
Ask HN: What are new applications that can be built on blockchains? - noloblo
i am not as interested in the price volatility of this asset class more inspired by the crypto anarchism that they enable and new trustless, non custodial and truly decentralized apps that can be built on top of modern blockchains
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RexetBlell
I think it makes a lot of sense to build a DNS system using contacts. Names
can be auctioned off and given automatically to the highest bidder. It is also
possible to set up a contract where you could trustlessly sell names. "Send
$200 to an address and you will get the name". There is an auction like this
in progress already, and you can participate now if you like
[http://ens.domains](http://ens.domains)

You could do even more interesting things trustlessly. For example say, you
own a valuable domain. You could borrow money and use the domain as
collateral. If you do pay back, or stop making monthly payments the domain is
automatically and trustlessly transferred to the lender. Or it can be put up
for a trustless public auction with the proceeds going to lender to repay the
loan and the rest to you, the ex-owner of the domain who failed to pay back
his loan.

~~~
bluebluetimes
How would ETH name service Domains be integrated with the browser or this is
supposed to work only in onion Tor and Mist browsers

Update fixed formatting

~~~
RexetBlell
There is a Chrome extension that does this for you for IP addresses (I think).
All ethereum wallets are also implementing support. You can make your Ethereum
domain name point to anything you want. So instead of sending your transaction
to a long hex string, you can send it to "johndoe.eth".

~~~
noloblo
Thanks but chrome and electron-based applications really heat the Mac, get the
fan running all the time and bringing it to a halt.

Are there projects to build native cocoa apps on top of eth/btc much like
aquamacs for emacs

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yithump
Democratic Autonomous Organizations -- which are corporations whose law is
created not by human organizations; the law for ricardian contracts is instead
defined by a relationship between trustless consensus and formally verifiable
logic.

See the og tao here: [http://chriseth.github.io/browser-
solidity/?gist=192371538cf...](http://chriseth.github.io/browser-
solidity/?gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab#gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab)

and read about the $50 million tao debacle on wiki:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_\(organization\))

more about ricardian contracts on ethereum here:
[http://iang.org/papers/intersection_ricardian_smart.html](http://iang.org/papers/intersection_ricardian_smart.html)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Why was the DAO abandoned? It seems like someone could just fix the bug, and
run the sale again, expecting a lower valuation.

The idea is still good, right? A bug shouldn't end the whole project.

~~~
dragonwriter
The idea was that code-as-contract was clear, unambiguous to all participants,
and obviated the need for human intervention to enforce correctly.

~~~
candiodari
You forget to tell what happened after that.

Someone someone found contract terms (relating to starting a new sub-entity to
the DAO) that favored them, started transferring the eth to themselves using
this method (they "probably" gained the ability to dictate how the eth would
be spent after an initial period, which plenty of people are desperate to
point out isn't the same as owning it). And then ...

Humans intervened to have the terms enforced "correctly" (this was regarded as
a hack). They even rolled back quite a few normal transactions that had
nothing to do with the attack (because just like all other central banks, the
ethereum company cannot risk/be bothered to figure out what transactions are
about and come up with a solution that affected just the hack and nothing
else)

I imagine this will happen again, and again, and again. This is very clear to
anyone who's done the least bit of law : humans cannot be trusted (not even by
themselves) to write rules and then uphold them "under any circumstances". We
must have governments and a legal system to prevent disaster. The easy tricks
I see work is that humans can loan eth from others, then have multiple
accounts, only one of which is subject to confiscation. Double collateralizing
(pledging the same asset for multiple loans, then disappearing with the loans,
recently popular in China).

[http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-
journalists/](http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/)

~~~
RexetBlell
Just for the record, no transactions were rolled back. A special one time
transaction was generated that moved all the ether from the Dao contact to a
withdrawal contract, from which all investors could get their ether back.
Majority of the users upgraded their clients to be on the chain with this
special transaction. The rest of the people (~15%) remained on the original
chain without the special transaction, that chain is now called "Ethereum
Classic".

~~~
candiodari
The DAO was unwound, including everything it had done. If that's your idea of
"no transactions rolled back", I submit that that's exactly the sort of
distinction without a difference I was talking about.

This would be akin to solving a bank heist by simply rolling back all
transactions involving that bank, including 2nd and 3rd degree transactions to
before the heist.

So if some person sold a house to a buyer with a mortgage from the bank close
enough to the bank heist, and then went out and bought a bottle of champagne
to celebrate with the buyer, the bartender would wake up the next day to find
the payment for the bottle missing, and the house would be unsold, just so the
investors in the bank would be guaranteed the money they invested to be loaned
out.

I mean I understand. This simple and automatically enforced contracts is every
loaner and landlord's wet dream. They get that the rules are stacked against
the tenants. They can rob tenants blind using this game. They don't realize
that they cannot play this game against the banks, the millionaires and/or
billionaires of our little planet, and they don't know any other game to make
money.

------
strictnein
Distributed ledgers [0], if you're a Fortune 500 [1] [2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_ledger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_ledger)

[1] [http://news.sap.com/sapphire-now-sap-cloud-platform-
blockcha...](http://news.sap.com/sapphire-now-sap-cloud-platform-blockchain-
service/)

[2] [http://www-935.ibm.com/industries/retail/supply-
chain/](http://www-935.ibm.com/industries/retail/supply-chain/)

The Linux Foundation's related project:

[https://www.hyperledger.org/](https://www.hyperledger.org/)

Turn your brain's marketing parser on before attempting to read any of this
stuff.

------
elhalyn
Get rid of ticket scalping.

If tickets get passed on from the buyer you pay a extra fee ( which increases
with each hop ). On ticket return, a pool will be created where you can bid on
-> sold tickets above the original price are going to be splitpaid to the
venue and the artist / ...

~~~
nebabyte
Requires a solution to the identity problem otherwise scalpers just sell off
whatever nonce they purchase the tickets under

~~~
elhalyn
you are right. Just enter your full name after you hit the buy button.

~~~
nebabyte
You and I have very different definitions of the word "solution"

~~~
elhalyn
Its a simple fix. The venue has to control the name on your id with your
ticket name. It has to be personalized in some way and it seems reasonable to
keep your "real ID" away from the blockchain account. Even though the venue
can identify your wallet on entrance... so there is a small design flaw :)

------
komaromy
[https://medium.com/@AugurProject/augur-master-
plan-42dda65a3...](https://medium.com/@AugurProject/augur-master-
plan-42dda65a3e3d)

~~~
noloblo
Thanks

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afeezaziz
We are working on electricity trade using blockchain, enabling renewable
energy generator to trade with neighbours in local grid.

~~~
noloblo
That sounds interesting is there a link to try the prototype who is we

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laktek
Some obvious ones:

\- Cloud commodity (storage, computing - think of decentralized AWS)

\- Identity & reputation systems (think of global credit rating & KYC)

\- One to one services cutting the middleman (consultation, tutoring, renting)

\- Autonomous agents self negotiating contracts (common example is your car
paying for its parking)

~~~
sanderjd
Sorry for being a noob, but how is something like "decentralized AWS" enabled
by blockchain technology?

~~~
lumannnn
Check out [https://golem.network](https://golem.network) or
[http://sia.tech](http://sia.tech) You rent out your unused CPU (Golem) or
unused disk space (Sia) and get automatically rewarded

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ThomPete
One of the things about blockchain is that it has a history, that history
makes it to some extent atomic.

This means it can be used to turn digital assets which are normally considered
infinite in that it can be copied and pasted, into scarce resources.

One example could be a 2nd hand ebook market where books could actually
increase in value because it's been owned by this and this person.

------
DarrenMills
Check out the top coins here:
[https://coinmarketcap.com](https://coinmarketcap.com)

From there you can click on any coin and get a link back to each project's
website. Exploring those should cover a good chunk of the use-cases that are
popular right now.

That's a good start.

~~~
noloblo
I'm not looking for the use cases of the coins I'm looking for applications
that can be built on top of the Blockchain enabled by the new cryptographic go
i'm not looking for the use cases of the Coins I'm looking for applications
that can be built on top of the Blockchain enabled by the new cryptographic
coins - what are the non-obvious applications

------
ashnyc
How about a simple clock in clock out system for payroll. here is a directory
of dapps [https://dapps.ethercasts.com/](https://dapps.ethercasts.com/)

~~~
sanderjd
Honest question: what are the deficiencies of current clock-in / clock-out
systems that blockchain technology might help solve?

~~~
mschuster91
Not GP, but current systems usually are not manipulation proof. Using a
blockchain makes post-clock-out modifications visible immediately.

~~~
sanderjd
Sure, but what I'm curious about is: is that a real problem in practice that
organizations have been fighting, or is it just a problem in theory? If I told
an organization, "I've built a blockchain based time tracking system that is
100% impossible to be tampered with", would they say, "oh thank goodness this
is a huge problem for us!", or would they say, "oh that's sort of neat but our
tampering related loss is already within acceptable bounds"? My sense is that
it would be the latter.

~~~
ashnyc
It is not only about being impossible being tampered with. It is about
trusting the system. Since we trust the blockchain with 100 + billion dollars.
trusting it for a time sheet system should not be that hard

~~~
sanderjd
Sure, but I think you're missing my point. Is this a problem that really needs
a solution or is it a solution in search of a problem? Are time tracking
systems not trustworthy enough already? Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but I've
never heard of this issue, and it just sounds like the sort of thing that
sounds like a problem to techies, but isn't really a problem in practice.

~~~
mschuster91
Timesheet cheatery is an extreme problem - often enough timesheets are...
adjusted afterwards to hide violations of labor law or simply to dock pay.

~~~
sanderjd
Interesting! Thanks for the info.

------
Thobr
You can multisignature contracts with advanced options for payment or you can
gamble on predictions on future for example, both in trustless and
decentralized way

------
bluebluetimes
Trust less Decentralized exchange

Open alternative to Uber, lyft and Airbnb

~~~
sanderjd
Isn't the trust in those services more at the physical world level than the
technical level?

~~~
RexetBlell
I think a big problem with these services is that your rating belongs to Uber
instead of the user. It would be nice to put your reputation from all the
services you use (Uber, Airbnb, reddit karma, eBay, credit rating, etc) in one
central place that is not controlled by a single corporation.

~~~
RexetBlell
The dream it's to then be able to share a portion of your information with
another party without revealing everything. For example, you can share "my
credit rating is above 750 and I'm 32 years old" and nothing else. This can be
accomplished with zero knowledge proofs which are going to be possible on
Ethereum later this year.

~~~
sanderjd
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Edit: There does seem to be a bootstrapping issue though. Right now the
centralized entity is basically vouching for new people until their individual
reputation builds.

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fratlas
Google golem dapps, very interesting use case.

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endgame
Spelling and grammar checkers.

~~~
noloblo
Would it work in a distributed context

~~~
dozzie
And punctuation checkers.

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daxfohl
far more accurate click trackers

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pazimzadeh
Voting

~~~
noloblo
Do you mean the elections or prediction markets

~~~
pazimzadeh
Elections

