<story><title>Blockchain at Berkeley</title><url>https://blockchain.berkeley.edu/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arthurcolle</author><text>&amp;#x27;Blockchain&amp;#x27; is literally the least interesting part of cryptocurrencies and their applications. its a boring flat file structure that is an artifact of needing many clients independently deriving a shared ledger, nothing more and nothing less. the interesting part is how you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wslh</author><text>Sorry, but I don&amp;#x27;t think you understand what a public blockchain is and the improvements&amp;#x2F;innovations that it requires to sustain a higher volume with faster blocks creation. This is connected to what you said about issuing tokens: last week Status.im (shameless plug: security audited by my company) related transactions caused a DDoS over the Ethereum network, which it means that we need to improve the current blockchains to support the kind of innovations you like.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, lowering the barrier for issuing equity or app coins make creating scams or tempting people to run with a lot of money trivial. A recent Fred Wilson&amp;#x27;s post[1] about this makes the point very clear.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, not everything can be descentralized because you are challenging computation limitations and&amp;#x2F;or you need oracles outside the network that are the weakest point of the whole system.&lt;p&gt;[1] Buyer Beware - VC Fred Wilson on ICOs
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ethereum&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;6h7d0j&amp;#x2F;buyer_beware_vc_fred_wilson_on_icos&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ethereum&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;6h7d0j&amp;#x2F;buyer_bewa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Blockchain at Berkeley</title><url>https://blockchain.berkeley.edu/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arthurcolle</author><text>&amp;#x27;Blockchain&amp;#x27; is literally the least interesting part of cryptocurrencies and their applications. its a boring flat file structure that is an artifact of needing many clients independently deriving a shared ledger, nothing more and nothing less. the interesting part is how you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simias</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think you can really split one from the other, the blockchain and its surrounding algorithms is &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; &amp;quot;you can bootstrap issuance of a new asset by incentivizing participants to assist in maintaining a specified computer network in exchange for cryptographically-{verifiable|enforced} units&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I find the blockchain technology very interesting because it solves a very hard problem in an inventive way and at the same time once you hear how it works it sounds almost obvious. All the individual parts have been known for ages but they&amp;#x27;re combined in an innovative way.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m personally not convinced by the &amp;quot;political&amp;quot; side of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but on the technical side it&amp;#x27;s one of the most inspiring piece of software in the past decade IMO.</text></comment>