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Comment by captn3m0 | Hacker News Reader

This (along with other posts from Vitalik) keep ignoring any solutions that don’t require blockchain. As an example, he writes:

> Certificates, for example cryptographic proofs that some particular individual is a resident of the city, could be done on-chain for added verifiability and security (eg. if such certificates are issued on-chain, it would become obvious if a large number of false certificates are issued). This can be used by all kinds of local-government-issued certificates.

He does point out latter how does could probably not be decentralised 100% due to legal requirements.

We already have a working solution for this problem in the PKI World - Cert Transparency. It works, is somewhat decentralised and has worked really well. Doesn’t need a blockchain.

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Lots of things "don't need" to be written in python, but they're written in python anyway. I expect a lot of blockchain institutional use cases will take a similar route: sure, theoretically they could use some standardized federated solution, but in practice blockchain tx fees will become low enough through layer-2s to be negligible and that's where all the infrastructure to help users verify what's going on, and use those verifications in other applications, will be built. NFTs are already an incredibly easy to use and verify type of certificate; their biggest weakness is that (because of limitations in technology that are completely temporary and will disappear soon) transaction fees are too high.

Like... why _not_ dump Merkle roots on-chain?

> Lots of things "don't need" to be written in python, but they're written in python anyway.

This is a weak argument. Many things shouldn't be written in python, because it would the wrong tool for the job. Networking libraries that require bare metal performance, high assurance systems that are easier to write in strongly typed languages.

Block chains solve untrusted writing in the presence of byzantine faults. Not all applications require this. Most don't.

> Like... why _not_ dump Merkle roots on-chain?

Because the data isn't merkelized?

Choosing the wrong language doesn’t usually come with multiple order of magnitude differential in energy costs. Or changing the security guarantees being offered - that’s usually at the application layer.

As an example, you’re open to Sybil attacks, and ongoing costs of mining. You need to understand the economics behind the chain you chose to make sure it doesn’t die, and hand off the key management to land owners.

When we have a simpler solution that doesn’t burn the planet, and is easily understood by everyone - as engineers it is our responsibility to have a really compelling reason to ignore it. I don’t see it here.

Why not though? I'm buying a house and this came to mind.

-Centralized city/county tokenizes all parcels of land, grants them to current owners

-I can prove I own it via a signed transaction, and anyone can trustlessly verify I own it

-When I sell it, I can trustlessly transfer it to the recipient for an agreed upon price via smart contract

Boom, no more closing fees. Eliminate the scammy title insurance industry. No broker fees... etc etc. Can someone ship this before I waste five figures paying parasites next month?

EDIT: Thoughts on flow.

-Seller owns token 123 in address A, which yourCity.gov shows is the following plat.

-Buyer approaches seller, provides address B. Seller provides address, buyer can verify that token matches plat via yourCity.gov

-Buyer and Seller agree on offer, Buyer provides address which reveals requisite funds.

-Seller generates a simple smart contract, _including the buyers address_. Code is essentially "upon receipt of 150 ETH from address B, this address will transfer token 123 to B".

The buyer can then pay or not, knowing that if he pays X he will receive Y (and thus, legal ownership enforced by the state). The seller can take down/invalidate the contract at any time before it executes. The seller could also put another contract up to another buyer, and if buyer #2 pays before buyer #1 they get the token (and any broadcasts from buyer 1 fail because the token is gone).

Seems pretty transparent to me.

Since you are trusting a third party to validate/invalidate token ownership anyway, why not let them run a centralised infrastructure for bids/escrow as well. Bids could be published (via a Git repo for validation, or via a Transparency log) to maintain integrity.

The security model doesn’t change - this party could sign away your land ownership already. You don’t need to trust an arbitrary blockchain, or mining economics or get all land owners to buy multisig hardware wallets.

If someone steals the crypto keys to your house and transfers it to themselves are the cops going to come and kick you out of the house?

So nothing really changes or gets better. There is always chance that government claws back the property... Why is crypto then needed in process in the first place?

It seems that issue being fixed is lack of proper land registry.

The gov could have a legal process to re-issue you a new token and invalidate the old one.

Sounds like you are reinventing PKI to me (ala OSCP). Just issue everyone a signed PDF. I’m sure some country would have figured this out by now.

Since "blockchain" is already a very stretched term, I think Cert Transparency log can be classified as a blockchain.

I can’t find it now, I remember the CT announcement posts explicitly calling it out as “not a blockchain”. The CloudFlare announcement also makes fun of it:

> Certificate Transparency brings accountability to the web PKI using a technology called a <del>blockchain an append-only public ledger, </del> an ordered list.

Crypto is really good at co-opting existing terms (crypto, Web3 for eg) and we shouldn’t let it go the other way as well, calling an ordered list a blockchain.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-certificate-transpar...

"Blockchain" became a term when people started riding on Bitcoin hype to push their own scamcoins. So, on one hand there was "there's not just Bitcoin, there's an entire Blockchain Space" theme, but on another — everyone saw "blockchain" as a giant ponzi operation. Also, there are people who are fixated on proof-of-work as something evil, so that's also why CT was saying "this is not a blockchain".

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