this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
4 points (75.0% liked)

Experienced Devs

3964 readers
3 users here now

A community for discussion amongst professional software developers.

Posts should be relevant to those well into their careers.

For those looking to break into the industry, are hustling for their first job, or have just started their career and are looking for advice, check out:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe
jmk1ng
drewsiferr
4
Needing help verifying my understanding of blockchain/crypto-currencies. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/experienced_devs
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Over the years I feel brainwashed by the thoughts of others with no willpower to affirm my own beliefs.

Simply, to me blockchain/crypto is this idea of P2P communication where the intermediate technology that "handshakes" our connection isn't essentially governed by a centralized entity. But, "handshaking" in this world costs and gas is often times used as the processing/energy to enact this exchange.

Now, for what can be exchanged, it can be quantities of an item. Or information stored within an item. Kind of like Pass by value vs. Pass by reference, in a weird way? Or cryptocurrencies vs. smart contracts?

Now, my own belief is, comparing this system with torrenting, seeding and other technologies that existed long ago. What makes "blockchain/crypto" so valuable that cannot be solved with the technology invented prior to it. To me, it seems like there is extra charge and latency and thus just more negative values overall, when the final overall goal should be this idea of exchanging information. We still need ISPs, we still need physical wires to complete the "end-to-end" connection with a peer. So isn't everything still fundamentally centralized?

What is it actually improving? And is my way of thinking accurate? Why can't there be a normal P2P project handling exchange of information and/or modern fiat in the same way (Something like Paypal, but transactions have no middleman)?

all 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] muhanga 1 points 1 year ago

Why can't there be a normal P2P project handling exchange of information and/or modern fiat in the same way (Something like Paypal, but transactions have no middleman)?

Firstly because money is a physical, cultural and social construct so it can't be changed on purely informational basis. Someone still need to share burden of proof and they want to be compensated for the labor. So until we get a StarTrek replicators (mean we remove need to spend money on basic need and survuval of whole human race) this is a state we are in.

In short blockchain and crypto don't solve any real world problem. It solves problem that it itself creates.

I can sell you amazing knife and it will fix the world hunger, but only if you can buy bread and sharpen the knife. This is crypto sell point in the nutshell.

Blockchain is little different as it solves the problem of provable chain of evidence, but it is not economically viable due costs needed to run it for organisations that require it. Any problem that blockchain can solve require that all information for this will be stored on blockchain. And physical object information is not stored on blockchain, so data input errors/malpractice is still the problem and this reduce blockchain effectiveness to the basically zero.

Dan Olson aka foldablehuman have an amazing series of video essays regarding all the crypto blockchain and web3 scam running around. I highly recommend them. It just a sea of information regarding current state of things with crypto/blockchain business.