Re: P2P Payments

On 12/04/2014 04:00 PM, Daniel.Buchner wrote:
> 1) Create a broad interface that strings together everything needed 
> to transact payments between all the existing sources and services, 
> then hope everyone in a huge ecosystem of non-standard, 
> non-interoperable payments makes it happen.
> 
> 2) Integrate an open source, web-accessible value transmission 
> protocol into UAs that leaps beyond existing, proprietary sources.
> 
> #1 is hard, it's damn hard.

+1

> #2 is a long-game option, but we could start today if we accepted 
> that we should deal with legacy and emerging, trustless payment 
> systems as separate initiatives.

+1

> Warning - I'm going to say it: We could propose UAs integrate code 
> that understands how to deal with blockchains (in general), then 
> create a set of APIs that make payments over these newer mediums a 
> snap for developers.
> 
> ***ducks***

No need to duck :). What you're saying isn't controversial in this
group. In general, the group tends to be anything that'll get us to a
better way of doing value exchange. There are many paths to that future.

> The fact of the matter is we have a standard, open protocol for 
> worldwide payments today, and that's Bitcoin (gasp). Is it adopted
> by the majority of consumers yet? No. Will it ever be? I don't know.
>  What I do know is:
> 
> - It could provide value to developers today - It's a far more 
> attainable goal - It's right there waiting for people to use it
> 
> Why not take a shot at this?

We've been waiting for the Bitcoin community to propose something along
these lines for 3+ years now. I've tried reaching out to the community
to make it happen, but for whatever reason, they're not quite there yet.

To answer your question - someone should take a shot at this, with the
following caveats:

1. Don't depend on the browser vendors to integrate anything related to
Bitcoin anytime soon. If your strategy has "get the browser vendors to
implement native code related to Bitcoin", it's probably not going to do
too well. Focus on the basic features you'd need to implement
blockchain-like tech in the browser. Every feature should be polyfill-able.

2. Figure out some way to offload blockchain processing/storage to
another system. Mobile devices probably won't cope w/ keeping the entire
blockchain locally and/or doing PoW.

3. Figure out the details necessary to get non-page-based processing
working such that a shared web worker can persist w/o being attached to
any particular page. This'll allow a browser to process the blockchain
(given enough local storage).

In short, figure out the minimum set of generalized Web technologies
that are needed to implement the blockchain in a browser and run it
persistently. Get those done and you've got your solution.

No one has stepped forward to do this work yet.

-- manu

-- 
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/

Received on Friday, 5 December 2014 02:36:55 UTC