Bitcoin Forum

http://recode.net/2015/09/15/nine-of-the-worlds-biggest-banks-form-blockchain-partnership/

From what I read they are considering Bitcoin but also Ethereum.

Thoughts on all of this?

From my brief read on Ethereum it is a public blockchain, you can mine it etc just like Bitcoin.

Proof of work could possibly lead to more decentralisation (ASIC and FPGA not possible/feasible?)

Not exactly bitcoin but the blockchain technology.  ;D 

I never understood how a bank blockchain is supposed to work.
Who is mining? If it is just the bank people mining, than I don't see, why they would need a blockchain.
Who can look at it? If it is just the bank people looking at it, than I don't see, why they would need a blockchain.

Is there a white paper about it? Are they actually know, what they are talking about, or are they just throwing around words?

The blockchain technology would be very useful for the shadow banking industry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system) which is comprised of a large number of separate institutions that need to work together flawlessly to rip everyone off. Imagine if the libor rate or gold spot fix was obtained by consensus on a block chain instead of all the heads of the different banks meeting twice a day to fix a price. It would automate the fraudulent collusion.

Blockchain technology could be useful for banks. I guess that would be only a distributed transaction processing system what would make transaction processing more resilient, faster and cheaper. But if they release a coin as well, they can use that as an internal or intra-bank currency with some pre-arranged exchange rates to local currencies so they can save time and money as they can use their own common currency when doing business between each other, and with the automated transaction of Ethereum they can automate the whole procedure, so no human intervention needed.

Yes, there is CoinDesk article on the subject: http://www.coindesk.com/global-investment-banks-back-blockchain-initiative/ (http://www.coindesk.com/global-investment-banks-back-blockchain-initiative/)

They may just create interbanking blockchain accepted and supported by all the financial institutions (governments approved). Lol. At least they are finally embracing blockchain tech.

^^^This.
Chances are that they will probably create their own coin/token too.

But will it be a public ledger, can be mined publicly?

I just don't see how it is possible to create a private network and "mine" it.
Makes no sense.

Ripple is different though, as far as I understood. Ethereum has mining, and therefor is public?

Need to read up more on these things later tonight.

If they use the Bitcoin Blockchain, then at any given moment there is a certain amount of "value" attached.

Therefor the value per share (Bitcoin token) should go up. And therefor the mining effort should increase as there is more "reward".

???

No, it wont be public nor will it be mined by the public.
It will save them money and time to confirm money transfers from bank A to bank B.
They will still charge you the same and it will probably take as long for you to "transfer" the money because it makes them more money.

Have to agree, there will most definitely be benefits and cost savings for the banks should they start doing their transactions on a blockchain type technology but I seriously doubt whether the clients will ever see those benefits and or cost savings trickle down to them.

How do they prevent the public from mining it and keep the network safe? maybe a PoS blockchain would make sense and they can hold everything at the beginning?

it is now clear that banks are using bitcoin i mean to say the mining power to their use tjey are using it for their benifits

yes, I only see PoS working for something like this.

PoW and private blockchain just makes zero sense to me.

If they are using the Bitcoin blockchain, they are putting their value on and taking it "off" on the other side as well.

I still cannot quite fathom what that means for Bitcoin price. Because it is not value that would stay in/on the network.

At the same time, if this happens to a significant degree, mining would have to go up to secure the bigger value on the blockchain.

They will probably give the public a lightweight client, maybe even customer based - compiled at the time of account creation.
There wont be any public mining. 
Each bank will have pre-mined coins based on their fiat reserves.
PoS sounds about right but it will have to be thought of very carefully as different banks will offer different interest rates.
But I am guessing it will be along these lines.

Of course these will be self controlled centralized "Blockchains". These structures don't deserve the name Blockchain.This is more like a light distributed database. It will closed and efficient for the banks.They will be able to reduce their costs massively.However I doubt their customers will pay the same.In result the banks' profits will be bigger.
Banks' blockchains and coins will not more than pure digital fiat. Still the same scheme.

All blockchains that aren't Bitcoin will ultimately fail. There's only a limited amount of resources to aim your machines at, and it will never be worth it to aim your machines at any other coin that isn't Bitcoin unless you want a quick and dump which is always the case. In ohter words, this means that they will have to either become closed blockchains (centralized) or join Bitcoin.

yeah but it would be centralized at 100%, so i'm not bothering with them, nothing will be different than their current fiat money, expect some advantages for them only

Very interesting. It will be interesting to see what will they choose even though I think they will choose what's the best for them, in their view, and this will be to form their own blockchain and even issue their own cryptocurrency.

For this they won't be needing mining, this will be pretty much a closed, centralized system. Of course, I hope they choose Ethereum or Bitcoin since this would give huge credibility to all of the crypto that's being developed at the moment.

I guess we'll see..

There's absolute no point in having a blockchain system if it's centralized. I mean yeah, its still an imrpovement over the traditional banking system and by using a blockchain you are automating a great deal of stuff (which by the way means bye bye to a lot of paperwork related jobs) BUT the fact is not decentralized just kills it's purpose, only the clueless will use it and not Bitcoin.

plus I believe no financial institution wants to be perceived as threatening the existing status quo when it comes to currencies... too big of a power grab.

They will reduce the fees and their workers number,since wont need them anymore,but their technology will be just for them,i doubt they will allow any of us use bitcoin or their coin if they create it,centralise a coin wont work what you will get with something that doesnt moove?frozen funds?well we will be able to see what they will do on the nexts months.

City bank has it's own 3 blockchains for it's research and development team on Bitcoin blockchain technology. It's good thing to happen to the world, to adapt bitcoin at least this way...

I guess, I just strongly disagress with some definitions of blockchain.
If there is no PoW or PoS or similar, I don't see, what makes it a blockchain. Is there a network of nodes, which store the same data? That is not really a blockchain, just some kind of backup.

Redundant, distributed book-keeping, getting rid of intermediaries and speed are what banks are poised to gain from blockchain technology.

Its absolutely certain that banks will create their own coins and their own blockchains. people will force them to do it.

I don't think there will be any incentive or reward given for solving each block. Maybe a concensus reached among the banks to maintain a general ledger and the cost of maintenance shared among them. The benefit would be a common ledger for transparency.

Im pretty sure banks will make their coin and well all months share some wealth with  their holders otherwise it will just fail as most altcoins....they need some contract that last some years or forever,and requiring identy...

Isn't this then a glorified central database with defined read/write access rights then.

So who is in this research and development team then? There is a very small gene pool of people that understand the technology in its entirety, and even less that can interface to other disciplines required for these organisations, so who are they? Most dev teams I've met in the banking sector are just java coders who outsource fpga and the hard stuff.

All these 'blockchain' projects exist to make the transfer and use of fiat faster and slicker. That's it.

When has a bank in modern history ever created its own currency? Never. That's the job of central banks and governments. If there is to be a coin of sorts it'll be a token representing fiat value.

These blockchains are likely to be like an intranet. They'll be a closed system with no relation to anything available to the public.

Ahh, very good point... but at the same time the banks run into the flaw of "convenient" on hand currency transactions.  They still need to request money from the fed from time to time to get physical money to distribute out to the people... all this is, is a more reliable and secure form of wiring money from bank to bank...

Banks talking about blockchains are always the same thing. They want to create private blockchains which is another way of saying they want to create shared databases.

at this point they don't need to make themself a new coin. they are currently only exploring how far they can go with the blockchain in current form. maybe they will hire the best developers to bring the blockchain technology to the next level and make it perfectly suitable for them.

Weary giants of flesh and steel. They have no real sovereignty where we gather.

^ This ^

They want to use the blockchain so they seem "innovative" to the young folks, but in reality they don't care about bitcoin,ethereum, blockchain etc.

Idk, maybe they would like to use the blockchain to ease transactions to other countries without it costing so much? Or let the customers have the ability to wire money to whoever anywhere at any time?

I know it's a pain in the ass for me when I can't move my money around on the weekends.

Proof of work only leads to decentralization if you have a large distribution of the network. as more participants the network has the more the network becomes decentralized...

IMO even if it's banks that use blockchain technology, it's still good for us because they are using blockchain technology.

Centralized blockchain  ??? Do they still need miners and >1 full nodes?

What they need is an immutable ledger between a small number of institutions. More than a database and less than Bitcoin's requirements. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with. One thing we can be sure of is that no mere mortal will be participating in their network.

Real physical bank by Blockchain?

Yeh I meant - if the PoW algorithm is say, more similar to Litecoin, then ASIC/FPGA is not really possible? Therefor you would have more people all over the world mining instead of making it specialised -

Is the PoW with Ethereum similar to Litecoin? Does the PoW algorithm of Litecoin make it more suitable for decentralisation?