HACKER Q&A
📣 aryxns

Does the blockchain improve any parts of the existing tech stack by 10x?


I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The blockchain is fundamentally architectural innovation. And to me, the core value is in finding ways to improve existing software systems using this new distributed architecture.

Think of products like https://fleek.co/

A few ideas that fascinate me: 1. Better database for specific industries (financial data?) - Core value is not relying on third-party servers by using IPFS. 2. Better authentication (the in-browser wallet auth is smooth!) 3. Potentially a better way to host critical code functions on smart contracts w/ Oracles (since someone can break your hosted code, but code on a contract is hard to modify and break.)

I wonder what other devs think.


  👤 sp332 Accepted Answer ✓
It's an interesting tech demo for a very niche use case: when you need both a decentralized database and a way to avoid editing history (e.g. "double-spending"). All of the uses you mentioned only need one or the other. If you need to keep track of transactions like a ledger, it's trivial to use a normal, centralized database with a published transaction log for trust-free audits. That gets you protection against double-spending without any of the inefficiency of blockchain tech. For the other side, you can have something like bittorrent or IPFS (which is not blockchain tech, BTW) where there is no central gatekeeper, but rewriting history doesn't matter. There's just darn little in that intersection of the Venn diagram.

👤 al2o3cr

    Better database for specific industries (financial data?) -
    Core value is not relying on third-party servers by using IPFS
So instead of relying on a third-party with a contract, they'd instead rely on a peer-to-peer network with no SLA? LOL

    Better authentication (the in-browser wallet auth is smooth!)
Oh, it's plenty smooth alright - seems like a day doesn't go by without somebody's apes getting snatched with just a phishing email. Nope.

    Potentially a better way to host critical code functions on smart contracts w/ Oracles
ROFL, see how THAT turned out for all the DeFi projects that have been blown up with either oracle exploits or misconfigured smart contracts this year.

👤 guilhas
I would say there is a lot of potential. I think in ten years every enterprise product, and major websites will have some kind of blockchain associated

Crypto, reputation, hosting, authentication, spam, advertising, captcha, auditing, consensus... Blockchain is more than just crypto


👤 tempera
Blockchain is a buzzword, used to trick VCs to pour money in shady bizs.

Blockchain is only good for what Bitcoin does, namely, a distributed ledger for unstoppable, permissionless transactions between peers.

Without a trusted third-party acting as a middle-man.

Is that not enough?


👤 wheresmycraisin
It has incredible potential according to all the 12 year olds financial advisors of tiktok. Please go waste your life trying to solve problems with crypto and leave the rest of us alone.

👤 samkokjin
No.

👤 superchroma
No.

👤 togaen
No.

👤 Klonoar
No.

👤 slater
No.

👤 destevil
snakeoil