

I think that this diagram is a good starting point...

[https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA...](https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAQTAAAAJGRmZjY1MWU2LWI5NTQtNGY1Ny04YWY5LWFlZmU4YzM2MTcyNQ.png)

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fiatjaf
According to this diagram, IPFS should use (or be) a blockchain.

~~~
mhluongo
This diagram is to answer the private blockchain hype. It's not meant to
address _any_ piece of technology- just qualify when a blockchain doesn't
provide clear value.

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brighton36
This guy understands blockchains like Deepak Chopra understands quantum
physics. As pitched by William, there's no difference between a blockchain and
a message passing system. (Which begs the question of why this matters)

~~~
mpeg
There's a high degree of bullshit and opportunism around blockchains.

Some people want to believe blockchains are a solution for everything because
they are not technical. Like the guy in the video, when all you have is a
hammer...

If you understand the tech, it's just another data structure + consensus
algorithm. Not everything needs to be decentralised, or to operate in a
trustless network.

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koevet
Like the other commenting on this video, I felt the topic is addressed with a
bit of superficiality. The guy talks about blockchains as if they were some
kind of novel technology which is able to solve pretty much any problem.

Still, I'd like to get deeper into understanding blockchains (I live in
Switzerland and financial institutions around here are all excited around
blockchains). The best technical resource I have found so far is this series
of posts about understanding blockchains from a development perspective.

[http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-
programming/](http://www.davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/)

Do you know any other developer-related resource worth looking at?

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data37
This guy has no clue about how it works. Only aware of all the hype around it
and presenting the hype as facts.

Does he understand about the blockchain size and the need to replicate it in
every singe node? Does he understand why a blockchain can't be a database? or
even an app platform?

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jph
Great talk. I'm building blockchain mobile projects for ThoughtWorks, and I
see the top value within areas of high-stakes security, for secure distributed
ledgers that maintain consistency even if a party is unknowingly compromised.

~~~
wslh
Could you give more details about the kind of blockchain projects are you
involved in? Are you using public or private blockchains?

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negus
tldr?

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dang
Url changed from [http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-
blo...](http://avc.com/2016/07/video-of-the-week-william-talking-blockchains-
at-google/), which points to this.

