Deloitte Announces Growing Blockchain Initiative and Services | Hacker News Reader

Deloitte Announces Growing Blockchain Initiative and Services

bitcoinist.net

28 pointsryanstr16 comments

I'm a programmer in Fintech and it feels like a blockchain bubble in it's early stage. There are a bunch of suits running around screaming "we need blockchain!". It's a feeding frenzy. It's a great time to do a blockchain related startup.

When you have no need to solve the Byzantine general problem, why get involved with the Blockchain and all its overhead and slow throughput? Why not just use a versioning database?

In all these Fintech initiatives, I have not read a single line about what will secure the unforkability of their block chain; Which is Bitcoin's innovation.

How will they do it? Random election? Vote? Majority? Everyone can veto?

I guess that in a network of firms who already work together, and already have reconciliation rules, you need less trust.

So is this just the Fintech industry realizing they need to upgrade from their hand-made batch settling at the end of the day to a real time shared ledger?

Hah. Yes, from my overview, that pretty much seems like what's going on. Oh well, as long as they upgrade their laughably antiquated systems, all's well, even if they have to justify with buzzwords and tech hype.

I've spent the last two days at the Hyperledger Project [0] face to face [1], there was a lot of fintech representation. Disclosure: I'm employed by LF, working as staff at this event.

[0] https://www.hyperledger.org/ [1] https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger/wiki/Technical-St...

Consultants have been making a big push for the block chain. SWIFT announced last month it is working with Accenture to develop a distributed ledger with block chain technology[0].

[0] https://www.swift.com/insights/press-releases/swift-and-acce...

Why would these companies want a private blockchain instead of using a database and a history table? Or even more simple, timestamp log files? Is this many companies coming together to put clearinghouses out of business and therefor needs this technology to establish better trust among the players? Unless I'm missing something, it appears to just be hype with people saying build it with blockchain?

With a blockchain, you don't have to trust some organization to run the database correctly

Can someone please explain why there are so many banks interested in a private blockchain? Isn't that more expensive than just building on top of something like ethereum?

You can use Ethereum as a private blockchain

But why do companies need to host their own blockchain? What is the value proposition in doing so?

Accessing data with permissions towards access only going to specific, pre-determined parties. Brings blockchain in line with the current data control paradigm by doing so.

If you're restricting permission like this, why bother with a blockchain at all? Why not just use a conventional database?

With a conventional database, the owner can set any value to anything they like.

With a private blockchain (and smart contracts), the owner can't forge values.

For example lets say you want to fake a transfer from client A to client B. In a traditional database, the owner can do that. With a blockchain, the owner can't.

The owner of the blockchain can of course forge values! The computational power of the network of a private blockchain is fairly easily overcome.

And every actor will know there's a double spend attack and stop accepting the chain. Unlike a public blockchain, there should never be a fork in a private blockchain. If there is a fork, you know the owner is mounting a double spend attack.

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