I had a skim of both links (sorry but just dumping a list isnt exactly proof), and taking the first example [0], I really dont see what a blockchain brings you over a database. When you have a private blockchain, or a managed blockchain by an entity, you inherently have centralisation. What happens in the automotive case if the blockchain is forked? Which chain do I trust?
Every single use case (I have yet to see a single one, and I am) has been a use case for an append only ledger, not a decentralised ledger, and in every one of those use cases the problems that a blockchain actually solved and the advantages of a blockchain are immaterial. Can you provide one example in the two lists (which you've claimed are good examples) where the properties of a blockchain are wanted, not the properties of an append only ledger? Because if you want an append only ledger, a SQL database (or even a nosql database) is a simpler solution that will perform orders of magnitude better than 500 transactions per second.
None of the "research" and use cases linked need blockchains or are made better by blockchains. These are quite transparent cash grabs while hype is strong.
> None of the "research" and use cases linked need blockchains or are made better by blockchains.
You can read at a speed I could only wish. Kudos.
And of course they don't "need" them. We don't necessarily "need" the cloud, Docker, or web frameworks either, yet here we are. Yes, there could be a new, completely open, distributed database that let multiple users monitor and inspect all historical changes, while allowing some others to make modifications in it.
We could just use Cassandra and build the whole distributed identity and storage infrastructure based on it.
> You can read at a speed I could only wish. Kudos.
I read the sensational headlines. They are as boring and as old as ever: it's the same "use-cases" over and over again, none of them require blockchains, and in none of them blockchain provided anything of value.
> Yes, there could be a new, completely open, distributed database that let multiple users monitor and inspect all historical changes, while allowing some others to make modifications in it.
You have just described a regular database with an open dataset.
> We could just use Cassandra and build the whole distributed identity and storage infrastructure based on it.
Yes. Yes, we could. And that's what all of those "researches" and "use cases" will inevitably end up doing: scraping "blockchain" and replacing it with MySQL, Postgres, BigQuery, Cassandra, MongoDB, sqlite etc.
> Yes. Yes, we could. And that's what all of those "researches" and "use cases" will inevitably end up doing: scraping "blockchain" and replacing it with MySQL, Postgres, BigQuery, Cassandra, MongoDB, sqlite etc.
I must admit that this right here was bait, because one of the storage backends used in enterprise blockchains is indeed Cassandra.
That’s part of the issue here. Blockchain technology is just something built on top of pre-existing tools, like Docker or Spring. My point is that if we were to scrap abstractions just because they could be done at a lower level already, why stop at blockchains?
An abstraction has to offer value or solve a problem over the technology it's abstracting. Docker solves a myriad of problems that VMs and LXC have, and k8s solves a pile of problems that docker has. Blockchain's primary advantages are features that _every_ use case I've read does not want, and enterprise blockchains (from what I've seen at least) avoids those use cases by removing the features that differentiate blockchains from a normal DB.
> I must admit that this right here was bait, because one of the storage backends used in enterprise blockchains is indeed Cassandra.
That's really interesting. So is one party responsible for hosting maintaining and running that cassandra data store?
> Blockchain technology is just something built on top of pre-existing tools, like Docker or Spring. My point is that if we were to scrap abstractions just because they could be done at a lower level already, why stop at blockchains
This sentence reads like it was written by GPT-3. It makes sense on the surface level, but makes no sense when you try and understand it.
Seriously though, blockchain is an interesting technology. It's a shame it has got such a bad rap because of its ties to cryptocurrency.
[1] https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/use-cases/
[2] https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/case-studies