Blockchain is not an economy, it is a policy. HYIP is not there
I was recently at the conference and I got the impression that even experts are somehow too optimistic about all these supposedly decentralized blockchains.
It made me think about the ideas that I had previously formulated, but kept them in the background, and this is what happened.
Firstly, a small disclaimer about anonymity - the blockchain / cryptocurrency technology itself does not give anonymity, there is only pseudo-anonymity. There is a realization that claims true anonymity - Zcash , but there is some kind of probabilistic mathematical magic about which we (or I) most likely still know little to understand all the pros and cons. Hope this really works. Those. Anonymity seems to be possible, but not everyone has it, so you should always make a reservation.
Secondly, I think everyone understands that any solution has pros and cons, there is no silver bullet, so before you shove a blockchain somewhere, you need to think carefully about why it is needed there and why it was made at all. For example, decentralization (whether it will be discussed further) is not free-of-charge — since we need to reach consensus on a large network, we cannot get the speed of transactions that centralized solutions have. It is doubtful that one of you wants to stand at the checkout after buying a condom for one hour while waiting for the network five blocks after the block with your transaction so that the store is “sure” that there is no double spending.
The store of course can believe you, but only blockchain solutions were created to ensure work without a trust (trustless), if you believe, then the blockchain is not needed.
Thirdly, the assessment of “smart” contracts is also a bit exaggerated, yes, you can come up with good applications, for example, the property registry fits quite well with smart contracts as well as the property list and money can be inside the blockchain, which means that a smart contract can dispose of them, although there are problems here - it’s not very clear what to consider as money transfer, because transactions do not have the status “successfully completed”, these are only probabilistic assessments, if more than 5 blocks smiled in Bitcoin, then most likely no one smiles a longer price point each and can be expected that the transaction will not be canceled, but it estimates are based on the current complexity of the PoW. However, if we need data from the real world (stock price, weather, economic growth rates), then someone must enter them and we must trust this someone, and we must trust both the data source and the one who brings them into the network ( oracle). If we can try to do something with the oracles themselves - to have a lot of them, to automate the receipt of data within the contract, etc., although as far as I understand, there is no good solution. Then the sources themselves must simply be trusted, and it is often the case that the source is one and it may well “mistakenly” roll out erroneous data. This is just a matter of price - rating agencies were honest until there was a chance for a big hit in 2008.
Fourthly, and this is the main problem - there is no decentralization in all known implementations, it’s more like pseudo-decentralization - sometimes the system can work as decentralized, but its structure doesn’t prevent the power from being concentrated in one hands.
You can accumulate computing power (if it is PoW ) or create fake accounts with the necessary amounts on the balance (if it is PoS ).
Wake up brothers! We live in a world in which 0.7% of the population owns> 45% of wealth , what kind of decentralization are we talking about?
These people can easily get control over any of your "decentralized" network, and if they suddenly have not done so, it is only because they do not consider it necessary at the moment.
But wait a minute to run to the cabins for Roskomnadzor, in fact there is a way out, and it is quite obvious, although it has its own difficulties.
Decentralization is possible only in one case - if the "node" of the network is a real person. It is clear that we are not yet able to transfer a person to a computer, so we need some one-to-one correspondence. We need an electronic key that only real people have and which “dead souls” cannot have.
Make it difficult, but quite possible. There are two ways.
The first one is long and complicated, but does not require significant state participation, this is essentially a network of trust, we meet, we look at the documents, we confirm each other’s public keys with our signatures and enter the corresponding entries in the blockchain with a list of users.
But here there is a space for frauds, it would be good to additionally connect the state. Just in case, I’ll clarify that this is not about full trust, but about trusting that this is a real person, as well as those whom he later signed, otherwise we shouldn’t trust anyone.
The second option - with the participation of the state. Ideally, it should be this way: when a person takes citizenship, a person generates a pair of keys on his device, and the state officials and citizens who know this person personally (they should be as many as possible to complicate the fakes) certify with their signatures that this person is real and enter the signed open key in blockchain with a list of citizens.
In principle, this is not so fantastic, Estonia has long supplied its citizens with electronic keys.
Thus, we, with a sufficiently high reliability, form a list of real network members (if a group of scammers begin to massively sign virtual users, this will be seen on the connectivity graph, and the sharp increase in participants will be noticeable on the blockchain).
And then everything is simple - since we have a network of real people, then we can make decisions by the majority (and at least 99% can demand if everyone agrees to support at least one device online), real democracy, everyone is equal, power is in one hand don't concentrate.
Since we know the number of participants in the network, we do not need any PoW and PoS - they were created for networks with an unknown number of nodes, which means you can use known algorithms to achieve consensus or come up with your own.
For example, I came up with this - the last block hash is the address (if there is no such node, then the closest to it) node that the next block should collect, the node itself will know what it should collect block, collect, sign and send, and the rest will accept the block if it is being tested on the blockchain and is signed by this particular node. This is a rough sketch, but I think everyone understands that there may be many solutions that do not need to waste electricity or have money.
I think it is obvious that to consider such a blockchain as an economic tool is the most perfect primitivism.
Of course, you can do smart contracts and money on it, but because of the restrictions previously described, it is doubtful that this can be called a revolution in the economy, yes, a new tool, interesting and sometimes useful, but not undermining the basics, with its Lightning Network Essentially back to the banking system .
But in a social sense, this is a revolution, because with such an approach it is possible to conduct truly honest elections, referendums, it is an instrument of direct democracy.
The tool is very powerful even in the absence of anonymity (not the fact that it is needed here), and maybe the anonymity of Zcash can be screwed.
If, additionally, such a tool is crossed with a social network that keeps a reputation , then we will get a serious transformation of society.
In essence, technology allows us to compensate for the weakness of our brains and the physical limitations of our bodies, in order to have power again that was previously available only to small communities.
It made me think about the ideas that I had previously formulated, but kept them in the background, and this is what happened.
Firstly, a small disclaimer about anonymity - the blockchain / cryptocurrency technology itself does not give anonymity, there is only pseudo-anonymity. There is a realization that claims true anonymity - Zcash , but there is some kind of probabilistic mathematical magic about which we (or I) most likely still know little to understand all the pros and cons. Hope this really works. Those. Anonymity seems to be possible, but not everyone has it, so you should always make a reservation.
Secondly, I think everyone understands that any solution has pros and cons, there is no silver bullet, so before you shove a blockchain somewhere, you need to think carefully about why it is needed there and why it was made at all. For example, decentralization (whether it will be discussed further) is not free-of-charge — since we need to reach consensus on a large network, we cannot get the speed of transactions that centralized solutions have. It is doubtful that one of you wants to stand at the checkout after buying a condom for one hour while waiting for the network five blocks after the block with your transaction so that the store is “sure” that there is no double spending.
The store of course can believe you, but only blockchain solutions were created to ensure work without a trust (trustless), if you believe, then the blockchain is not needed.
Thirdly, the assessment of “smart” contracts is also a bit exaggerated, yes, you can come up with good applications, for example, the property registry fits quite well with smart contracts as well as the property list and money can be inside the blockchain, which means that a smart contract can dispose of them, although there are problems here - it’s not very clear what to consider as money transfer, because transactions do not have the status “successfully completed”, these are only probabilistic assessments, if more than 5 blocks smiled in Bitcoin, then most likely no one smiles a longer price point each and can be expected that the transaction will not be canceled, but it estimates are based on the current complexity of the PoW. However, if we need data from the real world (stock price, weather, economic growth rates), then someone must enter them and we must trust this someone, and we must trust both the data source and the one who brings them into the network ( oracle). If we can try to do something with the oracles themselves - to have a lot of them, to automate the receipt of data within the contract, etc., although as far as I understand, there is no good solution. Then the sources themselves must simply be trusted, and it is often the case that the source is one and it may well “mistakenly” roll out erroneous data. This is just a matter of price - rating agencies were honest until there was a chance for a big hit in 2008.
Fourthly, and this is the main problem - there is no decentralization in all known implementations, it’s more like pseudo-decentralization - sometimes the system can work as decentralized, but its structure doesn’t prevent the power from being concentrated in one hands.
You can accumulate computing power (if it is PoW ) or create fake accounts with the necessary amounts on the balance (if it is PoS ).
Wake up brothers! We live in a world in which 0.7% of the population owns> 45% of wealth , what kind of decentralization are we talking about?
These people can easily get control over any of your "decentralized" network, and if they suddenly have not done so, it is only because they do not consider it necessary at the moment.
But wait a minute to run to the cabins for Roskomnadzor, in fact there is a way out, and it is quite obvious, although it has its own difficulties.
Decentralization is possible only in one case - if the "node" of the network is a real person. It is clear that we are not yet able to transfer a person to a computer, so we need some one-to-one correspondence. We need an electronic key that only real people have and which “dead souls” cannot have.
Make it difficult, but quite possible. There are two ways.
The first one is long and complicated, but does not require significant state participation, this is essentially a network of trust, we meet, we look at the documents, we confirm each other’s public keys with our signatures and enter the corresponding entries in the blockchain with a list of users.
But here there is a space for frauds, it would be good to additionally connect the state. Just in case, I’ll clarify that this is not about full trust, but about trusting that this is a real person, as well as those whom he later signed, otherwise we shouldn’t trust anyone.
The second option - with the participation of the state. Ideally, it should be this way: when a person takes citizenship, a person generates a pair of keys on his device, and the state officials and citizens who know this person personally (they should be as many as possible to complicate the fakes) certify with their signatures that this person is real and enter the signed open key in blockchain with a list of citizens.
In principle, this is not so fantastic, Estonia has long supplied its citizens with electronic keys.
Thus, we, with a sufficiently high reliability, form a list of real network members (if a group of scammers begin to massively sign virtual users, this will be seen on the connectivity graph, and the sharp increase in participants will be noticeable on the blockchain).
And then everything is simple - since we have a network of real people, then we can make decisions by the majority (and at least 99% can demand if everyone agrees to support at least one device online), real democracy, everyone is equal, power is in one hand don't concentrate.
Since we know the number of participants in the network, we do not need any PoW and PoS - they were created for networks with an unknown number of nodes, which means you can use known algorithms to achieve consensus or come up with your own.
For example, I came up with this - the last block hash is the address (if there is no such node, then the closest to it) node that the next block should collect, the node itself will know what it should collect block, collect, sign and send, and the rest will accept the block if it is being tested on the blockchain and is signed by this particular node. This is a rough sketch, but I think everyone understands that there may be many solutions that do not need to waste electricity or have money.
I think it is obvious that to consider such a blockchain as an economic tool is the most perfect primitivism.
Of course, you can do smart contracts and money on it, but because of the restrictions previously described, it is doubtful that this can be called a revolution in the economy, yes, a new tool, interesting and sometimes useful, but not undermining the basics, with its Lightning Network Essentially back to the banking system .
But in a social sense, this is a revolution, because with such an approach it is possible to conduct truly honest elections, referendums, it is an instrument of direct democracy.
The tool is very powerful even in the absence of anonymity (not the fact that it is needed here), and maybe the anonymity of Zcash can be screwed.
If, additionally, such a tool is crossed with a social network that keeps a reputation , then we will get a serious transformation of society.
In essence, technology allows us to compensate for the weakness of our brains and the physical limitations of our bodies, in order to have power again that was previously available only to small communities.
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