Re: Blockchain, block size and interledger (was: How do bank payments actually work?)

> On 27 Jan 2016, at 21:28, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 27 January 2016 at 19:05, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net <mailto:henry.story@bblfish.net>> wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Jan 2016, at 02:33, Tao Effect <contact@taoeffect.com <mailto:contact@taoeffect.com>> wrote:
>> 
>>> What do people here think about the potentially incumbent collapse of bitcoin as a crypto-currency itself and the block-size issue?
>> 
>> I think this BS and you should stop spreading it.
>> 
>> https://fixingtao.com/2016/01/point-by-point-response-to-mike-hearns-final-bitcoin-post/ <https://fixingtao.com/2016/01/point-by-point-response-to-mike-hearns-final-bitcoin-post/>
> Thanks for the article, which does undermine Mike Hearns case.
> But there are other cases that have been made too, especially with regard to the energy consumption
> of the current bitcoin blockchain. 
> 
> See this article 
>   http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-is-unsustainable <http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-is-unsustainable>
> 
> At the same time Tony Arcieri who is an expert in cryptograph argues that even though this
> may doom the current bitcoin algorithm this does not doom the whole concept. In the second
> part of his article "The Death of Bitcoin" he points to a number of up and coming algorithms
> that could be much more energy efficient
> 
> https://tonyarcieri.com/the-death-of-bitcoin <https://tonyarcieri.com/the-death-of-bitcoin>
> 
> Clearly this is a huge research project. Add to that the very intruiging possibility of
> having an RDF distributed ledger fusion and I'd say the space is still wide open, and
> very exciting. 
> 
> You'll find there are lots of wild claims in the crypto currency space.  As you can see a blog post can change the value of something by millions, so it's riddled with incentives.  I'd strongly advise not to take an 'experts' advice, unless you can really come to the conclusion yourself.  Or someone you trust that isnt conflicted.  99% of projects in the crypto currency space are scams.

but each one of them may be good. And the knowledge required to know one's way around is huge.
If I'd take expert advice how could I not notice the number of excellent people on their board of advisors
https://www.stellar.org/about/ <https://www.stellar.org/about/>

such as 
- Dan Kaminsky, well known for his work in cryptography in exposing flaws in X509, Dns, and
other protocols.
- Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab

I am reading their White Paper
https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf <https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf>

but I guess I won't be much further down the road to knowing the depth of it when finished, given
how much knowledge is required to understand this.

> 
> I already programmed a complete block chain in RDF.  It's not super useful unless a few people run it tho.  What I didnt replicate was the bitcoin P2P network.  That would be an interesting research area, maybe webDHT solves this.

I definitely think this is a good direction to research, and all my work so far (and it's just a beginning) 
has confirmed that the data part of the blockchain could helpfully be covered by semantic web standards
as I argued earlier this month
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2016Jan/0006.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2016Jan/0006.html>

Buiding a good ontology that achieves consensus is also not an easy task, but probably a lot
easier (for me at least) than understanding and evaluating the consensus protocols, which is 
it seems to me the actual original part of blockchain, stellar, and others...

Henry

>  
> 
> Henry
> 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Greg
>> 
>>> On Jan 26, 2016, at 12:59 PM, Fabio Barone <holon.earth@gmail.com <mailto:holon.earth@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> As suggested, I am starting a new thread for this topic.
>>> I apologize if I am coming over as verbose and/or cluttering your inboxes.
>>> 
>>> ****
>>> 
>>> What do people here think about the potentially incumbent collapse of bitcoin as a crypto-currency itself and the block-size issue?
>>> 
>>> The question is related to the blockchain itself, not bitcoin.
>>> Block size is ultimately a "political" decision of the community, and there appears to be a scism because of that.
>>> Not wanting to discuss that in itself (it's probably being discussed elsewhere),
>>> 
>>> but what do you guys think this means for blockchain technology itself?
>>> 
>>> Will we see a proliferation of different blockchains, making ILP even more interesting and important?
>>> 
>>> Could this be a blow to blockchain technology itself (unlikely IMHO), because limitations of this technology are becoming apparent?
>>> 
>>> What developments do you foresee happening in this field, also maybe not underestimating a potential collapse of the global economy this year?
>>> 
>>> On a side note, I like Ethereum's basic tenets but I am worried about a lock-in of some sorts...
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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>