[drexlspivey]

No it's not. Blockchain was created to solve a very specific problem, "how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant" and it did so with great success. It is the thousands of startups that try to apply this solution without having this exact problem.

[rtkwe]

> how to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant

The problem is that that is just a solution in disguise as a problem. Why do we need to achieve consensus on a distributed ledger without trusting any participant? It works, I think, for bitcoin because the ledger is an end unto itself and didn't have to interface with any existing system (no existing accounts/items/entries to assign to existing owners).

[cwkoss]

Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses.

The 'cash-like' quality of Bitcoin, that the sender cannot take it back or contest the transaction after the fact, is a solution to a real problem.

[spiralx]

> Credit card fraud and chargebacks online are brutal, and can sink many innocent and legitimate online small businesses.

Unless you're talking adult businesses, gambling or one of the other industries with known issues with card fraud and/or excessive charge-backs, they aren't a significant problem for legitimate businesses at all. Even a 1% charge-back rate is unusual enough that card providers will flag the retailer for investigation.

[cwkoss]

Not sure that's totally accurate, here is a counterpoint article I read on here recently.

https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/how-i-got-credi...

[rtkwe]

On the opposite side of the coin the same reversibility is also great for fighting fraud from scammy sellers. For consumers anything interacting with real world items really needs to be reversible or scammers will have a field day with it and damage the brand.

[rspeer]

You think online small businesses are transacting directly with their customers using Bitcoin?

[DonHopkins]

It's ironic how the blockchain claims to let you do all these things without trusting any of the participants, yet it attracts some of the most untrustworthy participants the world has ever seen.

#BrockPierce from @AnOpenSecret on #LastWeekTonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAnAYa8gas

Brock Pierce posing with his "Make Bitcoin Great Again" at Trump's inaugural lounge: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&se...

DEN Sources: A document-in-progress compiling firsthand reporting on DEN, Bitcoin, Brock Pierce and the Mike Egan / Bryan Singer lawsuit: https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b

[IncRnd]

> It's ironic how the blockchain claims to let you do all these things without trusting any of the participants, yet it attracts some of the most untrustworthy participants the world has ever seen.

Hmm. Ironic or just expected? Individualized trust isn't required, but trust in the system is required. Honor among thieves is what makes the system work, so to speak.

[nickrivadeneira]

That's not surprising at all. Untrustworthy people doing untrustworthy business are the people most in need of a platform that doesn't rely on trust.

[DonHopkins]

So you're saying the Bitcoin Foundation should let anyone like Brock Pierce be the director, because the Blockchain globally and completely eliminates the need to trust anyone, and EOS shouldn't have parted ways with Brock Pierce, and should hire even more untrustworthy people, because the Blockchain makes it perfectly safe and wise to work with untrustworthy people?

Black is white! Good is bad! It's wonderful for scammers to be in charge! The Blockchain is the solution to everything! You can trust the Blockchain so much, that you don't need to trust people any more! Nothing could possibly go wrong! No snake oil! You're the snake oil! ;)

[nickrivadeneira]

I didn't say any of those things even remotely. It kind of feels like you've imagined both sides of an argument in your head, and are projecting the other side on me.

The only thing I'm saying is: If I'm a known con man, and I'm trying to do a deal with another known con man, I'd like to have a platform that supposedly doesn't require me to trust a con man.

I never said anything about whether blockchain can or cannot do that, never said anything about globally eliminating the need for trust, nor that blockchain is a solution for anything, nor what is "safe and wise".

I'm not even a proponent of blockchain...I can just see why some types of people are attracted to the advertised benefits.

[smnrchrds]

Then "consensus on a distributed ledger" is a solution in search of a problem.

[tylersmith]

No, it's not. The problem is clearly laid out in the Bitcoin whitepaper. The problem was known long before the solution.

The root problem is how to make functional and secure trustless money which doesn't rely on third parties. Decentralizing the control is the best solution known to date to remove trust from the system. This introduces the problem of ordering distributed events in a trustless environment. The solution to that is the timestamp server proposed in the Bitcoin whitepaper. That timestamp server is what has been rebranded "blockchain". It's useless for 99% of things it's proposed to solve, but it's the only known solution the original problem.

[vkou]

Except that we don't want trustless money. We want reversible transactions, and funds that can be seized.

Given how My.Gox and the DAO thefts went down, so do people actually using cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin does a great job of being trustless money, and a terrible job of being money. I don't need trustless money in my life.

[robotrout]

You may not need it, but I am thankful that it now exists.

You may be happy with centralized services such as banks and credit cards. But those institutions are vulnerable to intimidation and so proved unsuitable for pot growers in Colorado and for Wikileaks.

In the cases of Wikileaks and Colorado pot farmers, they angered a government, even if many other governments (and the state of Colorado) supported them. So it's not about being some bad-ass who fights all forms of government. It's about pushing the boundaries enough that somebody powerful may choose to intimidate your financial provider. Given the number of powerful entities in the world with conflicting world-views, if you're doing anything interesting, you may run afoul of one of them.

Even if you personally will never use trustless money, having it exist in the world is making you a little bit more free.

[vkou]

It does make the world a little more free, and I have some sympathy for some of those causes.

It also seems to come at a great price, in terms of pollution and energy waste. Your right to buy heroin, or child pornography, or organically grown cruelty-and-cartel free marijuana is great, but your externalities are horrific.

[robotrout]

I really don't want to get into a global warming fapping session with you, on a thread that has nothing to do with that, but casually dropping the "horrific" bomb is difficult for me to ignore.

I will just remind you that there is a thing called a carbon cycle. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere. Carbon is not a poison, but is instead, a fundamental component of all life on earth. It does not accumulate forever, but instead, is reabsorbed back out of the atmosphere at some often debated rate. Climate scientists know this, but people who drop the "horrific" bomb, generally do not.

Please reserve the word "horrific" for things that actually are. I'm sure you'll find something that is legitimately horrific if you try.

[cwkoss]

> to buy heroin, or child pornography, or organically grown cruelty-and-cartel free marijuana

All of those existed and were traded before bitcoin was created.

> energy waste

I'd really love to see an analysis of the carbon emissions attributable to Bitcoin mining vs emissions which were funded by the extravagant salaries of wealthy-elite workers in the traditional finance/banking system. I fully accept the premise that there is some amount of CO2 emitted for maintaining the Bitcoin network, but wonder what the true cost to the climate is for rent-seeking behavior in the financial industry.

[MichaelBurge]

With Ethereum, you could make "reversible Ether" that is 1:1 exchangeable for ordinary Ether but has a two week waiting period before it's finalized.

You could make "seizable-by-the-FBI Ether" too, but I suspect nobody would want it.

[drexlspivey]

This video does a very good job explaining what exact problems you would face if you tried to create a decentralized payment system and how bitcoin solved these problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4&vl=en

[lmkg]

One could be generous and call it a problem in search of an application.