Is the blockchain an interesting innovation, aside from cryptocurrencies ? - eviltoast

For a long time, I thought of the blockchain as almost synonymous with cryptocurrencies, so as I saw stuff like “Odyssey” and “lbry” appearing and being “based on the blockchain”, my first thought was that it was another crypto scam. Then, I just got reminded of it and started looking more into it, and it just seemed like regular torrenting. For example, what’s the big innovation separating Odyssey from Peertube, which is also decentralized and also uses P2P? And what part of it does the blockchain really play, that couldn’t be done with regular P2P? More generally, and looking at the futur, does the blockchain offer new possibilities that the fediverse or pre-existing protocols don’t have?

  • FamiliarSoftware@programming.devEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    So I have two questions about this:

    • Why use blockchain for that? Both of these sound like they will be centralized databases and blockchains just add a bunch of overhead for no benefit.
    • How does a database prevent me from … just lying to it? The blockchain won’t magically detect if I paid off some guy to claim he inspected my house or weed and just hand out a certificate.