What are appropriate examples for using a blockchain?

Question

There are tons of projects popping up utilizing blockchain technology, but it always seems unnecessary. With the introduction of a blockchain into the technology stack, you then have to think about consensus algorithms, miners, the incentive for miners, the economics, etc...

That seems like a huge overhead, but maybe it's my misunderstanding. When do I want to use a blockchain? and why should I use it? and how do I approach all those aspects to successfully start a blockchain?

Answer 1

There are many examples where a blockchain can be useful. A value which has once added to a blockchain can not be deleted or altered afterwards, so with a sufficiently strong (i.e. distributed) blockchain you have an ultimate proof that certain data existed at a certain point in time and that you are the owner of this data.

Think for example of a patent database: By the time you file the patent, you create hash values of the relevant documents and add it to the blockchain. If anyone else claims the invention at a later point in time you can proof that these documents have existed when you added them to the blockchain and have not been altered since then by simply calculating the hash value again and checking it against the old value.

Without a blockchain, you always have to rely on a centralized authority, e.g. a national patent office or a central bank.

Answer 2

Implementation of Blockchain really matters to you if you know the real world problems of Authorization, Ownership etc; in this web world.Consider a situation where you worked hard on writing a book and you published the book the following year, now you can see many pirated copies of your own book in the form of PDF's .All your one year work had smashed on one day period.It won't happen if you use blockchain to publish your book.Then you exactly know where your book is and who is using it.No chance of copying. The similar can happen with movies.No pirated versions if one releases their movies on Blockchain(Although difficult for everyone).There are many examples we talk about and eliminate them by using Blockchain.

Answer 3

To find the most appropriate times to use a blockchain you should boil it down to what its core usefulness is, which is as an immutable, auditable, secure ledger that can be shared. While it does provide other benefits, those can vary from chain to chain. Those are important because those are things that don't typically exist in other formats. For example, typically it might not make sense to store data directly on a blockchain(this could vary and should be taken as a general statement) since a regular database could do it better; however, it might make sense to store Digital Rights on the blockchain and use the blockchain to securely transfer those rights, which are to offchain data like music, since individuals could buy and sell data right securely and trustlessly with no middle man. It might also make sense to store computer code on the blockchain in which you could run a predictions market or a governance system that would be relatively fraud proof

Some general good uses/product I would look at are music and DRM related projects, filecoin and gnt are interesting, aragon which deals with governance, gnosis, and Brave/BAT also has a decent use case.

When evaluating a project, you should ask 'why cant I use a standard database for this? And If I can use one why is a blockchain better?' If you cant answer any of those questions, blockchain might not be the best choice. If you can, I would take a look.

As for starting a blockchain. I would advise looking at smart contracts or Ethereum for the time being. I would not try to start your own blockchain and would advice contributing to open source first

Let me know if this helps or you need more.

Answer 4

When do I want to use a blockchain?

Blockchain gives you the chance to create a distributed system. If you don't trust in a centralised systes, you should use Blockchain. You would use it to remove the dependency that you have about a central authority.

For example, What it is Bitcoin? Briefly: a decentralized cryptocurrency where all the members of the network are at the same level.

why should I use it? and how do I approach all those aspects to successfully start a blockchain?

Once you have defined when you want to use Blockchain, you would start using it.

Here, I suggest you two different implementations of Blockchain. These implementatios have many documentation, so it would be easier to you to start using and developing your own Blockchain.

• Hyperledger Fabric
• Ethereum