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Comment by gonzobonzo | Hacker News Reader

I remember IBM making huge claims about using the blockchain for supply chain management. For instance[1]:

> A recent pilot by KPMG, Merck, Walmart and IBM using blockchain injects new trust into the system by reducing the time it takes to trace prescription drugs from 16 weeks to just two seconds.

It was impressive how many people uncritically took these claims as facts.

[1] https://www.ibm.com/solutions/blockchain-supply-chain

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People have a tendency to uncritically take techies' claims as facts.

[Stares aggressively in the direction of gen AI.]

A blockchain is the world's slowest database. The idea that a blockchain could speed up anything is laughable.

Theoretically, if there could be a 1:1 relationship between events in the real world and events on the blockchain, the idea makes sense. If you had two pieces of a machine represented by objects on the blockchain, and when you combined them into a new component that automatically, cryptographically, created a new object on the blockchain, you could track provenance precisely just by having the final assembled product.

The problem is that that relationship doesn't exist and is impossible. If someone wants to tamper with a supply chain, all they need to do is tamper with the real world without letting that reflect on the ledger. And that destroys the entire point of the concept.

Not to mention companies don't like sharing their supply chain data because they consider it a competitive advantage. Even if they're required to share it by law, many companies are highly motivated to do the tampering you describe.

> A blockchain is the world's slowest database.

It's dependent on how performant the underlying protocol is, not all blockchains are the same.

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