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

> All that can be new is the consensus algorithms. And when I say "all" I don't mean to minimise the importance of that.

A consensus algorithm is not necessarily separate from the data structure or the currency (in the case of cryptocurrencies) that it’s attempting to create consensus for.

Matt Corallo (Bitcoin Core dev) has given several talks where he’s done a great job driving that point home. I think this was one of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on5ySFK0aoY <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on5ySFK0aoY>

Cheers,
Greg

> On Jan 27, 2016, at 2:07 PM, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 27 Jan 2016, at 21:08, Tao Effect <contact@taoeffect.com <mailto:contact@taoeffect.com>> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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>
>> Tony is still somewhat new to the world of blockchains, and it’s interesting to watch him explore it as he spent a significant part of his time laughing and those he called “blockchainiacs”. Well, it seems he’s starting to become one himself now. :P
>> 
>> The alternatives he points to are not superior to Bitcoin.
>> 
>> SCP, for example, is completely broken in terms of being usable as a decentralized payment system because it has no way to reconcile forks once they occur.
>> 
>> Tendermint is certainly good, but I don’t think it’s good enough to power a global currency. It’s great for smaller projects though.
>> 
>> Hyperledger is not a cryptocurrency by a consensus algorithm, and while I haven’t looked at in detail I suspect similar issues to either SCP or Tendermint might apply.
> 
> Is it not the case that all of these technolgies contain 2 parts:
> 
>  A). the data structure ( eg. blockchain)
>  B). the consensus algorithm: which allows a digital medium where everything is easy to copy, to come to an agreement on what actually is the case ( who paid what to whome, who signed what contract, etc...)
> 
> There can't be anything magical in A) as that's covered by the semantic web [1], which provides the foundation for any possible data structure, being based as it is on mathematical logic.
> 
> All that can be new is the consensus algorithms. And when I say "all" I don't mean to minimise the importance of that.
> 
> Henry
> 
> [1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2016Jan/0006.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2016Jan/0006.html>