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Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens)

HBS Digital Initiative

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  • Recommended by 9 people: 8 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2018 to 2023.
  • Presented by James Mickens, Professor of Computer Science at Harvard
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

68K views8 years ago9 recommendations

Distributed systemsSecurityCryptographyConsensus: Raft and Paxos

James Mickens delivers a humorous and critical lecture explaining the technical, legal, and practical shortcomings of blockchain technology for real-world problems.

From the Digital Initiative's Future Assembly on April 6, 2018, James Mickens (Harvard SEAS) presents "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea: More Specifically, Blockchains Are a Very Bad Idea." For more information about the Digital Initiative, check out: digital.hbs.edu

Why it's here

9 people recommend this

What people say. Widely recommended as a hilarious and highly compelling critique of blockchain technology and its practical limitations.

friendlysockon Lobsters • Recommends

Blockchains Are a Bad Idea
26View on Lobsters

asciimikeon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Bitfinex just spent $23.7M in fees to make a single Ethereum transaction”

James Mickens' "Blockchains are a bad idea" talk 1 is a great explanation that discusses exactly that. 1: link to this video
View on Hacker News

tootieon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are useless”

James Mickens has a pretty good breakdown of why blockchain isn't a good solution for most real-world problems: link to this video
View on Hacker News

Reedxon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Crypto’s 80% Plunge Is Now Worse Than the Dot-Com Crash”

Can only hide from fundamental issues for so long I suppose... Here's a compelling and fun to watch lecture that James Mickens (Harvard SEAS) recently gave about the problems with Blockchain - link to this video
View on Hacker News

onlion Hacker News • Recommends

On “GnuPG can now be used to perform notarial acts in the State of Washington”

…o validate it's notiaries, so we'll add 'USRoxs' to our list of accepted Established Authorities (along with 'TheEnglish' of course)" Countries already have systems in place to accept documents made in other countries. Works with official translators and stamps/seals of authenticity. In better and funny: Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens), link to this video…
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raghavaon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?”

Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens) link to this video I find almost all from GOTO 2018 very insightful. link esp ones listed below. GOTO 2018 • The Do's and Don'ts of Error Handling • Joe Armstrong link GOTO 2018 • Pragmatic Event-Driven Microservices • Allard Buijze link GOTO 2018 • Why Business Cases are Toxic • Chris Matts link GOTO 2018 • Unconditional Code • Michael Feathers link
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DyslexicAtheiston Hacker News • Recommends

On “SEC Commissioner's “safe harbor” proposal for ICOs will only enable scammers”

:D I also got so annoyed that I started curating blogs and videos (as myth-busters) to help me bring the point across in discussions. My experience with this is sadly that changing anyone's mind who has already made it up is _really_ hard. Here is my list: Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens) link to this video Hacking Blockchain (Konstantinos Karagiannis, Chief Technology Officer, Security Consulting, BT) link Myth Busting: Can a blockchain save healthcare? link Blockchain Graveyard link Response to Blockchain & Blockcerts Critiques from Privacy Researcher link Blockcerts: Using blokchain for identity management is (mostly) ridiculous link Blockchains from a Distributed Computing Persp…
View on Hacker News

how2cflagson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Steve Wozniak launches Efforce, a blockchain-based energy-saving platform”

I concur with your point, considering we already have methods like hashing to create rather unique signatures, and with frameworks and regulations(laws). I'm going to vaguely quote James Mickens here, but you can basically sue someone if there is an issue. If there is an issue on the block chain? You need to fork it. Oh, and the talk for anyone who's interested considering he conveys a few interesting points I've seen throughout this thread. link to this video
View on Hacker News

thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: What is your strongest argument AGAINST Bitcoin?”

In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: link to this video 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and digital signatures can provide most of the functionality that applications need without the problems that bl…
View on Hacker News

thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Web3 Architecture and How It Compares to Traditional Web Apps”

Exactly. Making money on blockchain requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: link to this video 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key…
View on Hacker News

thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities”

Web3 requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain technologies to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: link to this video 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and…
View on Hacker News

thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Web3 is not Decentralisation – it’s a Ploy to put Crypto Bros in Charge”

Web3 requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain technologies to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: link to this video 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and…
View on Hacker News

thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Should I Learn Blockchain?”

James Mickens gave an entertaining presentation about why blockchain is poorly suited for most application use cases: link to this video
View on Hacker News

toomuchtodoon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Someone paid $2.6M in fees to move $134 worth of cryptocurrency”

I trust my bank and the legal framework more than wallet software and a loose band of SWEs running a blockchain or DLT. If funds are wired to the wrong person in your jurisdiction, you can sue to recover it if the sending and receiving institutions can't claw it back. With crypto, you're SOL. Technology doesn't fix trust and legal issues, and a judge is going to laugh an immutable ledger out of a courtroom (or hold you in contempt). link to this video HBR: Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens)
View on Hacker News