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?

  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Merkel Trees are fine, and are how things like “Git” keep track of different files (and how distributed hash tables and file-sharing often work).

    Merkel Trees are trees-of-hashes, which the cryptocoin world wants us to believe go by the new name of ‘Blockchain’, but people familiar with comp. sci history know that they’re just flailing about making shit up.

    Blockchain is an application of Merkel Trees. Merkel Trees have lots of good uses, but Blockchain doesn’t seem to have much use after 10+ years of experimentation.

    • Terevos@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      ETH has DNS. I would think the fediverse would like to see adoption of DNS that governments and big companies can’t mess with or take over with lots of cash.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        ETH staking is looking like its literally illegal in the USA, you know that right?

        Coinbase Earn is quite possibly trading in unsecured, unregulated securities and is being sued over it.