[ownagefool]

> Block chain skepticism has gotten as silly as block chain hype.

Is it though?

My admittedly simple understanding is that blockchain is a distributed ledger that suffers from consensus based attacks; as in it's pretty much useless unless the cluster is massive and shared between lots of parties that couldn't really out-compute each other.

Thus the criticisms aren't really "this can never work" but simply, this is usually a waste of compute power and energy compared to a non-distributed version, especially when it's one of these singular company examples.

Would be interested in hearing what's the use cases are.

[mifreewil]

> especially when it's one of these singular company examples.

Blockchain is most useful in situations where there is a lack of trust between parties. Seems like a lot of people on HN distrust PayPal because of being bitten by frozen accounts or having their earned money revoked. That’s why money is a good use case for blockchain.

Voting is another - maybe you don’t trust that your vote for the radical will be counted correctly.

Smart contracts are another. If the other party decides they don’t like the current state of affairs (they are losing) then it’s much easier and less expensive to have the contract auto-enforced than using a army of law enforcement and lawyers.

If HSBC is actually using this to create an immutable record of transactions that ensures integrity of the logs then it would be a good use case, but I have my doubts.

[nloladze]

The trust issue is far overblown. Blockchain is much more about digital ownership of assets. You own your Facebook, your Google search results, etc, etc. You may not physically host it, but own the data that is generated from it and can decide to co-opt it into a larger tray for money if you wish or to remain private. It's much more about freedom on a conceptual level if we zoom out then about simple immutable ledgers; which are just shared key-value pair databases across many nodes, nothing special.

[mifreewil]

The immutable ledger and consensus algorithm is the basis for allowing ownership of digital assets and freedom.

Solving the trust issue is what an immutable ledger and consensus algorithm is all about.

Without a way to agree on who owns what and a way to enforce that then there is no way to have digital ownership or freedom without an army of lawyers and law enforcement, or trust.

You probably already have ownership of digital assets without blockchain: it’s called a bank account, equities, bonds, and maybe a title or deed to a car or home. But that ownership is all enforced by an entire system of laws, attorneys, law enforcement, and other fallible human beings. If you remove the reliance on that system and fallible human beings, you then begin to enable a greater amount of ownership and freedom than previously possible.

[perl4ever]

"If you remove the reliance on that system and fallible human beings"

If you throw away a crutch, you've removed your reliance on it, indisputably. But that doesn't cure a broken leg.

[mifreewil]

I don’t follow your analogy

[perl4ever]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga_Fintech_Solutions

"Cotten, it turns out, was a serial operator of “exit scams: Ponzis that, after reaching a critical volume, abruptly close up shop.” He ran his first pyramid scheme at age 15. Cotten and his partner in Quadriga, Michael Patryn—an alias!—met on a message board for Ponzi schemers, where they bonded by running Ponzi schemes on each other"

[mirekrusin]

There are many consensus algorithms available and nobody is using proof-of-work you're mentioning in enterprise setting.