What I don't understand about the Blockchain hype (and I say that as a fan of Bitcoin): isn't the primary problem it solves the avoidance of double spending?
Or in the case of Ethereum, perhaps double contracts. But still, the issue seems a bit overblown to me: to double spend (or present fake contracts, or more generally, fake data), you somehow have to isolate the victims network before injecting the fake transaction into it?
Sharing data in a p2p network was possible before the blockchain. Maybe a lot of applications don't really need the bullet proof security of the blockchain to exchange data?
I don't see the real advantage for a self driving car company, for example. Why couldn't it just as well live on a server - maybe in the cloud so that it has backups? The issue of cheating could be countered with trust, just as normal businesses do (screw over your customers too often and they'll stay away).
The real problem seems to be political, I don't think it is legally possible to instantiate a business without human background?
Suppose I launch a contract on Ethereum that tries to buy a self-driving car and rent it out to passengers. How would that car get a license plate? And without it, wouldn't the police quickly remove it from the street?
Legally, creating a company without humans is impossible, but in practice, well:
Registering Planet Money's Delaware company took one day and three emails. The company that set it up for us asked for absolutely no documentation. I gave them my real name, but I could have been anybody from anywhere in the world.
The bank account issue at least is solved by Bitcoin.
Maybe some businesses don't need to be real businesses - especially illegal ones :-/
I wonder about the consequences of running an illegal business on the blockchain, though. Say, a marketplace for drugs on Ethereum. Worst case it would make using Ethereum illegal?
I don't understand it all either, but I can appreciate one of the key benefits is in transparency. Transparency in Bitcoin works because everyone who uses Bitcoin has a copy of the full blockchain. This makes the rate at which trades can take place relatively slow, but also gives protection against people gaming the system (it is possible to game the system, but it's hard for most to do so).
As I understand it, the advantage of any blockchain (Bitcoin's or another's) is a shared (among participants) causal ordering of events (which is legitimized via the avoidance of double-spending, the "chain" aspect of it, and a few other properties). All the potential falls out of that: proof-of-existence, signed transactions, digital currency, etc.
Or in the case of Ethereum, perhaps double contracts. But still, the issue seems a bit overblown to me: to double spend (or present fake contracts, or more generally, fake data), you somehow have to isolate the victims network before injecting the fake transaction into it?
Sharing data in a p2p network was possible before the blockchain. Maybe a lot of applications don't really need the bullet proof security of the blockchain to exchange data?
I don't see the real advantage for a self driving car company, for example. Why couldn't it just as well live on a server - maybe in the cloud so that it has backups? The issue of cheating could be countered with trust, just as normal businesses do (screw over your customers too often and they'll stay away).
The real problem seems to be political, I don't think it is legally possible to instantiate a business without human background?
Suppose I launch a contract on Ethereum that tries to buy a self-driving car and rent it out to passengers. How would that car get a license plate? And without it, wouldn't the police quickly remove it from the street?