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Comment by jjn2009 | Hacker News Reader

jjn2009

The whole point is to cryptographically be able to prove ownership of something to the network. Given that bitcoins, litecoins and ether aren't magically disappearing out of people's wallets I think its pretty safe to say these systems can be designed in ways which are secure (at least secure enough for the marketcaps of each of those cryptocurrencies which is billions).

If I get a piece of paper that says I own some asset there is offices full of people who are dedicated to ensuring that piece of paper properly represents some piece of land, car, security etc. Why would you not want to automate such a system?

Not to mention once you can create such a system the chains of trust can extend beyond just your bond issuance, you can tie actions from other trusted systems into your bond issuing system in a fully automated way.

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> If I get a piece of paper that says I own some asset there is offices full of people who are dedicated to ensuring that piece of paper properly represents some piece of land, car, security etc. Why would you not want to automate such a system?

I've been saying this for couple of years now: the most likely "disruption" from blockchain technology is going to be in notarial functions. The concept of coloured coins[0] allows to use a globally available, publicly verifiable, and for all intents and purposes a forgery-immune register to verify contracts.

Cutting through all the [templated] legalese, we can say: "Contract A, between parties K and L, concerning transaction T: T shall be considered done and legally binding once Coloured Coin X has been paid from address [foo] to address [bar], and has been verified by no less than 20 subsequent blocks."

There will be lawyers involved, of course. Someone has to actually enforce the contracts and deal with off-blockchain disputes. But dealing with the actual physical transactions and transfers of ownership could be streamlined.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_coins

The legal side will be one of the last barriers I agree, if a court doesn't recognize the immutability of the system then it can't be used as evidence of anything. If blockchains can't be used as an audit trail for legal means then a lot of the value goes out the window.

  > The whole point is to cryptographically be able to prove
  > ownership of something to the network.

Ownership is not the same thing as possession. Using a blockchain for bonds is analogous to bearer bonds, or even just plain cash. There's a reason why both bearer bonds and large denomination currency bills are no longer issued.

  > Given that bitcoins, litecoins and ether aren't magically
  > disappearing out of people's wallets

They do magically disappear. Both traditional fraudsters (e.g. Mt. Gox.) and criminal hackers take bitcoins all the time. The blockchain doesn't care, of course.

Expect in the next couple of years movies to start featuring Bitcoin heists. I'm sure the scripts are already being passed around at the studios.

I don't quite understand your last paragraph, but for the rest:

> The whole point is to cryptographically be able to prove ownership of something to the network.

I don't think that's the problem that blockchains solve. That problem can be solved without blockchain just by using public/private key cryptography and digital signatures, along with for instance a public ledger. But a public ledger doesn't need to be distributed and subject to consensus protocols, mining dynamics, etc. It can simply be hosted on a website.

It is though. You cant ensure ownership if there is no third party the point that of the blockchain is that it solves that issue by turning the entire network into the notarius. Public/private key cryptography does not solve that.

You're talking about a different problem - not having a trusted third party or authority. I agree that blockchain solves that problem (well, it tries).

As for the last paragraph a good example of this is the closing of a contract from an iot device signal. The device signal may be on the iot chain or chain code instance and the contract logic on another.

The only problem with your theory is how to do that with a turing complete system. I can send signatues for anything but actions which occur based on those signatures you would want a somethingwhich continues the chain of trust. Im not sure of any way to do this how you are describing while still maintaining turing completeness.

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