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is there any legitimate use of blockchains? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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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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[–] 44 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    land registry

    Yes! No more need for title insurance if ownership records are clear and public.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    They already are in most countries. E.g. in Poland land registry is maintained by court system and any changes are made only as a result of court order or a filing made by a notary public, who has a real incentive to check all the documents, because they are on the hook financially for any false filings.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    In other words, this is a solved problem without any blockchain nonsense.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Updates lag 4-6 months after filing, so not 100% solved.

    also you can only guarantee the records have not been tampered with if you maintain a full copy of the records to compare. Even if you do have that full copy you will have a problem proving your copy is the correct one. A full crypto-verified ledger solves that.

    If you empower e.g. every change filer (court, notary public) to run a node fudging records becomes effectively impossible.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Usually, lag like that is due to an ancient codebase, database, and process setup. If you were to solve that, you still wouldn't need blockchain. The software and process engineering does need careful consideration--almost all the stuff like this has had at least one major attempt to replace it over the decades, and it obviously failed--but again, nothing you would be able to solve just because blockchain.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    But them the government can't unilaterally take your property from you for a pittance under eminent domain. Who wants a system like that?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Yes they could? Just append a block with the government stating they now own the land.

    I guess you could fork the blockchain and don't accept this change but this would be useless. Even if no one accepted the claim, the government can just do whatever they want with that land.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    You can only guarantee the records have not been tampered with if you maintain a full copy of the records to compare. Even if you do have that full copy you will have a problem proving your copy is the correct one. A full crypto-verified ledger solves that.

    If you empower e.g. every change filer (court, notary public) to run a node fudging records becomes effectively impossible.

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