Re: Why blockchain technology isn't that novel...

I think "Bitcoin is the next internet," is primarily marketing material
from clever VCs investing in the space. It is used because these VCs know
the political dimensions to money issuance and circulation, and they need
the mainstream public, including regulators, to believe that the early
associations with illegal activity and extreme libertarian sentiment will
fade over time. The Internet is the appropriate metaphor because it began
in "dark corners" and expanded to more legitimate usages.

The primary benefit of the particular nature of blockchain technology as it
currently exists is that it allows one to dodge the regulations that
currently inhibit innovation in the payments space. For some weird reason,
if you run a payment through an intermediate node, then that node needs to
get licensed as an MSB. If it is fully P2P, then you have the feature that
both the network cannot be shut down and the individual participants cannot
be regulated.

This also allows funny workarounds like Ripple's "algorithmic currency" and
the claim that they simply provide the software instead of actually
processing transactions.

I think if you were to design a payment network from scratch that was
optimal, that optimal design would be rather far from Bitcoin. That said,
often the winner is the one that achieves appropriate scale first, not
necessarily the best.

Lest I be too critical, let me note that I run a wonderful youtube channel
with lots of information on Ethereum's very innovative applications of
Blockchain technology: www.youtube.com/user/EtherCasts

There are tons of uses of a fully distributed database with a smart
contract capability that haven't even been imagined up yet.

Cheers,

Joel


Joel Dietz
CEO Greenz | @fractastical <http://www.twitter.com/fractastical> | greenz.io




On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 6:27 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>wrote:

> A couple of counter-points to the "Bitcoin is the next Internet" and
> "Blockchain technology will re-invent entire industries" rhetoric:
>
> Is Bitcoin Really the Next Internet?
> http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-really-next-internet/
>
> The blockchain story is bullshit
> http://geoffreywoo.com/the-blockchain-story
>
> The blockchain story is bullshit (Part 2)
> http://geoffreywoo.com/the-blockchain-story-part-2
>
> The basic premise is that Bitcoin is in a pretty big bubble right now.
> Blockchain technology has a narrow set of problems that it could be
> applied to and it doesn't necessarily solve those problems in a way that
> is performant, or acceptable to most of society. Some very good points
> made in the articles. Then again, many technologies that ended up
> changing the trajectory of humanity (like the automobile or the Web)
> started out as inferior solutions to the status quo.
>
> -- manu
>
> PS: I'm personally still undecided, but it's good to get some
> counter-points into our heads.
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
> http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/
>
>