Other uses of blockchain technology

[Evolvex]

I've only been onto this "funny internet money" for a couple of months, I've been blown away by what I see as the potential for change that bitcoin has.

Its all so genius - the blockchain, what an epic idea.

So what else could it be used for?

I initially thought, "everything" - but I doubt it.

Smart objects:

I think this has been discussed somewhere or another, this would be excellent, thefts would go down (Even though I feel that personal physical attacks may go up), property insurance fraud would go down, everything you own would be in the block chain.

Law:

Signing and agreement of new laws into the blockchain - speaks for itself I think, if we lived in truly democratic society, this would happen already is some fashion.

Coloured Coins:

Cant remember who's been working on this, but I think this is a really good idea, opens the way to all sorts of things, trading card systems, bonds, certificates etc.

Music Industry:

No one likes DRM, and I know I might get flamed for this....but.... the rampage that the music industry is on could be stopped by using blockchain tech - download from say apple a drm free track, using itunes, which really just sends you some bitcoin embedded DRM free music tracks to your itunes wallet..... heres the important bit.... you then OWN those music tracks, they are yours to sell, lend out, burn. I think people would be less inclined to share there music "bitcoin style" if it had "worth".... now I've typed that out - I'm not sure it achieves anything... comments?


What about medical.... has anyone made any artwork out of the blockchain yet?

What else could become of blockchain technology?

[Severian]

CommitCoin

[shamoons]

I've never considered the music model, but I think it makes a lot of sense actually. This way, you can own things and pass them along whenever you'd like.

[Luno]

Some university paper suggested that a block chain system could be used for secure online public voting. Obviously without any mining of extra ballots.

The mentioned block chain music library is a clever idea, but what would prevent people from sharing their private keys? People won't share Bitcoins that's not a problem with a currency.

[grondilu]

I think we all underestimate how indeed the blockchain idea will be important in the future.

I believe the blockchain concept provides something that was missing in distributed computing: a reliable, trustworthy, decentralized logical clock.

The applications are countless:

- distributed and decentralised electronic markets (that will be the end of conventional, centralized stock exchanges);
- worldwide-scaled operating systems running zetaflop supercomputers (including an artificial intelligence and expert system whose brain will be distributed all over the world);
- distributed, uncontrolled virtual reality where many people will spend most of their time (yes, like in Matrix);

[Stephen Gornick]

So what else could it be used for?

Domain names for a TLD, like ... .bit maybe?
 - http://www.dot-bit.org

Related:

How to do document timestamping with the block chain?
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=72022.0

[Evolvex]

I think the whole "do you own your downloaded content" thing is going to be getting attention these next couple years, hasnt bruce willis spoke out about it, wanting to transfer his collection to his family? There was something else I saw along the same light, but cant remember now....

We are being pushed into an age where we no longer own physical things, but digital items, downloads, movies, music - why the hell shouldn't they have a "value", why shouldnt we be able to trade them at will, like we do today (grrr, bloody music industry)

Luno, he he, I'd thought of using the blockchain as a public voting system (infact, I posted something on here about my idea for an internet land, I had that idea for the voting system as well).

Thats the bit I'm having trouble with - but I dont think I'd give you the private keys to my music collection that was worth 100btc (you could cash them out, and sell them/spend - music can become a currency, esp if it can be sent in the bitcoin blockchain as BTC), but I may share an album/track with a trusted friend or family member. Or sell just one album by sending it to someone for payment in xxxxx.

I think thats as far as I've thought with that idea.....

Stephen, completely forgot about namecoin , timestamping, hadnt thought of that.

[Severian]

Some university paper suggested that a block chain system could be used for secure online public voting.

Ctrl-F this page for CommitCoin

[misterbigg]

CommitCoin

Okay...this is REALLY COOL!!!!

[CIYAM]

The concept of a provably fair voting system is a great idea but I found nothing in that link to demonstrate that this has been achieved.

(the problem really comes down to being able to identify an individual without disclosing their identity)

I actually think the real change that the blockchain can make is to provide an "open accounting book" for non-profit organisations (which will be appearing in my own project soon).

[Severian]

The concept of a provably fair voting system is a great idea but I found nothing in that link to demonstrate that this has been achieved.

I think it's proof of concept rather than being a stab at implementation.

[CIYAM]

I think it's proof of concept rather than being a stab at implementation.

Well - I did read it and I can't see that it is actually a "proof" of anything.

It's not that I don't want such a thing to work but that paper does really nothing to show how it could work.

[Severian]

Ian, I believe the blockchain only figures into about 5% of their scheme. Per the author's idea:

It is used to commit to some election auditing data that must have been generated before the election starts for the audit to be valid.

[CIYAM]

Ian, I believe the blockchain only figures into about 5% of their scheme. Per the author's idea:

It is used to commit to some election auditing data that must have been generated before the election starts for the audit to be valid.

Am sure this is correct but I simply could find no information regarding how the rest of the system is supposed to work (I actually did work out a system for doing voting on this forum that was publicly posted a long time back).

[grondilu]

Some university paper suggested that a block chain system could be used for secure online public voting.

Ctrl-F this page for CommitCoin

This thing relies on the bitcoin faucet, and anyway it basically consists in encoding a hash of a salted message into a private key.  This scheme was discussed long ago on the forum (Satoshi himself talked about it) and it convinced no one for several reasons, one of them being the cost of transactions that would be prohibitive iirc.

« First we ran,

openssl rand -out random.dat 20

creating a file containing a 20 byte random factor.

Then we concatinated the randomness to the end of the file and hashed it using RIPEMD-160,

cat abstract.pdf random.dat > preimage.dat
openssl dgst -ripemd160 preimage.dat

giving us the result:

135e3712334428d4061efe4e5ffd5ff817aeb817

We called an online tool to convert this hash into a valid Bitcoin address giving us:

12mQhpvGYdBrvDJq6sFGwEe3GETaqEM4Jk

Finally, we used the Bitcoin Faucet to send BTC0.005 to this address. »

[Severian]

Am sure this is correct but I simply could find no information regarding how the rest of the system is supposed to work (I actually did work out a system for doing voting on this forum that was publicly posted a long time back).

The paper proposes Scantegrity for the other 95% of the operation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity

[Severian]

Finally, we used the Bitcoin Faucet to send BTC0.005 to this address. »

Or one could spend .00050001 of one's own stash and achieve the same result.

This idea would also be good for contracts. When parties come to a contractual agreement, the signed contract can be hashed, converted and committed to the blockchain.

[CIYAM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity

Thanks for the link - as I suspected it in no way shows how a voter is actually limited to one vote (or even identified at all).

Sorry but this to me doesn't really seem like anything even slightly groundbreaking (just another IP money making exercise really).

[Severian]

Sorry but this to me doesn't really seem like anything even slightly groundbreaking.

It's not. It just fits with the thread's topic.

[CIYAM]

It's not. It just fits with the thread's topic.

Okay - maybe went a bit off topic then (must have spent too much time on that stuff before - that especially happens when you actually read a BenRayField post too closely).