Title: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: Najs1 on June 19, 2017, 02:48:42 PM Hi all,
I'm working for a United Nations organizations and am looking for content on how blockchain technologies could or have been used for micro-payments for Energy Efficiency measures. Also payments for generated renewable energy (like solar) would be very interesting. Anyone who knows someone, any content or examples that could be interesting to look at? Any kind of info is very welcome. So far there are a lot of people talking about "blockchain" in my space but with very little substance. A lot of our projects are not happening due to very high transaction costs of small-scale projects, so blockchain could really have a huge impact. Cheers, Najs Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: AgentofCoin on June 19, 2017, 04:51:20 PM ... So far there are a lot of people talking about "blockchain" in my space but with very little substance. ... When Satoshi created the "blockchain", it was only designed to facilitate a decentralized p2p network. The decentralization of the blockchain (like in Bitcoin) was very important since it prevents regulation or capture from governmental or other large entities, from stopping or steering the network. The blockchain is not a simple "ledger that connects blocks(data) with hashing", it was only a means to circumvent legal regulation and localized points of failure. This then allows for secondary aspects that were originally desired, such as "censorship resistance" from those and other entities. The "blockchain" is not an energy efficient or proper system for micro-payments in general. It actually is energy intensive when used as designed, and is energy efficient only when used improperly.The "blockchain" system is actually very bad at everything, other than what Satoshi designed it to specifically achieve. The inefficiency is the acceptable cost for the decentralization and unregulatability that the "blockchain" provides. The "blockchain's" design and purpose was only to ensure the evasion of control and untrusted prevention of doublespends. If you do not need "evasion of control and untrusted prevention of doublespends", then using the "blockchain" to achieve your goals is a waste of time and money. If you wish to be the organization that runs this "solar/energy/payment platform" or that the UN wishes to run this platform, then a "blockchain" is likely not needed. A blockchain would only really be needed if the "solar energy farmers" have to prove the energy they created amongst themselves, and then the collective network would self account a token representation of that energy, which is only transferable with the energy itself. Since that is not possible currently (taging individual electrons), a blockchain is not efficient or really needed for your purposes (I assume). Simply, you could just use a normal system like M-Pesa or Paypal. There is no point or benefit from using a "private, trusted, regulated, and centralized blockchain". If you just changed the word "blockchain" with "server" in my above sentence, you will understand what the "blockchain's" actual purpose is. The "blockchain" is more than a new ledger accounting system, it is a means to facilitate a self sustaining system without trusted authorities direct intervention. Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: Najs1 on June 20, 2017, 07:44:44 AM I don't know much about blockchain technology or altcoin topics, but there is an cryptocurrency that promise micro-payment without fees which is called IOTA (https://iota.org/ (https://iota.org/)). Ripple (https://ripple.com/ (https://ripple.com/)) also promise similar things and have worked with few bank. Thank you for the suggestions. I'll have a look at these two. So far Ethereum was in the center of my interest as I think the smart-contracts could be (in theory) adjusted quite easily to a lot of slightly different projects which so far consumes a lot of resources. Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: Najs1 on June 20, 2017, 08:03:42 AM The "blockchain" is not an energy efficient or proper system for micro-payments in general. It actually is energy intensive when used as designed, and is energy efficient only when used improperly.The "blockchain" system is actually very bad at everything, other than what Satoshi designed it to specifically achieve. The inefficiency is the acceptable cost for the decentralization and unregulatability that the "blockchain" provides. The "blockchain's" design and purpose was only to ensure the evasion of control and untrusted prevention of doublespends. If you do not need "evasion of control and untrusted prevention of doublespends", then using the "blockchain" to achieve your goals is a waste of time and money. If you wish to be the organization that runs this "solar/energy/payment platform" or that the UN wishes to run this platform, then a "blockchain" is likely not needed. A blockchain would only really be needed if the "solar energy farmers" have to prove the energy they created amongst themselves, and then the collective network would self account a token representation of that energy, which is only transferable with the energy itself. Since that is not possible currently (taging individual electrons), a blockchain is not efficient or really needed for your purposes (I assume). Simply, you could just use a normal system like M-Pesa or Paypal. There is no point or benefit from using a "private, trusted, regulated, and centralized blockchain". If you just changed the word "blockchain" with "server" in my above sentence, you will understand what the "blockchain's" actual purpose is. The "blockchain" is more than a new ledger accounting system, it is a means to facilitate a self sustaining system without trusted authorities direct intervention. Thank you for your very comprehensive post. I feel, that I didn't really convey my message clearly - I'm actually also not sure what I imagine and this is why I'm here. Please let me try to elaborate: I'm not really looking for a cheap payment service in itself, otherwise Paypal etc would be the easiest as you stated. A project example that I could imagine would be to implement energy efficient technologies in 100,000 buildings in Africa. Each building that is interested has to sign a smart contract on a blockchain and gets the technology automatically delivered. As part of this contract, a micro-payment is automatically conducted to a specified address and if the payment is not received in time, the new technology stops working until it receives the correct payment amount again. So it's not only about the payment but includes several automated steps which reduces the resources spend significantly. The automated signature and implementation of the contract is important. And the link of payments and technology functionality is also important as an enforcement mechanism. Is this something that could be done and is realistic on a blockchain? I understand that this is what you mean with "a self sustaining system"? Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: Last of the V8s on June 20, 2017, 10:53:42 AM He already answered. It is not possible with bitcoin.
Please stop talking about 'a blockchain' and 'smart contracts'. This is marketing speak from scammers (ethereum/ripple/etc) and you believe it at your peril. Come back in 5 years and that will be proven. there's only one blockchain that is safe. you can make the odd contract on it if you're in with deedbot.org, but not 100,000, and I doubt they'd be interested Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: ranreichman on June 20, 2017, 11:01:52 AM He already answered. It is not possible with bitcoin. Please stop talking about 'a blockchain' and 'smart contracts'. This is marketing speak from scammers (ethereum/ripple/etc) and you believe it at your peril. Come back in 5 years and that will be proven. there's only one blockchain that is safe. you can make the odd contract on it if you're in with deedbot.org, but not 100,000, and I doubt they'd be interested Like written above, Bitcoin simply isn't for micro-payments. Currently there isn't a good international micro-payment system, on blockchain or otherwise. You can use PayPal and stuff like that but they tend to have their own problems. Hopefully, blockchain will eventually provide the tech to do something like that (Lightning Network?) but not today. Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: matuson on June 20, 2017, 11:19:38 AM He already answered. It is not possible with bitcoin. Why only the blockchain? I have a Xapo wallet and still had no problems. I do not advocate that all bitcoins stored in one place, even if the purse seems to be more reliable than others. Long-term storage of bitcoin is always risky, but it can't be changed.Please stop talking about 'a blockchain' and 'smart contracts'. This is marketing speak from scammers (ethereum/ripple/etc) and you believe it at your peril. Come back in 5 years and that will be proven. there's only one blockchain that is safe. you can make the odd contract on it if you're in with deedbot.org, but not 100,000, and I doubt they'd be interested Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: Last of the V8s on June 20, 2017, 11:37:28 AM He already answered. It is not possible with bitcoin. Why only the blockchain? I have a Xapo wallet and still had no problems. I do not advocate that all bitcoins stored in one place, even if the purse seems to be more reliable than others. Long-term storage of bitcoin is always risky, but it can't be changed.Please stop talking about 'a blockchain' and 'smart contracts'. This is marketing speak from scammers (ethereum/ripple/etc) and you believe it at your peril. Come back in 5 years and that will be proven. there's only one blockchain that is safe. you can make the odd contract on it if you're in with deedbot.org, but not 100,000, and I doubt they'd be interested Title: Re: Blockchain and (Energy Efficiency) Micro-payments Post by: AgentofCoin on June 20, 2017, 07:16:13 PM ... Thank you for your very comprehensive post. I feel, that I didn't really convey my message clearly - I'm actually also not sure what I imagine and this is why I'm here. Please let me try to elaborate: I'm not really looking for a cheap payment service in itself, otherwise Paypal etc would be the easiest as you stated. A project example that I could imagine would be to implement energy efficient technologies in 100,000 buildings in Africa. Each building that is interested has to sign a smart contract on a blockchain and gets the technology automatically delivered. As part of this contract, a micro-payment is automatically conducted to a specified address and if the payment is not received in time, the new technology stops working until it receives the correct payment amount again. So it's not only about the payment but includes several automated steps which reduces the resources spend significantly. The automated signature and implementation of the contract is important. And the link of payments and technology functionality is also important as an enforcement mechanism. Is this something that could be done and is realistic on a blockchain? I understand that this is what you mean with "a self sustaining system"? Yes, this is very possible with a "blockchain" with smart contracting. But, it is also possible without a "blockchain". So the question is really about using an altcoin that already exists and be subject to that, or create your own "ledger with contracting abilities" that your business or the UN will maintain, in all aspects, in their own servers. The reason why I originally answered your question the way I did was that as a business, you would need to decide if you are willing to outsource all the backbone aspects of your energy efficient business to an altcoin blockchain (Like Ethereum) that would maintain and provide a majority of what you are looking for. The issue isn't so much about whether a "blockchain" can provide what you are looking for, it is whether you wish to rely only upon it and whether you really need what it was originally designed to provide. Also, there are many complex question and scenarios that need to be answered to determine what type of "blockchain like" system you would need. For example, will you be able to make edits to the data in your "blockchain"? Will you need a master key backdoor to the "blockchain" so you can turn on electricity for some customers, like hospitals, even though they did not make their payments on time? Will you require these customer buy your own token, a currently known and widely used token (bitcoin or altcoin), or use a regulated payment processor? And so on and so forth. There are many questions that need to be determined first to prevent issues later. You need to keep in mind that if you use an altcoin blockchain, you will and your customers will be subject to any issues/bugs/failures/rollbacks/attacks that could occur with that blockchain and its token. In this sense, you have outsourced your security/finances/etc to an outside unregulated entity, but any liabilities your business may incur will be attributed to you (unless you than individually sue the developers of that altcoin for some failure, which in some specific circumstances, is essentially impossible or too complex to bother with). Point is, there are many things the "blockchain" provides for "near free" (not really near free, but for most laypeople, it seems to be) but it comes at costs that are not fully apparent. The cost saving or cheaper aspects of using a "blockchain" is an illusion. In fact, it is very expensive. What most do not understand is that the costs of those "cheap transactions" are actually distributed both throughout the node network and applied directly into the token itself (besides production costs). The secret was, as the token increases in value, it is actually a representation of the expenses and burden on the system, being applied directly into the token itself. So, when people want to use a "blockchain" since it is "cheaper", in reality they need all parts of Satoshi's system to actually be sustainable and secure (miners, blockchain, and token). As the expense of the "blockchain" increases over time, so does the token's growth in "value/expense". So, in theory, "blockchains" are only cheaper as long as the customer base increases beyond the token's accumulated expense. (As a side, IMO if you can mitigate or slow those expenses, you will not need unlimited customers into the future (ponzi) and cause premature system failure. The system should always self balance and not fall into ponzi status as long as divisibility of the token is infinite.) When I said a "self sustaining system" I am actually referring to something much more complex. The "blockchain" is only a small part of the whole system that Satoshi created. For a simplistic breakdown, the "Miners" build the "blockchain", the "blockchain" issues and records the "tokens", the "tokens" are traded for "value" either P2P or on exchanges, the "value" incentivizes the "Miners", and than it repeats over again. This whole system is a self sustaining system that reinforces security and other interesting things. The "blockchain" is only the part that facilitates this payment system in a decentralized and individually provable way. In theory, if you changed out the "blockchain" part with a single or few servers, it would still work, but would be centralized and subject to governmental regulations. So, is it possible to use a "blockchain" to facilitate your example, the simple answer is yes. The important question is whether you wish to outsource and be dependent upon an altcoin or build your own system, which will when completed, be no different than what people used before the "blockchain" was invented. edit: typos and repositioned paragraphs |