[colejohnson66]

The point of a blockchain is that to edit an earlier record, you would need to edit every record that comes after (due to storing a hash of the previous block in the current block). However, it doesn’t make sense when one entity controls the entire system because if a hacker (or even an insider) can change one record, they could change all of them. Hence why a good blockchain would be distributed. Then, if one node edits the history, the other nodes will see the anomaly and ignore that node.

This is also why Git’s history is easy to edit when it’s only on your machine. But once you push to GitHub and others clone your repo, it becomes a lot harder to edit history. Yes, Git isn’t a blockchain, but it does use the idea of hashing the previous “block” (commit) and storing it in the current “block.”

[wongarsu]

However you can do a local blockchain (or hash chain, or whatever you want to call it) and distribute just the hashes. If you have a local git repo and regularly tell me your commit IDs I can testify that the code existed at that point in time, and can later verify it wasn't changed if you choose to expose the full commit to me. And because it's a chain, you only need to communicate one commit ID for every external timestamp you care about, not for every commit you care about.

[speedgoose]

Yes if do not you want to distribute your data with random people over the internet, you need a Merkle tree. Not a stupid blockchain with all the downsides a blockchain have.

[wongarsu]

If you strip out the proof-of-work algorithm you're basically left with a chain of Merkle trees, and the payloads hashed by the Merkle trees. Calling it a blockchain is just a way to make it sound more familiar to potential investors.

[kennydude]

Yup, that's my thing is that they control the entire thing. Although it could be like joke where "AI" ends up being just a bunch of "if statements".