Hacker News Reader

Comment by teruakohatu | Hacker News Reader

Didn't Microsoft Azure's blockchain platform fail? It was shutdown earlier this month [1]. How is this different and/or better?

[1] https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/microsoft-azure-b...

View on HN

I think Microsoft and others like IBM failed to “get it”. They tried to adopt blockchain tech without the cryptocurrency aspect, failing to realize there needs to be a built-in incentive structure for people to participate on any blockchain network. Mining, staking, and other proof / reward systems are required for any blockchain tech to get off the ground.

IBM and Microsoft cater to enterprises. Enterprises whose entrenched positions are challenged by decentralized systems. Centralizing a decentralized system is done either to bootstrap it (optimistic) or embrace, extend, and extinguish it (pessimistic). A corporation alone might not need a blockchain, but has no choice but to participate if that’s where the market is, and a consensus of participants (no pun intended) is who determines that technology (not corporate procurement).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Can you please give a single example of an enterprise that is being challenged by a decentralised system?

I would say commercial banks are on their way to being challenged by DeFi and stablecoins on Ethereum. But it is debatable how decentralized this system in its entirety is given the biggest entities are centralized custodian coins. But still.. massive disparities in yields and flexibility of moving value around at will does have enough disruptive force that banks and the Federal reserve are racing to both regulate stablecoins and push "CeFi" instiutions into registering as banks themselves, while on the other end legacy finance is moving towards adopting some of these systems themselves.

Clearing and settlement of securities. https://paxos.com

Hyperledger Fabric uses Proof of Authority and is still being used for projects. Being antithetical to the crypto crowd it doesn't get the same fanfare. The target user base is very different.

I personally would reach for this tech stack before the permissionless variety, I just don't have anything that needs blockchain.

What are some projects it is used for?

Primarily supply chain.

https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/case-studies

Understand connecting IRL to BCL (blockchain ledger) is where provenance breaks down. Just because a blockchain says something, does not mean it is true. Just that the data onchain hasn't changed.

Agree, and this quote from the OP's link is humorous in that regard:

"While blockchain is best known for its association with cryptocurrencies, it has applications beyond this field."

This sentiment is just thrown around without evidence. Either a blockchain has an internal reward mechanism to account for the increased costs associated with it's execution or it is simply a more complicated and expensive database looking for a problem to solve...and also is likely not decentralized.

Good evidence is git, which is a blockchain (linked list of hashes).

without a way to resolve the canonical version without trusting a singular maintainer, git is not a blockchain. blockchains enforce consensus in a decentralized way, at least public blockchains do or should.

Well no, blockchain plus consensus algorithm does what you’re describing.

it's not a blockchain without a consensus algorithm. it's a linked list of hashes.

While I get what you're referring too, you're drawing from a community wisdom definition vs. any clear technical spec deeming it such, which is what I'm highlighting here. Even the whitepaper calls it "a timestamp network."

Considering the prevailing incentives are all criminal, no wonder they failed to "get it" [sic]

Isn't Coinbase Cloud vastly different? Azure was for building any application blockchain technology (could be crypto, smart contracts, supply chain, blah blah) whereas CB Cloud is for building applications on top of Coinbase's crypto exchange.

This appears to be only managed blockchain infrastructure, not all of the other concerns that emerge when actually building an application on top of such a thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com