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by avsa 3279 days ago
Your site can be taken offline either because it can't handle too much traffic, because authorities seized your servers or simply because you decided you didn't want to play anymore. If that doesn't happen and your site becomes very popular, you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself.

Blockchain prevents all that: your code is committed and public
1 comments
hudon 3279 days ago
> because it can't handle too much traffic

The two most popular blockchains, Ethereum and Bitcoin, can't "handle too much traffic". They both suffer from severe congestion the moment people start using them actively. Distributed databases that have existed for a while scale much more efficiently.

Blockchains do not prevent this.

> you decided you didn't want to play anymore

If the coins have value, users are incentivized to keep the app running to preserve their wealth and to preserve the value of having a network of users participating in the decentralized app. Because all the code is open source and all the data is readily available, I can easily sell off the write keys to the highest bidder. There will be bidders because the BazaarCoins and userbase has value. If it does not have value, then there is nothing lost in me burning the write keys.

The blockchain does not add value here.

> you might be tempted to create a bunch of coins on your own mysql database to pay yourself

I cannot do this without hurting the network. The data is all readable so people will know. If I'm lying about the data being available, I will be sued or worse: arrested for fraud (because I'm selling something that is not in the contract).

The blockchain does not prevent this either, by the way. If anything, it is worse: for example, the Ethereum Foundation broke their promise of honoring "code is law" by reverting transactions on the blockchain and paying people who should not have been paid. In the real world, this is fraud.

> because authorities seized your servers

Bingo! I agree with this argument. The blockchain allows anyone to use the app and disregard authority.

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