[man-and-laptop]

This looks like trolling.

Blockchain was the first serious attempt at solving the problem of distributed concensus without centralisation. One application of this outside of cryptocurrency is to DNS (see Namecoin).

Cryptocurrencies at the very least make black market trading more efficient. See Silk Road.

Also, the analogy to alchemy needs a lot more explaining. I don't see any connections.

[Nasrudith]

Well there are several from the 'get rich quick scheme' aspect vs lead into gold aspects to the fact it is trying to get what they want by properties of analogy. That they can turn processing power into the new gold. Then there is the literal magical thinking like the sun and gold must be connected because of the same color therefor if we create a scarce currency it will be a useful commodity and gold shares properties of the sun, also the sun's rays created gold. Alchemists pursue the same goal obsessively trying to get what they want despite the mechanism for it just plain /not being there/. Similarly Cryptocurrency even if it perfect in security and privacy would run into interchange issues. You would need teleportation to bring commerce beyond government control.

Gold is a very apt comparison given the gold-bug rhetoric they were in pushing deflationary currency despite its history of failures resulting in fiat currency. The gold standard resulted in /many/ wars for the sake of gold just so that they wouldn't have their economy size capped by lack of currency - leading to considerable loss of /real/ value and massive suffering. Ironically having too much gold also created inflation issue. Having currency that can inflate with the economy instead of something else arbitrary is what the strength of fiat currency is.

[justicezyx]

"Blockchain was the first serious attempt at solving the problem of distributed concensus without centralisation."

Wow, this is such a wrong statement.

Consensus in general has been in CS since its dawn... How childish a person would think CS scientists wont consider this problem without centralization...

[prepend]

I would like to better understand your but about blockchain being the first serious attempt at consensus without decentralization.

The internet itself is a big movement toward consensus. Just look at tcp/ip and Ethernet and dns and lots of other protocols that reach consensus without centralization. But it’s more of a wet consensus than a dry consensus because the negotiation over routing tables happens between users and admins.

DNS and IP have roots, but there are multiple roots and methods for negotiating.

None are perfect, as blockchain isn’t perfect, but are certainly serious attempts.

Maybe the most successful is the IETF RFC process for decentralized consensus.

There are also good examples like the Apache Foundation for distributed consensus.

[tCfD]

Alchemy gave birth to science, this is not trolling.