[bendtheblock]

A better title would be Ledgers in historical perspective. The hypothetical he ends with (what if ledgers could be decentralised) is a classic example of blockchains looking for a problem. In recent history have there been examples of banks changing their own ledgers? As a civilisation we have already solved the problem of trust in a much more efficient way.

[Stevvo]

The Libor sandal. That was precisely banks changing their own ledgers to defraud their customers on a massive scale.

[bendtheblock]

That was price fixing - nothing to do with the bank's ledger. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/libor-scandal.asp

[mandmandam]

> As a civilisation we have already solved the problem of trust in a much more efficient way.

Lol. Yeah, trust in the bankers is at a civilization high /s

In any case, block-lattice crypto is at least an order of magnitude more efficient than Mastercard et al. And it can be genuinely decentralized.

BTC and Ether were the first of their kind - but not the best, and certainly not the most efficient. Yet they get used as the bar for comparison to traditional banking and money, by people who really ought to know better.

[dcolkitt]

> In recent history have there been examples of banks changing their own ledgers?

Yes.

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

[bendtheblock]

That wasn't a change in the ledger - it was the misselling and fraudulent opening of accounts. And it was remediated, there was a change in the leadership and settlements to the victims. You're proving my point, as a system we do a decent job of enforcing good behaviour.

[dcolkitt]

I'm sorry, aren't the balance of accounts the key component of the ledger? So wouldn't fraudulently changing account data would pretty much be the definition of altering the ledger? What kind of thing to you would constitute "changing the ledger"?

[aluminaient]

Youre joking right? Aside from the massive well know scandals, I find it extremely hard to believe you havent personally experienced sameone fudging numbers to your detriment