Hello,
I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It’s not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.
is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?
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Good summary, a few additions from my side:
- Being public is not required. E.g. banks could form an internal block chain shared only with other banks.
- Blockchains are a database. An immutable and usually distributed database.
Also worth noting that the computations don’t have to be expensive either, it’s only there in cryptocurrencies to artificially limit the number of blocks generated on a public system and tie it into the reward system.
So for a bank, that could be a plain single iteration of a sha256 hash, and once share everyone agrees those were the transactions and you can’t go back and change one without having to change the whole chain.
Make it sha1 and you basically have git.
A blockchain is more or less just an append-only database. Or even an append-only replication log with built-in checksums.
The lack of a trusted central authority is key. If you have at least one authority you can trust just barely enough, the whole idea of a blockchain collapses. There needs to be an urgent trust crisis for this to work.
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If you have multiple banks, you can have multiple copies of the same database. If any one bank modifies their copy, it is obvious who modified it and what was changed. No blockchain needed.
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Could this be a true voting record? Votes would be transparent, but as you say, unalterable.
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The point of the blockchain is to achieve distributed consensus of what’s in the database. That way, one entity can’t unilaterally change what the database says.
If you have a public non-profit institution maintaining the database, obligated to serve all legal customers, with serious consequences for tampering with it, you can get pretty much everything blockchain can do, for a billionth of the computing power.
But with that system, you would lose these features:
- partially-anonymous participants
- service of all customers, even illegal ones
- immunity to court orders
Anything that requires a public, immutable database. Land registry would be one example. Notary public for electronic documents would be another.
You can leverage the majority consensus to create a trusted software build system. Each block would be a package build
It’s just a data store (database kind of implies extra features) that’s trust-free and decentralised. It’s not even the only way to implement one; Ripple for example uses a slightly different scheme.
How has nobody linked the XKCD on this exact question? Randall Monroe compares them in the alt text to grappling hooks: something cool that might have uses, but only in very specific niches. https://xkcd.com/2267/
Using it as a currency which requires no third party for transactions is a legitimate use case. See current payment processors vs Steam conflict for why it may be a good idea. There are a lot of times when it’s not a good idea either.
However the price must be reasonably stable and transaction cost low. Don’t think any of the major CCs qualify.
Swift exists though? There is really no need for Credit cards or other payment processors.
What’s swift?
Gods unchained is a digital TCG that is the only good use of NFTs (and thus Blockchain) that I can think of.
The idea of NFTs is you have a specific instance of a thing that you can trade around. NFT art is stupid, because at the end of the day it’s a jpg. However, with a digital TCG, each NFT can represent a singular copy of a digital trading card. It brings back the “trading” aspect of a digital TCG, made more convenient than physical cards due to digital transfers.
How is this different from MODO?
Not sure what that is, searching doesn’t help
Magic Online with Digital Objects, also known as Magic Online
If wotc closes down modo, you’re left SOL.
Because transactions and ownership are not controlled by the hosting company, I believe there’s opportunity to keep the game going even after the company closes doors.
Long shot, but it’s the first peek at “digital ownership” where you actually own something, independent of the company that gave it to you, they can easily be traded.
I know this is dodging your point, but WotC has already divested themselves of MODO and a third party now runs it. I know what you mean, a central server going down destroys access to the game you pay for. And indeed we see that happening with plenty of live service games, to the point that its starting to weigh down the entire industry, or at least that sector of it.
But I ask, is it really that different? Various NFT projects have come and gone, and most of the NFTs people have paid for have succumbed to link rot already my guy. The average life span for a live service game is like, what? 2 years? And even the successful ones, what? Like 7? I haven’t played God’s Unchained, but I can’t imagine being a blockchain game will make any difference, especially because the games that do survive and are remembered have the following factors:
Can easily be modded/ hacked Can be easily emulated Were cherished and beloved
Deus Ex can be downloaded for free. Pokemon red and Sim Tower and Oregon Trail can be run in a browser. Breakout can be run in a search engine. As far as the comparison to MODO, those cards were fungible. When you completed a whole set, you could contact WotC to take them out of your account, and they would send you a copy of the whole set in paper. It’s why MTGOexchange was called that; before bitcoin, you could trade magic cards for drugs.
I haven’t played the game before either - I just know that for once folks can own a digital aspect of a game independent of the creators of the game, which I think is notable and qualifies as a “legitimate use of Blockchain”.
That’s real neat re: MTGOexchange! I played in the past and knew about card redemption, I didn’t know about drugs lmao
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Before we start blaming a digital trading card game for the sins of capitalism, let’s both acknowledge that “artificial scarcity” is built into games. Mario suffered “artificial scarcity” when he didn’t have a red mushroom at the ready. Anything that requires “unlocking” can be argued to be artifical scarcity. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter because these are aspects of a game and not real world resources.
Every digital TCG - Hearthstone, mtg arena, etc. all already have artificial scarcity.
This is just allowing for you, as a player, to actually have a semblance of ownership over the digital goods you obtain, independent of the company you purchased it from, which is far more than any other digital platform will allow for.
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It sounds like your issues are with that of games in general, which is outside of the scope of this discussion, so I don’t have much to say in response. Hope you have a good day!
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Or did removing the monetization when they released it on consoles
monetization, verb: to utilize (something of value) as a source of profit
Did they release that shit for free or something? Are you claiming “they” released dozens of versions of it after “they” stopped using the game as a source of profit?
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