> but the only reason everyone got excited was because the value of Bitcoin went to the moon
I'm a blockchain minimalist, but I'd say that there are at least 2 other reasons why blockchains are interesting:
1) A trustless, distributed digital ledger.
But it turns out that _in most cases_, we are OK with a trusted, centralized, institutional clearing agent that maintains the ledger. The benefits are numerous as long as we trust the institution/agent.
2) An immutable record of transactions.
This follows (1), though: if you trust the institution, you trust that there won't be a malicious mutation of your records and in general, because the records are mutable, they can also easily canceled or reversed which also turns out to be generally beneficial.
So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history), but there are just way too many where they add no value.
You still have to trust that data was recorded into a blockchain correctly/faithfully.
So you can never truly remove trust. I'm not sure a immutable ledger is any more useful than a database if there is still some sort of required trust component.
>So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history)
All of those use cases are subject to the Oracle Problem (you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain, and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain). As such, they are horrible use cases for blockchain.
There is a difference in that the trust is now distributed as opposed to centralized.
> you have to trust whoever initially put the information on the blockchain
In all of those cases, that trust is already inherent in the documents filed by the entities/institutions. But the thing is, they also become gatekeepers of those records (e.g. titles) which seems to be a great use case for a distributed system.
> and also that nothing happened later to the real world entity that wasn't captured on the blockchain
This is also the case with paper records; your car title isn't automatically tied to whether your car is totaled or sold. You update the record based on a change in the status of the material object it represents whether it is a paper or digital update or a blockchain update.
> they are horrible use cases for blockchain
I'd disagree; having an immutable record of ownership is valuable; especially so in countries where a centralized institution may not be trustworthy.
Especially with transactions around something like a car where there are multiple entities that are reliant on the record (your state DMV (and multiple sub-agencies), an electronic toll vendor, your insurance provider, your loan provider, maybe your landlord for an assigned parking space), having a distributed ledger to access and immutably modify the data would be a boon.
For titles on homes which are subject to liens, it would be a great consumer benefit to be able to access this information without paying several hundred dollars for a title search.
> I'd disagree; having an immutable record of ownership is valuable; especially so in countries where a centralized institution may not be trustworthy.
The idea that the blockchain can save you in this situation seems like pure fantasy to me. A record of ownership is only useful if the government is willing to enforce it. Otherwise it's not worth the paper/bits it's written on.
> For titles on homes which are subject to liens, it would be a great consumer benefit to be able to access this information without paying several hundred dollars for a title search.
This is useful, but doesn't require blockchain at all. Just a public API/database and a set of legislation that would force use of said API. A blockchain would require the same legislation anyways to ensure completeness.
> But it turns out that _in most cases_, we are OK with a trusted, centralized, institutional clearing agent that maintains the ledger. The benefits are numerous as long as we trust the institution/agent.
Who is "we"? I'm not ok with trusting banks and clearing houses with my money. I'm vehemently opposed to it.
I don't trust banks to act responsibly, and neither do I trust auditors to be thorough. I'll happily continue using crypto, with real SecOps, multi-sig auth, 2FA with hardware keys (and no SMS), multi-stage cold storage withdrawal with live self-hosted chain-analysis and no yearly account fee.
> So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one
Two years ago I had a discussion on land registries. No, blockchain is a terrible tech for them. See comment and the discussion around https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27212564
I'm a blockchain minimalist, but I'd say that there are at least 2 other reasons why blockchains are interesting:
1) A trustless, distributed digital ledger.
But it turns out that _in most cases_, we are OK with a trusted, centralized, institutional clearing agent that maintains the ledger. The benefits are numerous as long as we trust the institution/agent.
2) An immutable record of transactions.
This follows (1), though: if you trust the institution, you trust that there won't be a malicious mutation of your records and in general, because the records are mutable, they can also easily canceled or reversed which also turns out to be generally beneficial.
So I do think blockchains do have some unique use cases where they would be beneficial (e.g. I think property (land, home, car) titles is a good one, car accident/repair history), but there are just way too many where they add no value.