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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

Why is there this hype around “blockchains”? What does this even mean?

Bitcoin has a proof-of-work chain which, through wasting superlative amounts of energy and destroying the atmosphere, establishes consensus about transactions as a distributed system. It is clear what a “blockchain” is there, and in Bitcoin clones and forks.

But outside Bitcoin, what does it refer to? Peer-to-peer? Distributed systems? Global warming? It feels like a meaningless buzzword. How, exactly, does having a Bitcoin-esque distributed consensus system – if that's even what you mean – actually solve some given X? It never seems to be explained, it's just “blockchain will solve X”.

I think “blockchain” might be the new “.com”.

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> through wasting superlative amounts of energy and destroying the atmosphere

It's true, Bitcoin does spend a lot of energy to provide proof-of-work, the underpinning of distributed trust in the blockchain.

But you might find proof-of-stake[1] interesting. It requires far less energy--no repetitive hashing. It could also provide stronger protection against sybil attacks, requiring the attacker to spend far more in real terms in order to obtain a 51% stake.

The Ethereum blockchain is planning a move to proof-of-stake[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake

[2] http://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/9/why-does-ether...

EDIT: Formatting

Proof of stake has been around for decades in some form or another (Quorum based consensus was what it was originally called) Andrew Poelstra has compiled a pretty decent list of reasons why it's an uninteresting idea: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf (He's created other documents on the subject)

About the amount of energy wasted, it is true, the energy used for securing the network is a waste, yet this waste is competing(or at least wants to be competing) with the alternative of physical security, of surveillance cameras, vaults and secure transport vans - or, alternatively, with banking electronic security systems. Compared to those, is the waste bigger or smaller for what it can offer? If you look it like that, at least for me, it makes sense and it seems quite efficient.

As to this point, what do you feel for example, abotu hight frequency trading? Is that not a waste also? I think it's an even greater waste, but it seems, as long as something is making money, nobody bats an eye.

Blockchains have their limitations, but generally speaking they're a useful tool for 'decentralised trust'. Enabling network nodes to trust each other without relying on a central authority is useful in a number of fields, that's why there's a buzz around them.

So an "intranet" to bitcoin's "internet"

Bitcoin isn't really analogous to an "internet", but I think I get what you're trying to say, in that blockchains offer a form of private network on top of the shared public network. There is some truth in that, though it goes beyond public and private, it's truly about trust. All transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain (in its current form) can be seen by everyone else in the network. The trust comes from sharing knowledge about transactions, every Bitcoin (and Satoshi, which are fractions of a single Bitcoin) is traceable by every node on the network. In some ways it's even more 'public' than the Internet it is running on.

This is a pretty good explanation of it for the banking system at least:

https://gendal.me/2015/04/27/how-to-explain-the-value-of-rep...

Beyond accounting ledgers though, hard to say.

> destroying the atmosphere

Is bitcoin responsible for more CO2 than airplane travel or concrete production? Lets use our very best judgement and look at some data before making an emotional statement with no basis in reality. Concrete production is responsible for 5% of global CO2 emissions. How much electricity do you think bitcoin uses?

We need those 2 things, bitcoin isn't needed.

Is money needed? Is the Euro needed? All currencies serve a purpose to some. Just because YOU don't need bitcoin, doesn't mean that isn't needed by others.

I don't need Euros, that is true. The Euro is a crucial part of the global economy and hundreds of millions actually do need it day to day.

That is not the case with bitcoin.

This 2 minute video explains the value of blockchains at a high level quite well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43LhSUUGTQ

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