Bitcoin Forum

Suppose we have a technology at our disposal where we can move fiat currencies or anything else of value (that is not supposed to be double spent) using a distributed ledger system (allowing cheap, instant, global trust-less transfers) that is not dependent on the price of a native cryptotoken (that in this case you would not need) and using this distributed ledger system for smart contracts. In this case, should bitcoin be  valuable?


What do you think? Yes? No?
Why?



VC money in the crypto space is more interested in the blockchain that in bitcoin, as any statement from these entities clearly shows. They all agree that "the blockchain is the main innovation".

So far the criticisms to the "it's about the blockchain, not bitcoin, stupid" way of thinking (http://www.miscmagazine.com/its-the-block-chain-stupid/) consist in saying that the blockchain is dependent on bitcoin (the miners need an incentive to keep the network running, the price of the token needs to be sufficiently high because security etc).
Therefore no bitcoin = no blockchain  (https://twitter.com/nvk/status/522115773918359552)


But what if we had a system that works with decent security that doesn't rely on that cryptotoken? Wouldn't that make all cryptocurrencies themselves pretty much useless (unless they have a specific purpose that is not just a necessary security mechanism)?


Then sure, you might simply consider bitcoin to be valuable because it can be a store of value/new currency/replacement of fiat. But the world might not find these use cases to be useful, compromising bitcoin's high valuation scenarios.

Just to add something:


I think the question is important because these technologies are being built today (as opposed to say 2011-2013 where "there was only bitcoin and the blockchain"), and it is naive to think that more of them won't be built in the future.


It is important because if a distributed ledger system is dissociable from the idea of a cryptocurrency, you have to find a better reason for your cryptocurrency to exist and have a price than "because the blockchain!" or "because cheap, global, instant money transfers!".

I hope you are not short on marging - prepare to get
wiped out ;)

Those who pledge for bitcoin do so not only because it is faster, easier and all the advantages that the blockchain brings us, but also due to it's decentralization and gold-like properties.

It can be finally the way to retreive the real ownership of money, that we had before gold pattern was discontinued.

How do you secure this mythical distributed blockchain allowing frictionless transfer of any assets?

I am not sure why you cannot see the value in the bitcoin blockchain. There are literally hundreds of other chains out there and the vast majority are worthless. The btc chain has value because people give it value. It had value with virtually no utility - simply as a transferable digital asset. Now its utility is going through the roof and the original monetary fundamentals of the currency remain as valid today at 300 dollars as they were two years ago at 30 dollars. Algorithmically limited by design.

I see a future with many digital chains which can interact, but there will always be a place for a digital gold-like asset such as bitcoin. I hope you aren't caught shorting bitcoin right now.

Eventually, we're gonna need a new currency and it's gonna, most definately, be a cryptocurrency.

OP - I see your point, and I believe it is possible that it would deplete the value of bitcoin. I'm guessing this would be due to less exposure for bitcoin (less participants), less transactions through bitcoin network, and less people holding the currency for it's use in these blockchain based products.

I'm sure other incentive based decentralised asset transfer systems can exist in the future, whether they get used or not can all depend on how they are developed and marketed.

The thing with bitcoin is that there is not central PR company with all the money and the clout to get things moving. Advertising etc...

When Joe B discovers a cool and easy way to send stuff online with a slick and secure looking front end, he won't care if it's bitcoin or some other mechanism if they are doing the same job.

I can give an example of what the OP is talking about.  Think of a colored coin or Counterparty asset that represents USD.  It is built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, and can transfer USD$1,000,000 as a 0.0001 BTC token.  The only problem, and this may be a big one, is in securing this transaction.  The Bitcoin network sees this as the sending of 0.0001 BTC, nothing more.  It's the colored coin or Counterparty layer on top of Bitcoin that interprets it as something more.  So any security features that rely on amount of Bitcoin being sent, such as how many confirmations to wait for, will be rendered unsafe.  Your seemingly small 0.0001 BTC transfer may have needed only 0 or 1 confirmations, but the fact that it actually represents USD$1,000,000 means it would be well worth the effort to perform a double spend with so few confirmations.

To summarize, you run the risk of having less security when you override the meaning of a BTC transaction.

Ok, that's the "Bitcoin will be the new gold 2.0 store of value" scenario. I might have doubts about gold bugs switching to bitcoin or adding it to their portfolio but fair enough.
The problem with this idea is that a lot of people that are bullish on bitcoin long term are arguing that bitcoin or cryptocurrencies are great because they can be used for remittances, to cut billions in fees, to allow the unbanked to have access to financial services, smart contracts etc.
The problem with that is that if a distributed ledger system that works without a cryptocurrency exists, these native tokens are not needed, and that would deplete the value of any crypto.

So a lot or reasons why your cryptocurrency should be valuable suddenly disappear.

You are referring to its "monetary fundamentals", so about the "gold 2.0" scenario I was talking about. I personally don't agree with it, but as I said, fair enough.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Ethereum and Ripple and not dependent on their native cryptotokens for their network to work. The price of their tokens (ether and XRP) could be a fraction of a cent and the distributed ledgers/blockchains would remain intact. They are not even necessary to be effectively used in order to benefit from the respective networks ledgers to move fiat currencies around/smart contracts.
With bitcoin this is not the case.

Also, recently Eris industries is going ballistic on twitter talking about how they try to get away with the problem of needing a native token for a blockchain.

https://twitter.com/Eris_Ltd
https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/576456037466767360
https://twitter.com/eris_ltd/status/577235397891219456

I'm not necessarily a proponent of these technologies yet, I'm just saying that they are being built.

The point of my original question is that technology advances pretty fast and the possibility of the existence of an alternative blockchain/consensus ledger where a cryptotoken is not needed NEEDS to be considered, because that scenario would severely deplete any cryptocurrency of its possible inherent value/utility (or would it? that was my question).

But why? A cryptocurrency is inherently volatile. Something that starts at a few million/billion marketcap and it's supposed to be a global currency is NOT gonna get stable anytime soon. For decades and decades it would still be too volatile and unusable as a currency.  

Why a cryptocurrency? Why do we need another currency?
Are you using bitcoin as a currency yourself or just to hodl it to dump it higher?  ;D

Good post, agreed.
The PR thing is the other side of the "decentralization" coin I guess  ;D

I think just the gold and money 2.0 properties are enough for Bitcoin to remain valuable, even if it's stripped of all other potential use cases. But I'm doubtful a distributed ledger system will actually work without an underlying token of value like Bitcoin, could you explain how you think that would work?

Not going to take personal offense at your question like some others do but:




... is the answer already to your own question. Of all the proposals anyone ever came up with (to my knowledge), you can satisfy two of the following three conditions, but not all three of them at the same time: secure, decentralized, for free^*.

There's maybe a discussion to be had if PoW is the final correct choice for the main player in crypto (Note: I still think it is, roughly, because of hardware cost binding miners to the blockchain, and only one blockchain at a time), but that's more specific already than the objection to your idea:

Describe please how a decentralized ledger without a native token incentivizes participation?

Sure, participation (of miners) could be funded by outside capital, but then the question becomes, how to distribute it? How to see which outside actor has which share of the funding? Such a system sounds a lot like political party funding in the US, and I would describe that as 'partisan' and 'toxic' long before I would use the term 'decentralized'.

In the end, any proposal I've heard or can come up with myself either violates the decentralization constraint, or it becomes so complex that it essentially recreates the native token system of the blockchain. But that one exists already :)





^* I know, the point can be made (and would be correct) that e.g. a centralized system like Visa is anything but cheap. The point is, in principle, if security rests on one entity with absolute power, this removes the broader system of financial incentives you need for a decentralized setup like crypto.

Some people say Bitcoin may become the next gold standard, not necessarly replacing national currencies. In any case, Bitcoin is 100% guaranteed going to be increasingly relevant and valuable in the future.

Blockchain is sure great invention but decentralisation of money is lot bigger than that in my opinion and it guaranties Bitcoin succes in long run.

The function of native tokens is not just to incentivise miners, but also to prevent spamming blockchain with infinite-loop transactions/contracts (afaik).

Well even if we don't have today a network that works fine without a native token doesn't mean that it won't be built in the future.

But actually, these technologies are starting to appear.

Eris industries claim that they can build blockchains to be used for smart contracts without any cryptotoken at all and that anybody can use them  today, right now.
https://erisindustries.com/

Then we have Ripple and Ethereum where the tokens "are there" but more as a anti-spam mechanism, meaning that the network is not dependent  on the token (token is not necessary to be used by participants, is not the main point, and its price can be whatever, as opposed to bitcoin in the bitcoin blockchain).

So the trend seems to be cryptocurrencies -> distributed ledgers.
Where the tokens (the cryptocurrencies) are less and less relevant and necessary, until they are not even needed at all.


You say that you haven't found a proposal that doesn't violate the constraints "decentralised, cheap, secure".

Ok for "secure" or "cheap", but regarding "decentralised": Why does the network have to be 100% decentralised?
VCs, banks or whatever are interested in bitcoin and crypto not because it's decentralised, but because it allows fast, global, cheap payments (at least that's what they think, because it's not that simple...) and allows applications like smart contracts and all that. Decentralisation is only one way to get there.
If some components of the network are centralised, it's not a problem, and it might even be preferred by them.
In the end it all comes down to what the world will find more useful and what it will actually adopt.


100% decentralisation has more to do with ideology than actual usefulness IMHO.

EXACTLY! I tried to get this point across so many times, to no avail. Everyone on this forum seems to think that decentralization will bring about some magical utopia, and that a government/centralized crypto cannot work because it's not decentralized. I think they need a reality check.

The current centralized financial system has kinda proven already that it doesn't work, this is entirely the reason why Bitcoin was invented in the first place. You may want to cling on to a failing system and a ship that's slowly sinking, but I think we need to improve and do better than that. It's called innovation and progress, not magical utopia.

IMHO centralised finance works just fine, but for example money doesn't move as quickly and cheaply as information (yet) and some processes could be more automated so it might use some of the crypto technologies like distributed ledgers to achieve that. The contribution of crypto to the world should end pretty much right there.
Expecting that a currency like bitcoin will replace fiat is not just optimistic, it's delusional and undesirable.
It would bring only more problems, if anything.

Looks like a bitcoin core developer agrees on "centralised finance is more efficient"
https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/513195104023359488

100% decentralisation = ideology.
You might agree with it or not, but don't expect it to conquer the world.

On the contrary, it has worked well for centuries, and continues to work well for the vast majority of the world.

That said, can it be better? Most definitely. There are many things that can be improved with the current financial system. I'm just not sure decentralization is one of them.

Your argument is akin to saying "Well, cars have proven that they don't work, since traffic accidents happen everyday. That's why we need to replace round wheels with triangular wheels."

Well, you managed to identify a problem, but you didn't identify correctly the cause of the problem, thus you can't provide the correct solution.

Again, I'm a bitcoin bull, but I'm not a fiat-government-centralization hater.

Well as long as the general population doesn't mind to serve as collateral for the too big to fail financial institutions I guess it's kind of working. But this will fail eventually even if it takes a long time, and it has failed many times already in recorded history. These things just happen over several generations so most people don't notice it or think it's normal and part of human life.

I think of it this way. How will the world be without centralized fiat currencies? I mean, if we didn't have bitcoin, or other "improved" currencies.

I don't think I can be better off without fiat. I think it'd be a lot worse, and no, I'm not a beneficiary of the banks. Thus, fiat works.

It's kind of like I have a tree stump that I sit on. You, on the other hand, invented a chair that massages your body while you sit on it which is really comfortable, relaxing, and good for your health. That doesn't mean my tree stump "doesn't work", though. So yeah, I think bitcoin has the potential to revolutionize finance, but I'm not sure decentralization is a necessary component of that revolution.

I agree with you in that nothing totally decentralised will become huge, nor is it a necessary feature.
But I think bitcoin brings parcial decentralisation - sure, governments WILL find ways to control it, and for sure they'll explore the lack of anonymity that the bitcoin protocol has (which I actually think is a good thing). But we'd be back to the gold-pattern kind of economy - one in which you know that the money (in this case bitcoins) you own won't lose their value from day to night just because the government decides to inject millions daily.

A lot of people will say that the tokens themselves should be immensley valuable, as you need to incent the miners to keep the chain secure. Others, like Buffett, say that a Bitcoin is akin to a check, with not much value on its own.

I think Bitcoin isn't bound to undermine fiat currencies but as an adjunct, a means of transferring value in a low cost manner that doesn't depend on banks or governments. In that situation, coins don't need to have tremendous value, only need to be valuable enough to accommodate the amount of funds that will be in transfer at any given time.

It's the reducing mining awards that would stand to push the price up. Right now, mining is profitable for the operators due the 25 btc block award. As that declines, the value of Bitcoin will have to go up or else fees will have to skyrocket, taking away the "low cost" advantage of Bitcoin. Will the rest of the world buy into that? That the value of previously existing coins should double simply because the rate of issuance declined? Or that they need to pay greater fees because of that?

Right now, bitcoins are cheap to transfer because the cost to do so is subsidized by new coins. When those decline, fees will have to increase, maybe even substantially, and that could undermine the low cost argument that's put forward constantly.

So could someone put forward a block chaim sans Bitcoin? They could, it'd be quite centralized though. But since the advent of asics, mining has already become a more and more centralized affair. A single company or a duopoly controlling the block chajn would obviously be mocked by the community, but might just be good enough for the rest of the world.

I think it is. Centralization leads to monopolies and it stifles innovation, because these central authorities don't need to innovate at all to survive. They will just get the money they need from the FED and form cartels to protect their own interests while they rig the markets and suck all the profits towards them and socialize their losses. This is not going to change if you introduce some kind of fiat blockchain.

This is a very important point.  You cannot secure any thing on a block chain of which the market cap is much lower than the things you want to secure.  Indeed, the cost of the proof of work (or the proof of stake for that matter) is of the order of the market cap (or lower).  To attack the chain, you need, in the worst case, about to invest the whole market cap (you then redo all of the proof of work).  Now, for the currency itself, that would of course be ridiculous: spending more than the total market cap of all coins, to be able to attribute yourself some.  But if there are things in that chain that are worth much more than the market cap, then that might very well be worth the difficulty.

If the market cap of bitcoin is now estimated at, say, $ 4 billion, then that comes down to saying that with about $ 4 billion, you redo all the proof of work (if the mined coins were mined at the price they were worth).  That means that someone able to plonk down, say, $6 billion, can redo the entire bitcoin block chain.  Of course, that wouldn't be worth it.  But if that chain contains a contract worth $50 billion, then that changes things: if it is worth to you $50 billion to change that contract, then plonking down $6 billion is a good deal.

So the bitcoin block chain is not more secure than about its market cap. 

I don't think that Bitcoin would have prevented the previous financial crisis, nor will it prevent future ones.

If bitcoin were to become the global currency, i fully believe that the vast majority of people would store their coins at banks due to some combination of either not feeling comfortable/able to keep their coins secure themselves, and wanting the responsibility for keeping them safe to be vested in an insured institution that could make up any losses they might suffer, and due to the desire to put their money "to work"; i.e. interest bearing savings accounts.

A bitcoin denominated world won't be a world that doesn't desire credit, so there will be borrowers, be they individuals, corporatations or nations, that they're borrowing Bitcoin rather than dollars doesn't change things fundamentally. And borrowing from an institution who has made it their business to do so will always be far more efficient than trying to secure funding via peer-to-peer markets.

A bitcoin denominated world wouldn't have had an impact on detereorating underwriting standards.

Too often, people look to Bitcoin as a panacea, but it would only step in and replace the dollar at the fundamental level. The rest, the institutions and behaviors on top of the Dollar, Euro, etc, those would all be unchanged.

Depends on your definition of 'usefulness'. Getting around strict capital controls (e.g. China), politically motivated restrictions of payment processing (e.g. donations to Wikileaks), or legal restrictions (e.g. dark net marketplaces) are clear cases where decentralization is useful, I have little doubt about that.

Whether there will be a wider appeal than the cases above (e.g. contracts in general that are not subject to enforcement/regulation by a central authority, or the often invoked 'store of value' usage case) is something we're in the process of finding out. I don't think it's a given those broader usage cases will be based on the Bitcoin network, and not some other (possibly centralized) crypto, but I'm also pretty skeptical towards the opposite claim, that it's a given it won't happen. Hence, speculative activity all around.

Your understanding of the historic international trade system, that worked for centuries, is totally off the mark. The system that worked for centuries, was decentralized. In fact, the free market economy is decentralized by definition.

The defects of the current system:

Fiat systems are centralized, because there is one entity that issues money. They have each worked a few years, then collapsed.

The current fiat system consists of different systems that are interdependent through the defects of the current main stream economists, and the fact that central banks cooperate.

A new thing is the loss of anonymity, the anonymity is a requirement for free individuals who comprise the free market system.

A new thing is government control of the payment system, enabling governments to step in and destroy free trade between any two free actors. They can do this without entertaining the government law system.

We have never in history had a basically world wide fiat system, never has a fiat system inflated to the current degree without imploding.

So we are in desperate need for a new system. Sadly, bitcoin is years away from having the necessary expansion to be able to take over. Brace yourself for a period of money system confusion, as new systems are brought about from people who understand nothing.

It's a flaw that central banks cooperate?


For all intents and purposes, once the mainstream adopts bitcoin, anonymity will be next to nonexistent. Not because there'll be any changes made to Bitcoin. But bitcoins pseudoanonomyity only works for people now who understand what it is and isn't and take active steps to remain anonymous. For the mainstream, the record keeping of the blockchain will yield the same, if not more, information as is collected by banks and credit card issuers. Except, instead of it being only in the hands of those companies, everyones transactions will be out in the open for EVERYONE to examine.

I don't see Bitcoin as being the winner in that case. Yes, right now, small group of knowledgable users, yes, it wins, but only for people who proactively take steps to preserve it.

I wrote:


Your understanding of the historic international trade system, that worked for centuries, is totally off the mark. The system that worked for centuries, was decentralized. In fact, the free market economy is decentralized by definition.

The defects of the current system:

Fiat systems are centralized, because there is one entity that issues money. They have each worked a few years, then collapsed.

The current fiat system consists of different systems that are interdependent through the defects of the current main stream economists, and the fact that central banks cooperate.

A new thing is the loss of anonymity, the anonymity is a requirement for free individuals who comprise the free market system.

A new thing is government control of the payment system, enabling governments to step in and destroy free trade between any two free actors. They can do this without entertaining the government law system.

We have never in history had a basically world wide fiat system, never has a fiat system inflated to the current degree without imploding.

So we are in desperate need for a new system. Sadly, bitcoin is years away from having the necessary expansion to be able to take over. Brace yourself for a period of money system confusion, as new systems are brought about from people who understand nothing.


---

When the central banks cooperate, there are not 100+ fiat systems any more, rather one, meaning more centralization.

The degree of anonymity in bitcoin depends on how many of the addresses can be linked to individuals. When most addresses are linked to individuals, many of the others can, with some work, be traced to the trade partners of the known individuals. When just a few addresses have known owners, the remaining addresses can not so easily be traced to individuals.

I think there is a good chance that the future situation will be that only a few addresses have known owners, therefore the system as a whole will be largely anonymous.

What OP suggested is similar to Euro, a single currency across boarder, and you see how much trouble it has now  ;D ;D

US can not force Germany to use USD as currency, because printing currency is the biggest robbery power central banks hold, they will never give up that right to anyone else, so what OP suggested would never happen in the form of a decentralized system, since a decentralized system do not allow centralized control of money supply.

From consumer point of view, the closest result is like VISA or paypal, you do the transaction in a third party payment processor network, and they do the real settlement afterwards

Blockchain technology itself worth nothing, because once invented, you can duplicate it thousands of times. Anything with unlimited supply will definitely worth nothing

But bitcoin is limited, and the cost to mine coin and maintain the network is very high, that indicated the competition to get bitcoin is also very high. Without that huge amount of infrastructure investment, the bitcoin blockchain is as useless as thousands of other altcoins, just some lines of code in github, a freeware

And I have never understand that smart contract thing, how could you ensure the validity of the promised assets in those contracts? These contracts have no legal validity and the counter party can just run away or claim to be hacked as we have seen many times in this space. The only thing blockchain can ensure is the ownership of bitcoins, if bitcoin worth nothing, then those ownership will have no meaning

So the most important thing is bitcoin's blockchain, you can not separate these 2 concepts

i wonder how many contradictions i just read in that post...

In fact, the Euro, as a currency, is behaving amazingly well.  Those in trouble are STATES, not the money itself.  States who gave up their fiat currency to become *normal* economic agents under a currency they don't master themselves makes them go bankrupt, because they were used to reap in all the cheating that happens with a state fiat currency (essentially reaping in all the seigniorage of counterfeiting).  The most corrupt states (the south) suffer of course more than the less corrupt states of the north.

The biggest danger for the Euro is, as usual, political mixing in the monetary policy, which, according to its statute, shouldn't happen.

The Euro is not on the verge of collapsing.  Some European states are.  That's different all together, exactly because the Euro is not a state fiat money, but an inter-state fiat money.

Several states didn't realize the amount of power they gave out of hands when creating the Euro.  I'm personally happy for that, but I think some regret it.

The Euro doesn't have the status of the US dollar yet, in the sense that I don't know of any foreign country where Euro's are actually used as actual means of payment instead of the local fiat currency.  And the weak economic situation of the Euro zone at this moment is not bright either, but that has nothing to do itself with the currency itself.

The uncoupling of monetary issues from economic policy and policy in general is the best thing that could happen and I only know of the Euro in recent times that did such a thing.  The Euro is not as good as gold, but its principles are more sound than that of a state fiat currency that is much more exposed to political manipulation.

Nobody would blame gold to be the culprit of a state going bankrupt (as was almost the case with France under Louis XV after inherting the state from super spender Louis XIV).  In the same way, the Euro is not to be blamed for countries like Greece to go essentially bankrupt.  They were simply not used in keeping the books in order.

I think this is a great discussion.

By removing the value of the token the OP may have removed
or rendered optional some required foundations for a crypto...
and a lot of other human endeavors.
The theoretical technology indicates that a desire must exist
to transmit value.
So it follows that the mechanism must exist.
And that mechanism must persist.

How about this:
Suppose we have a technology at our disposal where we can
communicate or contact people or show them what we see, or
have seen?
Everyone finds this to be a great idea, let's have that.
Must the underlying technology have any value?
Short answer - yes, it must, because people are unlikely
to go turn rocks into gold nano-filiments in any sort of
usable volumes just because they felt some whimsy.
Email and videos would have a hard time existing if not for
the infrastructure, which costs. Somewhere in every scheme
there must be something someone wants, or why bother?

So Incentivization is crucial - yet your theoretical technology can
be spun up by anyone, offered by any party.
What dictates success of any such offering? Lots of factors,
but the basic human drive to enrich one's self must be taken
into account, otherwise only those directly enriched will bother
with it. Voluntarily.
But a lack of incentives will surely lead to failure,
including for bitcoin when the subsidies of new coins fall off,
as lucasjkr mentions. With luck the taper will be sufficient
to see it through, we'll see how that works starting next year...

Reducing signal/noise and shenanigans is important as well:


Dinofelis, can you explain further?:

...because the combined value of all the assets of a municipal records dept
including salaries, building, land etc. does not even come close to
the value of the property recorded therein. The Blockchain is a (hopefully)
immutable abstraction of wealth, among other things.

About this:

Seems like any sidechain worth its salt would provide the security for whatever
they are doing. The part where the bitcoin blockchain is involved is just what gives
the side chain more accepted, world-wide legitimacy, ultimately.
If a car manufacturer runs their own blockchain and generates all sorts of identifiers
for a new car, binds them to the car's electronic brain, hashes them into one of their
block and then registers that block via a miniscule amt to the btc blockchain it
seems to me that security is enhanced because 2 different chains must be compromised.



I either disagree with this, OR I'm not understanding:

Decentralization is also crucial because therein lies fault tolerance,
where 'fault' is spelled: attempts to deny/control/be overbearing,
aka governments. Distribution means if China wants to stifle the
network... well, go ahead and try.  As johnyj mentions,
 "US can not force Germany to use USD as currency..."
People will do what people do, like censored Iranians circumventing
 their ISP's and accessing the world anyway.



My understanding is limited, but this is a problem ethereum proposes to solve.
The assets are verifiable through the chain and the code which deals with
those assets is also verifiable. And immutable except to those with the keys.
OP says:
"Correct me if I'm wrong but Ethereum and Ripple and not dependent on their native cryptotokens for their network to work."
My understanding is that ethereum is consumed by the code over time - run out of ether, code evaporates. And there is some
limited amount of ether, but mining it is asic resistant.
However, my understanding is quite limited on the topic, could be wrong.

Bitcoin is beautiful because it encapsulates so many aspects of modern life,
seems like your question illuminated a lot of the beauty.

The block chain being decentralized, the ONLY security it has is the cryptographic impossibility or difficulty for it to be forged or altered.  That difficulty can be overcome, but at a price, and that price is exactly the financial cost of the proof of work that went in it.  In other words, barring smart improvements or strong technological advance, the proof of work in the block chain that secures it cryptographically, can be overcome only by producing MORE proof of work and hence spending a LARGER financial cost than the one that is securing the current block chain.

Let me put it like this: say that the current block chain (I'm taking arbitrary numbers) is protected by a proof of work of 10^22 hashes (the integrated proof of work).  If you are capable to do 2 x 10^22 hashes, then you can re-write the block chain entirely, from the genesis block onward.  Those hashes come with a certain cost, and assuming that the cost of mining equals the reward of mining, and assuming that the price of a bitcoin is constant, then the total cost spent to produce these 10^22 hashes is equal to the total price of all mined bitcoins, which is nothing else but the market cap.
Now, of course, the cost of mining in reality is LOWER than the reward, which means that it did cost LESS than the total market cap to produce 10^22 hashes.  Also, the bitcoin price ROSE a lot, so the early mining was *cheaper* than the current price of the then mined coins.  These two arguments go in the direction of telling you that the cost of 10^22 hashes is in fact LESS than the total market cap of bitcoin.

So for a price less than the total market cap, you can ENTIRELY REDO THE BLOCK CHAIN.  So the upper limit is the total market cap.  If you are willing to plunk down the market cap, you can redo the block chain.

In order to obtain bitcoins, that would be totally ridiculous.  But things secured in the block chain might be worth more, and then there's an incentive to do so.

A centralized recording doesn't have to have this property, because the security of it doesn't come from the price of proof of work, but rather from the trust you can put in that central authority, and the law enforcement, that will make that it cannot be modified by any individual plunking down some money on the table.

Suppose that in a municipal record is written down that association X possesses a building that's worth 10 million dollars, and the notebook in which this is written down costs only $5.   In bitcoin speak, it would be sufficient to buy another notebook of $5, change the owner of that building in that notebook, and hey, it is yours !
But you can't do that with a municipal record, because the employees guarding that notebook will not allow you to replace it.  If you insist, they will call the police who will come and stop you from replacing the notebook.

However, in bitcoin or in any other block chain, the notebook can be replaced by anybody.  The only thing that you have to do, is pay more Proof of Work (or proof of stake).  The block chain IS the $5 notebook.  If you buy a new notebook, you can replace it.  The ONLY reason why you don't, is that the proof of work costs more than anything that is in the notebook.  The only thing that is in the notebook (the block chain) are bitcoins.  The price of the book (the proof of work to make a new one) is about equal to the total price of everything that is in it.  In fact it is somewhat lower.
So as long as there's not more IN the book, than the cost of a new book, there's no point in doing so.  

But the day that there's something IN the book that costs more than the book itself, it is worth changing it !

In fact, a central ledger also has a price to be modified: the price of bribing all the authorities that are supposed to guard it.  If you can plunk down enough money so that all the authorities guarding the municipal record allow you to change it, then you've also broken the security of the system.

The security of a block chain is in its proof of work.  If you can buy more proof of work, you can corrupt it.  The security of a centralized ledger is the authority guarding it.  If you can buy that authority (bribe it), then you can corrupt it.

I see where I missed your point now, thanks for your patient explanation-
I thought you meant 'market-cap' to be the value of the items lodged in the
blockchain/notebook.

You mean it as the sum of the value of the tokens.
The act of writing to the notebook is an (increasingly?) non-free competition
with tokens as reward.
The ability to write to the notebook is protected by 2 components:
1) The value of the bitcoins/tokens
2) crypto-difficulty

If the reward/token 'value' diminishes to a point <= cost of
participating in the competition...what happens?
Collapse or the value of the tokens must increase.
Or something we have not thought of.
Perhaps fewer will still compete.
But devaluation is addressed in the protocol by scarcity,
we just do not yet know if that will work as we only have 1 datapoint
re: blockreward reductions. But the datapoint is a nice one thus far,
there has been an explosion of mining even after the block reward
halved.

So if we try to answer OP's question:
Such a technology's existence and continuation would have to leverage
some force equal-to or greater-than human self-interest.

Existence and persistence of the ledger is woven to the valuation
and is not seperable ( without collapse ).
The value of the token gives rise to the ledger, is intrinsic to the scheme.
So token value, which I'm seeing as fundamental, has to be replaced by *something*.

That something will have to be human-nature proof to overcome
governments and wealthy theives/cheaters.
What is stronger than their collective might?
Self-interest, which is fundamentally human.

VC money is more interested in the blockchain, certainly,
but they already have wealth.
They appear to be pouring money into investigating how to
build this thing out.

Bitcoin just aligned the aims of Ukraine and Russia-
they both decided they need to squash it.

Even if Venture Capital money is dropping their money and interest in the blockchain itself and not Bitcoin, it doesn't change the fact Bitcoin is the original implementation of the blockchain. It will always be the "to-go" reference.

And beyond that, what you propose is still the scam fiat scam plastered all over the blockchain. Im on Bitcoin because I know there is a limited supply and it's all fair game. This will never be the case with goverment issued currencies.

That's what I mean, you can't have countries with different political interest using the same monetary policy, an easy monetary policy will stimulate the hard working nation but crash the leisure seeking nation, but both a way of living and different view of life: In the long run we are all dead, some people will enjoy the life while others will work hard until they die

As far as incentives for such a technology - Namecoin is useful, the technology exists to secure the value of domains with it ( I think ).
I wonder how value plays out with that token.

Normally, money has nothing to do, nor with economic results, nor with politics.  Money is an asset that is used to exchange against goods and services and to store value.  Whether things go good or bad, whether you have a lot of wealth or not much at all, shouldn't matter.

What is amazing with the Euro is that, since gold was not used any more in international economic relations, a state can go bankrupt without first screwing its own currency, as the Euro is not related to a state.

In fact, the Euro could even be used by non-European countries if they want to.  Even if 3/4 of European states went bankrupt, that wouldn't - in principle - not even affect the Euro too much as a currency.  Of course, the Euro would loose value, but not because states are in trouble, but rather because the economies are in trouble and hence what you can buy with Euros is reduced (reduced production).

Two very good reports on the "blockchains without bitcoin" trend.

Tim Swanson: "Consensus-as-a-service: a brief report on the emergence of permissioned, distributed ledger
systems":
http://www.ofnumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Permissioned-distributed-ledgers.pdf


"‘BLOCKCHAIN WITHOUT BITCOIN IS NOW A THING"
http://prestonbyrne.com/2015/04/08/blockchain-without-bitcoin-is-now-a-thing/




A few quotes from the Tim Swanson report:

"The coin (bitcoin) is an integral part of the network’s incentive mechanism to
maintain its security; the two have an existential symbiotic relationship.
But that is not to say you could not start from a fresh “mulligan,” taking part of the toolkit –
some of the cryptographic primitives and concepts – and start over with something tailored to
specific use-cases.

"unlikely that financial service providers like banks will have a need for cryptocurrency systems"


"Stems such as Bitcoin use anonymous validators and are unable to be a legally official register of assets."



Basically:

"From "Trustless" to "Verifiable""

So they created yet another centralised data-transmission system and called that 'blockchain' to get some attention? Proved that blockchain can exist without native token, just by stretching the definition of the "blockchain"?

Wake me up when it's decentralised and trustless (and working).

From my understanding: It's not "centralized". It's distributed. Just because the validators are known doesn't mean it's "centralized".
Distributed ledgers (the "permissioned" ones Tim Swanson is describing) are cryptographically verifiable.

Quite different from existing "centralised data-transmission systems".

I'm not an expert but pretty sure Eris Industries products (for example) are "working", you can use them right now.

Let's be clear I'm not saying that BTC can't rise in value again. I'm just saying that one possible reason for it can't be "because the blockchain".

Some simply say:  "blockchains cure cancer ( ;D), and since bitcoin is necessary for the blockchain to function, that means bitcoin -> moon". This logic is flawed.



I think the only way BTC can rise in value and "be successful" is if it becomes some kind of gold 2.0 store of value out of pure speculation (part of gold's marketcap is simply speculation as well for example). I think it's kinda unlikely, but possible.

Not as a "currency for the internet", not as an efficient way to transfer value (POW is not designed to be cheap, and transactions are not exactly fast), global currency/replacement of fiat (let's be realistic), "because blockchain" or whatever other reason.

I think all these guys saying "blockchain is good, bitcoin is meh" are just trying to sound intelligent and don't really get it. This pic does sum it all up:

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/56223400.jpg

Distributed =/= decentralised (can be but doesn't have to)

If you have to trust 'validator' and cannot enter the system as equal party, then such system is centralised.

I'm a bit tech-handicapped myself and I don't quite understand how such 'blockchain' would work, what would be incentive for participants and what would protect it from infinite-loops and bad actors. To my understanding, it has to be centralised, or be closed to any untrusted 3rd parties.

The author of the article (you quoted) clearly states that BTC blockchain and coinless-blockchains are very different ideas, and if the latter are successful they could only 'highjack' only part of BTC blockchain abilities.