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gregjor

function is_a_scam(string crypto_project_name) { return true; }

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There was a related blockchain decision framework published a few years ago:

https://miro.medium.com/max/352/0*850OATxY25S23TGR.jpg

Your machine learning model is 99.999999% accurate.

Certificate Transparency is an application of blockchain that isn't a scam!

Is it even a blockchain in the cryptocurrency sense of the word? It's a chain of trust where every addition cryptographically signs the previous entry (to prevent the database from being modified retroactively) but as far as I know there's no "mining" process nor decentralization - the log is still controlled by a central entity.

Not sure if the parent author meant a specific company or was just referring to the general domain of certificate verification. There are certificate verification projects in the blockchain space that go beyond what you describe.

The parent post capitalized Certificate Transparency, so they probably meant the Certificate Transparency project, as described here: https://certificate.transparency.dev/

I hadn't seen any of these blockchain projects that try to provide a similar audit log for issued certificates that you reference... mind naming them? Particularly any that can actually be used?

Certificate transparency only uses a blockchain if you redefine a blockchain to mean "any use of a merkle tree", which is all certificate transparency logs are.

You will notice the certificate transparency website makes zero mentions of blockchain anywhere: https://certificate.transparency.dev/howctworks/

What a blockchain normally means is something that has added some sort of attempt at solving the two generals problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem), as the original bitcoin whitepaper outlined.

That is to say, blockchains have a consensus mechanism to resolve multiple writers, with some of those being potentially untrusted.

If Certificate Transparency is a blockchain, than so are the zfs filesystem (which also uses a merkle tree internally), git, and dynamodb.

Yeah but those aren't called blockchain!

I'd say this applies better to adjustable rate loans. Some crypto isn't a scam even if nearly all the tokens are.

Adjustable rate loans and all kinds of investment products don't make good financial sense, but that's not the same thing as a scam. An ARM is not fraudulent, it's just dangerous, in the same way that credit cards are easy to abuse but aren't scams or ponzi schemes.

ARMs are dangerous to the degree I'd say they're fraudulent. Certainly they are if all of crypto meets your standard.

ARMs are not fraudulent because the terms are clearly disclosed. If someone chooses to borrow money and agrees to unfavorable terms they have supposedly made an informed decision. ARMs are not Ponzi schemes, and there’s no rug pull or fake valuations. They are just bad financial decisions for a lot of people.

Even so, finding examples of scams or fraud or risky investments that aren’t crypto doesn’t validate crypto. People are capable of all kinds of scams and frauds. Crypto is just a near-perfect vehicle for scammers.

The ARMs in the 1980s in the United States were well-documented and the potential interest rate increase was both "rate-limited" and capped. They were not fraudulent.

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