If there is a definitive source of trust (ie. the government) then a blockchain is a very inefficient mechanism for distribution.

yes very little corruption in governments worldwide and records are never counterfeited. I agree

But if the government is corrupt they'll just say that the original transaction was invalid for X Y Z reasons and carry on... the truth being obvious has never been a problem for corrupt regimes

Git provides centralized version tracking that can be cloned easily -- no miners required. And authenticity, while not truly unique is likely unique enough.

Are you suggesting governments (corrupt or not) would consider handing over the signing authority for legal processes to external anonymous parties?

The government will outmine everyone and change the records.

And how would a blockchain stop a government from putting a counterfeit record in to start?

> And how would a blockchain stop a government from putting a counterfeit record in to start?

Or any entity? Sure you can trust that once it is in the blockchain it won't get tampered with but you still have to trust the source of that record.

... which is where all these stupid "do your inventory management on the blockchain" things fall apart with even an ounce of thought. Who gives a crap if the blockchain trustlessly says the wine was made with grapes from peru if a corruptible human had to enter it...

At some point, all data comes from humans and you have to trust those humans to do the right thing. And when those humans breech that trust, you need meatspace based institutions to sort out the mess...

“governmemts are thinking of putting assets and laws on Blockchain”

Two things: this statement is so vague it borders on meaningless. What assets? Who will put it in there? The president? Why would a government do that? Is it free to do or is there budget? Etc.

Secondly, even if we could surmount the vagueness that plagues not just this idea but all blockchain ideas, the Herculean effort required to move governments which can barely move themselves seems like it would delay the whole thing by decades.

It all starts with how vague the ideas are. It really requires simply staring at the ceiling and figuring out precisely what you mean when you talk about blockchain ideas.

The vagueness of Blockchain reminds me of the same “Cloud” vagueness. CEOs and CIOs read these articles about how great “Cloud” is and how everything is moving to “Cloud” and they turn around and declare things like “I want Cloud” and “We need to work on Cloud!” and “Invest in Cloud”. Just parroting what they read in HBR or what some IBM consultant told them. Then a whole bunch of money is spent on “Cloud” with often not much to show for it at the end, besides a bunch of opportunistic Cloud providers getting rich.

Rinse and repeat for Big Data, ML, AI, Bockchain, and whatever the next fad will be.

The value proposition of the cloud was that it saves time and sometimes money because of usage pricing. The only advantage of blockchain is that it's supposedly more secure against tampering.

Yes, businesses try out different things and some things stick and some don't. This doesn't even have anything to do with technology. Businesses use computers because some idiot in a suit read an article.

Many companies are making a lot of money from implementing or integrating "Cloud", "Big Data" and "ML". They're not fad technologies. Blockchain hasn't done anything yet so should not be lumped in with them.

assets like everything from real estate records to money to corporate stocks to car ownership to birth certificates. What you call vagueness I call short sightedness and failing to see the big picture. It has been done before with all major breakthroughs since the applications are not immediately obvious to everyone.

Why would they need a blockchain for birth certificates? Why not just use a database?

There are a large number of people who... believe there was a conspiracy to produce a falsified birth certificate for the previous president of the United States. If it were on a system where the original record could be viewed in a transparent forgery resistant way then that wouldn't have been an issue. Maybe.

> assets like everything from real estate records to money to corporate stocks to car ownership to birth certificates.

How the hell does blockchain solve any problem in these spaces?

what do you mean? you are too focused on SV "solve a problem mantra" you keep repeating it.you can think of tamperproof, speed, transparent, public keywords.

It's also been done with things that failed to deliver on their promises.

What government? I hope mine do not do that, this information should remine private...

you want private land ownership records? private tax records? private stock ownership records? you hate it so much your reasoning becomes blurry man. think a bit

Several states in the US are accepting tax payments in bitcoin. Additionally ever out of counties in the US which are putting real estate transactions on a block chain

> Several states in the US are accepting tax payments in bitcoin.

Citation needed. The Arizona senate barely passed one such bill, but it would still need to pass the House and the governor. Arizona's government is known to do silly things in a vain attempt to be tech relevant.

wow at hate squad. only a few people can downvote and boy they are blockchain haters. my comment stands quite on its own.