The establishment "blockchain" ideology

[Blinken]

One thing I find annoying about the gradual adoption of Bitcoin is the "blockchain" ideology distraction being built up by establishment institutions like banks. It is really unfortunate that banks even are "establishment institutions", but unfortunately in most countries, including the United States, banks have essentially become organs of the government, which is bad for society at multiple levels, both economic and political.

These banks and other establishment institutions first tried to kill Bitcoin, a completely futile effort. Then they started this alternate universe ideology that they called "blockchain". Now, there is even a consortium called "R3" the purpose of which is "proof-of-concept experimentation and the development of standards for blockchain tech". Notice the lack of the word "Bitcoin".

These banks think they can just co-opt somehow the trust mechanism of Bitcoin and make what? Some kind of competing system that they control? It's absurd. The whole point of Bitcoin is that the banks can't control it, it's peer-to-peer. I've got news for State Street Bank: nobody is going to install and run a node so you can control some fake "blockchain tech". What are you thinking? You are going to kill Bitcoin by making State Street Coin? Not a very realistic expectation.

The "blockchain" thing is completely misguided, not just because the idea of bank-governments adopting a peer-to-peer mechanism is laughable, but because the whole blockchain idea is not suited to large scale transaction volume at all. In many ways the current design is really just a cottage system that can only operate in a niche. For example, if you put every transaction that Visa and Mastercard does on a blockchain it would be adding 90 terabytes every year to that file. You would not be able to process that hog fast enough even if you had a liquid nitrogen cooled super computer. The whole blockchain idea is only suitable for a relatively small number of users and transactions, meaning tens of thousands of people, not millions of people. As things stand there are currently fewer than 6000 nodes controlling $9 billion in total Bitcoin capitalization. I am surprised some hacker doesn't just install nodes on his 100k botnet and just take over the whole system.

The banks are blundering by fooling with this non-scalable idea and double blundering by thinking they can co-opt Bitcoin to their own selfish purposes.

What is actually going to happen is that a new iteration of Bitcoin is going to emerge in which transactions records are distributed, dividing that 90 terabyte mass into many myriad of chunks on different nodes and allowing for unlimited transactions. Then Bitcoin II is going to destroy the banking and credit card system as it currently exists.

Die in flames banksters.

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[jertsy]

What I hate about the "blockchain" ideology is that Bitcoiners call it "the blockchain", but the new ideology calls it "blockchain". It's like by missing out "the" in front of "blockchain" they want to steal the blockchain from Bitcoin by separating the two.

[yayayo]

Blinken, I agree with your assessment of the banks. Their efforts are entirely misguided and show utter incompetence. I think it is a severe psychological problem for them to realize that their profitable business as it has been and with it their power is going to die. Their blockchain-efforts will lead to nothing but wasted funds, since the advantages of Bitcoin/blockchain are only relevant for a decentralized network. If you want a centralized transaction system using "blockchain technology" makes no sense at all in terms of efficiency.

Only those banks that are able to give in to fundamental change will have a chance to survive. I imagine that some of today's banks could transform into insurance service companies that cover digital theft / data loss.

What is actually going to happen is that a new iteration of Bitcoin is going to emerge in which transactions records are distributed, dividing that 90 terabyte mass into many myriad of chunks on different nodes and allowing for unlimited transactions. Then Bitcoin II is going to destroy the banking and credit card system as it currently exists.

We don't need a new iteration of Bitcoin for this to happen. Lightning Network will help Bitcoin to scale significantly. But of course there will also be constant innovation with Core. I'm pretty confident that most of us will be witness of the historic transformation from a bank-based monetary system to a p2p one.

ya.ya.yo!

[gentlemand]

Blockchains are still brand spanking new technology and there are probably tons of applications that have yet to occur to most of us. It's natural that it'll be appropriated and experimented with by all and sundry. Most of it probably will be a load of shitty dead ends but there'll be some stuff that'll have vast repercussions.

[Quantus]

When you hear banks say they are working on "blockchain" tech they are talking about securing large distributed databases.
They want to use a "blockchain" to secure vast stores of data millions of times larger then the blackchain itself.
These are the same ideas behind the lighting network and side chains. Where do you think these ideas came from?
Bitcoin is Borg it assimilates.
A wise man can learn more from a fool then a fool can learn from a wise man.
Whatever they create we will learn from it.
The banks are working for us now they just don't know it yet.