As a thought experiment, we can already form an opinion about what blockchain networks are good at doing, without learning anything yet about how they work, and merely by understanding what they do.
This chapter is an experiment to develop a pattern of thinking clearly about these systems, as promised in Introduction.
Recap
Let’s recap what we have learned thus far about what blockchain networks are, and form a proposition about what problems they can be best used to solve.
- What Is This All About?
- Blockchain-based Authorities
- Execution, Ordering, History and State Machines
- Evolution of Blockchain State Machines
- Blockchain Networks
What Is This All About?
Blockchain-based Authorities
Execution, Ordering, History and State Machines
Evolution of Blockchain State Machines
Blockchain Networks
- Digital systems, where read and write can happen freely
- Needs to be contentious state, or else the system is hugely expensive
- Importance of storing hashes in blockchains
- Large file storage in blockchains is hard
- This is already a good formulation of why money and finance is a great example
- Oracle Problem, the inability for blockchains to read information from the real world
Frontier Issues
On and Off Ramp Oracle Problem The Free Internet Sybill resistance, no tx fee.