Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not.
But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC.
Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYBE, get into the actual ideals of cryptocurrency again.
One way of thinking about a blockchain is to think of it as a shared datastructure to keep databases in sync. Any time you want to distribute your database over more than just a single central place, in a cryptographically secure way, you're probably going to re-invent a blockchain to do it.
Even more specifically, a blockchain is for when you want Byzantine fault tolerance, i.e. you don't trust one or more of the actors involved. This is the main distinguishing feature of blockchains IMO, the reason we have proof of work, proof of stake, etc. It's also the main thing I saw people getting wrong when using blockchains during the earlier waves of cryptocurrency fever; most proposals for blockchains did make sense as distributed public ledgers, but didn't really need the extra computational overhead because only trusted parties were adding blocks to begin with.
Often yes. But also blockchain's can be useful simply for backups and scaling: by cryptographically linking every bit of data together you can be confident that you actually have a complete copy without any errors.
Git is basically a blockchain for this exact reason: starting from a git commit hash, git works backwards, checking that every byte of data is what it should be. Similarly, modern filesystems like btrfs use strong (if not cryptographically strong) hashes for this same reason.
Though in a sense, you're still correct: the "actor" you aren't trusting here is your own computer hardware.
Stripe, nor any other bank or bank-esque thing needs this because they have already well solved their problem of "trust."
"Blockchain" is pointless overhead here.
- an intermediary credited another institution only to realise later they didn't have the money, and have to beg pretty-please to return the payment over a SWIFT message (there is no guarantee here, at best there is "market practice" which is basically just manners, but for banks)
- an intermediary failing to credit the next institution because of a processing error, but when inquired from remitter claiming they had in fact credited it
Many of these cases are very expensive to resolve. Far more expensive than the value of the payments in question. And for that reason they are often left unresolved.
Now I don't know if I'm convinced on stablecoin remittance, I find many of the counter-arguments extremely compelling, but some days I sure do think gee it would be nice if everyone was transacting on a shared public ledger and I could have some certainty of the status of a transaction.
But this situation is not made any better by a blockchain - there's still no way to reverse a transaction except asking nicely and hoping the other party obliges, right?
I haven't the foggiest if stablecoins solve these problems any better. In theory I think all participants having visibility into the ledger would at least answer the problem of "where actually is the money", but I'm not even sure of that though because of fiat on/off ramps, custodial arrangements, roll-ups that might happen off chain, etc.
I don't know if you could use smart contracts to encode a recall/dispute resolution process into transactions but that's very hand-wavey and possibly collapses under scrutiny!
All in I've no idea if crypto helps us here but I do think we have a long way to go either way.
blockchains solve a self-invented problem
A database cannot resist tampering by somebody with admin access to the database. It may be the only thing that blockchains have going for them, but it's a big one.
Never trust a cryptocurrency developed by a for-profit corporation.
Because I feel pretty confident that it is dwarfed by the volume of money that has been unlocked by tying crypto to ransomware.
Oh, wait... I've been handed a piece of paper...
Ethereum had a surgical state change on a smart contract via hard fork that implemented that change, so it had 0 effect on other blocks.
There absolutely is. Its called having access to the ecosystem. The money features that exist in the current blockchain landscape are simply a better developer ecosystem, with many more features, than the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools.
Blockchains are no longer about the singular feature of having a trustless ledger that bitcoin tried to provide. No, instead it is about a whole variety of money related features and developer ecosystems that simply do not exist outside of the crypto space.
Recreating all that exists in the crypto space, but using a database instead, sounds like a lot of wasted work when you can just use the tools that are already available.
Like what? Speculation?
Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist?
Genuinely curious though; what kind of 'money related features', that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to?
No, I am claiming that I couldn't spin up a bank or a stock market on my laptop, that is compatible with all the other stock markets, by forking a git repo.
> that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to?
The git repo fork button, that slots right into a whole ecosystem that has 10s of thousands of contributors to it.
Ease of use, and developer experience and existing markets and existing integrations with all of these businesses is a big deal. It doesn't matter if someone could hypothetically spend 1 billion dollars recreating all of that, using a database. Because that would require 1 billion dollars.
yeah, and that's kind of very much by design -- regulations that prevent this kind of yolo nonsense are a feature and not a bug
Ok, so then Yes I have brought up a valid and in demand usecase, you just don't like it.
Yes the point of all of this stuff is to make this usecase easy. Thats a real usecase. You just don't like that its easy.
we used to have markets that worked exactly like what you're describing, it immediately led to disastrous consequences for the broad base of society, and when we figured that problem out, we solved it with rules and regulations specifically designed to prevent abuses
you can suggest reifications of those rules and regulations to make them better, but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether, that's pure regression
> but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether
Actually, that seems to be exactly whats happening. Bitcoin has been around for 17 years, and it and other blockchain technologies have only become better, more prevalent, more mainstream, and most importantly, more legal.
The freaking president/vice president seem to be pretty pro crypto as well. I've been following bitcoin since 2010, and never in my wildest dreams back then would I have thought that the president would launch his own "Trump coin", for example.
Crypto won. Beyond everyone's most extreme expectations. The "regulators" lost. Its over. You can cry about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it won.
crypto won??
get out of your bubble, my dude, you're high on your own supply
Its an exemplar of "The government definitely isn't going to go after the crypto space, as even something as ridiculous as this is allowed". |
This is because you previously said "what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether".
But if freaking trump coin exists, then it looks like, yes, we actually can throw out all the rules.
> crypto won??
It won the regulation war, yes. Its not going away. If the president launched his own meme coin, then everyone else is safe.
trump coin is obviously illegal, it has no bearing on any discussion of policy
but you're obviously fully bought-in to the hype, so, you do you my dude
Yes that is what I was talking about. Its why I said:
'Crypto won. Beyond everyone's most extreme expectations. The "regulators" lost. '
You see that 'The "regulators" lost' part? That is where I was referencing the regulation war. Its why I used the word regulators. Crypto won, extremely, in the regulation war.
It was in direct response to this statement: "but what you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether"
> trump coin is obviously illegal
Ok. So then yes crypto was able to throw out the rules altogether. The rules are gone. They have been thrown out. Your original statement of "you can't do is suggest throwing them out altogether" isn't true.
None of those things require a blockchain and are all made less efficient by doing them that way.
Again, truly decentralized cryptocurrency ADDS slow clunky overhead; that's the price of decentralization. Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases et al.
Actually, you can just use a federated blockchain.
> Everything you're imagining is ALL done much easier with good ol' databases
There is an ecosystem of 10s of thousands of developers that can run specifically ethereum contracts on a database, while being compatible with all existing stable coin onramps?
You have to show me the 10s of thousands of developers is the point. Thats an ecosystem. It means that you can connect to all of these existing apps and on ramps, and smart contracts and more. There isn't a database version of that.
Hint: the point of "proof of work" is to do more work than necessary
Well one major thing is what I just brought up that is more efficient thing is the developer experience.
Being able to fork an open source integration that has all of these money and smart contract features built in is much easier than trying to figure out how to design a smart contract system from scratch that doesn't use a blockchain.
Very optimistically -- what you're saying is correct. There is a best case scenario in which Stripe et al observe all of these already working and perhaps popular financial use-case things (perhaps to compete with bigger banks or just because they see/believe it as the future) and encourage adoption.
I'd bet this won't much happen, but I really do hope I'm wrong.
It's not for lack of trying that traditional, "database driven" cross-border payments are costly and unreliable. SWIFT have thrown technology at this problem: GPI, Swift Go, ISO20022, etc.
Unfortunately the ecosystem has an extremely weak technical culture. Banks rarely follow the standards as written – your perfectly crafted API payment may be re-keyed by a low-paid human operator on a slow, buggy UI written a decade ago.
I could believe that the developer experience and technical standards of the participants is where the value lies right now.
The one thing I'm not sure on is to what extent those ecosystems depend on reduced regulatory scrutiny compared to banks.
(but also, as OP, Stripe will almost certainly not have any use for this)
Etherium itself is not a computer, that's marketing speak.
In other words, I can unilaterally and without permission deploy code to the Ethereum chain, at the price of "writing the code" and "paying the Ethereum fees to do so." And when I do that, the ENTIRE CHAIN must follow.
That's closer to "a computer" that just "a listing of optional scripts."
To host validator node you stake ETH which is serve as collateral in case your node misbehave, go offline, etc.
If specific validator cheats at any point and end up approving bogus data he'll be punished by loss of staked ETH and penalty grows with each attempt to cheat. If multiple validators commit the same bogus data they'll get even more severe punishment for coordinated attack on chain.
It doesn't take a supercomputer to host ETH node so there is absolutely no incentive to cheat unless you actual bad actor who is attempting 51% attack. And to perform said 50% attack you will need like $75-100B+ of ETH stacked since currently there is $150B of ETH stacked for Proof of Stake. So this kind of attack really doesn't make any financial sense.
All these people harping on about: "Bro I just need to move my money without trusting anyone!, I just need a trust-less way to send currency bro!"
Trust is a good thing! Banks and financial middlemen aren't the devil. Look at how many TPS the visa network can do thanks to trust.
If it weren't for some minimum of social/institutional trust the whole of society would collapse anyway and your digital coins would finally converge to their true value (zero - or actually negative once you add in the externalities).
I’m curious to know more.
Thanks
The others aren't doing well right now despite the fact that the tech that runs them can do what crypto promised, often better. It will all come down to whether people will buy in?