None of the benefits you state are related to blockchain, at all.

That could very well be. Bitcoin is a case where the blockchain at least technically makes sense, unlike a lot of other bs touted. Where are all these other good use cases? Blockchain has been around since 2009, and in 2014 the RSA conference using blockchain for things beside cryptocurrencies was all the buzz. Billions of USD later, nothing is in production. Will people in 10 years say "Oh, give it time, it takes time to develop such sophisticated (puke!) technologies, and developing the use cases. Rome wasn't build in one day?! It's maybe bad for some use cases but I'm sure some good will come. Just add $20 bln more!"

Whatever the "inventors" of blockchain (whom?) envisioned I can guarantee you it was not this. It's true a private chain doesn't require proof-of-anything. It is likewise true the private blockchain doesn't provide anything meaningful in terms of integrity unless you add various elements that could have provided the same thing without the blockchain. Finally, it is misleading to write "An immutable ledger that enables automated contract execution and clearing". It doesn't enable anything. All of that could have been done simpler and cheaper, and just as securely if not more so, in JPM systems using classical techniques. Honestly, it sounds like you are an JPM employee writing corp bullshit. Maybe you built a career out of being "blockchain expert" in JPM and only thrive because your co-corkers and bosses don't understand the technology and think it must be really sophisticated because everyone talks about it, i.e. emperor's new clothes. Maybe some people in JPM gets how stupid this is, but they can see it generates som PR.

You really drank the Kool Aid, eh ? The whole thing is meaningless on a private blockchain. When it's private, JPM could at any time rewrite the whole thing and make it look like history took a different turn. No one on the outside will notice. Of course, if they periodically publish hash values of the chain somewhere (on their website, to regulators etc.) then they are committed to the value of their blockchain up to that point, assuming someone stored these hash values and later asked to do a full audit of their history (would require access to all the data they put on their private blockchain). However, the article doesn't discuss such provisions. Further, the same thing could be realized in a number of different classical ways (timestamping, digital signatures), but people didn't seem to have that much interest back when these classical techniques were available. Only when the magical blockchain (that can take you to the frontpage) enters the scene is everyone oh so concerned about immutability of their own data. Further, the article is misleading because it makes it sound like the blockchain concept was a crucial enabler in making this transfer to take place at all, as if it was faster or actually moving the money etc. This is not the case. This is not sophisticated or advanced, it's just foolish.

Yes, except fiddling a few rows in a normal private database doesn't get you on the front page as if doing the same thing in a private blockchain.

Wow so they JP Morgan appended a few kilobytes of data to a data structure wholly maintained by them, then calculated a hash over it?! WOOOW! Mindboggling innovation and news-worthiness. I wonder what benefit JPM seems to get from this or what their threat model is. But maybe the real purpose is to get on the front page for cheap? Or maybe their employees are idiots.

I can't judge business value of the concept itself but I do wonder why this is just appearing now on the blockchain if this was such a good idea. Is it really so that this need has been lingering for a long time but nobody dared to launch it on a classical solution (i.e. normal databases, mails with QR code etc). Was there truly a mistrust from guests and hotels in the IT companies (i.e. EVERY IT company) that could have provided this that they don't wish to jeopardy their precious reservations? Was it fear that the DBAs or the companies would edit the database and steal the room or otherwise defraud the guests or hotels? Is it really so that these hotels rooms are so valuable and special that they require a totally new technology to be traded, compared to the things that have been traded online for 25 years by conventional means?

Blockchai, as a widely applicable technology, looked really good on paper only to those (95+%) without the willingness to think one (1) application through to the end and compare to if anything was gained (or indeed lost) over classical implementations if the same use case.

I deeply respect her for the work on TXT, virtualization, SMM etc. back in the day. Sadly she also went to a blockchain company many years ago. I haven't seen a single practical application that has come of that, but I'm sure they are rolling out lots of new releases etc. Par for the course with blockchain.

Exactly my point. That's why I have this criteria so that the blockchain folks don't start claiming this as a benefit. Once you take any of their use cases ("land registries", "trading in-game items", "tracking of counterfeit parts etc.") and write them up on the form I suggested, you realize how foolish they are, for exactly the reasons you stated. All you have done is to introduce new problems and more complexity and cost into the solution, but no trusted actors have been eliminated.

As I see it - EVERYthing you can do on a blockchain you can do more efficiently without the blockchain (speed, cost, power etc.) if you just allow at least one trusted actor. This is very important - a lot can be inferred from this simple observation. Since most solutions need trusted actors anyway, the benefit of the blockchain would be zero. Further, even in applications where it might be of benefit for eliminating a trusted actor (when this is possible), the value that blockchain brings to the table can at most be what had been the "cost" of having this trusted actor. Often this cost is very little. Often the cost of the blockchain is very big. For this reason, it is meaningless to use blockchain for almost all use cases in the world.

An application of this principle: People talk about how blockchains could be used to trade gaming items (swords, skins etc.). But since everything that happens in the game happens at the mercy of the developer/publisher of the game (e.g. Valve etc.) there already is a trusted actor. Valve (or an eco-system collaborator) could just run a (quite simple) trading platform for these things and it would be much more efficient than with a blockchain and with nothing lost, since you already needed to trust that actor to begin with. Only problem is, the use and business case itself (trading of swords) might look a bit more boring and mundane now we took out the blockchain pixie dust that made it sound so smart and futuristic even though it was just stupid. Probably this could have an impact on the market prices.

That's the same as saying that any ponzi or fraud scheme is a realtity just because some people happen to earn money on it. I think if you start using terms like 'It's still part of reality' about such matters, you are either deluded or you have devalued the meaning of such words that they no longer makes sense.

Many blockchain people claim there's huge business or technological benefits to using blockchain. Not just that you can earn money on it. ;-) Which could also hardly be sustainable in the long run. However, blockchain's transformative powers are visible everywhere in the world, except for real applications.

Rant warning :) Where are the applications?

Maybe Dirk could then answer this challenge no one have been able to. Blockchain is claimed to be broadly transformative in many areas of business and IT, not just cryptocurrencies. It's often claimed blockchain has an amazing value and can unlock the business potential that is not accessible using normal methods or at least vastly cheaper or somehow better. So the challenge is: provide at least one (1) application where blockchain provides a tangible benefit compared to other technologies. If such cases existed I would imagine it was easy - like a blog-posted sized amount of text at most that could be written in 15 minutes. The only thing I require is that it's not enough to appeal to properties like being "distributed", "trustless" etc. The benefit must be precisely prescribed. A full system realizing the practical use case needs to be described. The trust model and threat actors must be described and locked down and naturally the same trust model must be used when analyzing the blockchain solution and the alternative solution. It of course doesn't need to be described in all the low-level technical details. Also some justification of how the benefit is 'transformative' (at least a little bit in proportion to the hype although everyone realizes hype is hype).

No one has answered this challenge over the years! In fact, no one has even attempted. All talk about it is either deeply technical (with no look to applications) or extremely flimsy where it's not even possible to imagine what the solution looks like, other than it is awesome.

To me, blockchain is like a disease that infects various personalities. Most are just gold diggers ("investors"), others are (often young) tech interested people wanting to be part of the hype, but then again others are people who somehow get infatuated with the technological aspects: with the crypto, "the chains", the "oh so distributed aspects" etc. I also suspect some cryptographers get attracted because it's one of the only games in town if you want to work in cryptography since the things that worked 20 years ago (AES-256, RSA-2048, SHA-256) still work. Which is also why there are people scaremongering about quantum computers (even though the daunting challenges identified 20 years ago are the same today - progess is made in comparatively minor areas). Basically a cryptographer has to go into blockchain, post-quantum or some more flimsy MPC or other esoteric areas, but even that seems to dry up.

The models are clearly evolving chaotical when it comes to result: In all directions, without bounds, outside of previous error bars. I think it's very limited what these models can do for us.
br> And I'm not saying this as a climate denier because one can just look at a temperature graph to see what's happening. But I think we may be at a place where it doesn't make sense to discuss anything at all based on these models. Just as we many times had bad luck predicting the pandemic weeks ahead, in what is a much simpler system, it's no use with these models. It's a control problem. We need to treat it as an interactive, dynamic system and, well, interact with it. Cut emissions, do carbon capture, even other types of geo-engineering, track the actual carbon content, the actual temperatures worldwide etc. and see what the effect is over time (as we would have to anyway). I think the most models we need are some physics-based models to know - as ballpark measures - what amount of CO2 cut/captures are required to have a meaningful effect so we have some good initial values for the manipulation. We should define such an interactive strategy e.g. how much to cut now, when to look for an effect, then what action to take based on those results etc. Very concrete and actionable and something we are perfectly equipped to do here and now.