BlockPaper – Centralized, paper-backed blockchain in my home office | Hacker News Reader

BlockPaper – Centralized, paper-backed blockchain in my home office

buyblockpaper.com

70 pointsmipmap0435 comments

Thanks for your interest in BlockPaper. Imagine a world where all transactions can be tracked on a single, linear chain of paper links. Centrally managed in a corner in my home office, each link in this chain represents a step forward into our collective future - a future that you can use your money to own a small part of. Adding a new link to the chain is easy and affordable - based on how I'm feeling and your personal defintion of affordable. The starting price for a new link in the chain is $1.00 USD. This price is variable and based on a mathematical function. Essentially, the price is inversely correlated with how much I want to get off my chair and add a new link to the chain. Once the new link is added, I'll send you a picture of it via email.

I wrote BlockPaper last night using ASP.NET Core, Azure (SQL, storage, webapps), Twilio, SendGrid, and Cloudflare.

You can follow the project on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BuyBlockPaper

Hi!

Will you also post the pictures on the Twitter account or only send it by email?

On the one hand I would like to be able to brag about my purchase and having it posted by your Twitter account would make it look more official (after all, I could take the picture myself on a fake BlockPaper at home if I was a scammer), on the other hand I fear that people will download and report the picture of the BlockPaper link I paid for to own it myself. I've seen them people, they tend to do that.

Also, before I invest my money in this project, I would like to know: how many BlockPaper links have been sold already?

Looks like there's a /view endpoint. Current end of chain is #10: https://www.buyblockpaper.com/View/10 .

Yes that's right. It's all viewable - it's the only physically observable blockchain (that I'm aware of). Also I'm not really sure what a blockchain is, but I'm confident this qualifies.

What plans do you have to present periodic snapshots of the full chain? I'm uncomfortable going all in until I can be sure that my links won't be edited out.

I'm thinking about adding a live Twitch stream of the chain, but that sounds like a lot of work so I'll probably just upload periodic pictures of it in a pile on my floor to Twitter every few days and charge $5,000 if people want to come audit it physically.

You can always publish a PDF saying “Trust me bro” as an attestation. Works well for Tether.

Elon Musk has one! He promises! https://buyblockpaper.com/View/13

This made the twitter feed.

I'm 14! Next to Elon!

Thanks for your interest! We've hit double digits so I've started cold-calling A16Z and other investors. You'll get it by email, but we have Twitter and Facebook sharing links to allow you to easily brag about your financial prowess and gambling ability (see here: https://buyblockpaper.com/View/5). Of course, if you tag us on Twitter, I'll retweet anything and tell everyone how smart you are (see here: https://twitter.com/BuyBlockPaper/status/1490047224688132098)

This is all I needed to hear. Thanks.

You should add the meta tags for social networks on the viewer page. The summary_large_image version should be cool. You can test the feature here: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator :).

Thanks for the advice, BlockPaper holder #14. I'm a back-end dev so this stuff is mostly arcane to me. I'll check it out!

Another suggestion: add "previous link" and "next link" button to the link viewer :).

Done!

This is so good. Another one of those 'is this a hilarious joke or just another blockchain project pioneered by your next-door crypto bro' challenges! This was a close one, almost got me.

I'm serious about taking your money.

Can I send you cash?

Only if you exchange it for hoops of paper on a chain in my home office.

Did Dunder Mifflin finally get into crypto space?

Infinite paper in a paperless world.

I don't see it listed anywhere on your site, so I guess I'll ask here.

How much to fork the chain near the beginning? Does the price depend on how many links I intend to strand on a side-fork?

I would like my link to be #7 on the chain. You've already sold "double digits."

What's it gonna cost me?

I knew someday I'd be asked this question. Let's just say it's sizeable as my proof of paper consensus algorithm is tied to how hard I want to work and I'm very lazy. Managing two forks sounds tedious. Stay tuned though - I'll definitely be adding forks in the future.

Smart people taking time and effort to make fun of something is the ultimate compliment!

This is the kind of satire that pushes me to go dig deeper into cryptocurrencies and figure out what's world changing and what's chaff. Been listening to the Zero Knowledge podcast recently to learn about ZK Proofs: https://zeroknowledge.fm/

Bold of you to think I'm smart! Thanks for checking it out.

It's not a coincidence that 24 writers for the Simpsons went to Harvard! source: https://www.uselessdaily.com/movies/how-many-writers-of-the-...

What about the collapse of civilization or the apocalypse? How much will block paper be worth if all law, order and economies break down?

BlockPaper will likely cause the collapse of civilization as it will be the most sought after physical item in the world and will cause massive cross-continental conflict once the chain reaches critical mass. So, I mean, it's gonna be worth a lot. No other blockchain can, or will, make this claim. When the grid shuts down, BlockPaper keeps ticking.

That's good to hear. I'll just pull all my investments from my goat farm and civboot.org and put it all in block paper then. Thanks for making everything so much easier!

Now THIS is a smart investor. Good call.

If you created a secondary market for paper-links and let others run paper-nodes, you'd be filthy rich in a matter of months

I think I just found my cofounder.

On transfership, how the new owner will know the secret? Also, where do you store secrets? And how transferring will look at the data storage?

I just bought a link in the chain with my seed printed on it. But after multiple refreshes I don't see the link in my OpenSea account.

and now support isn't answering....

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