Documentary Film Aims To Dispel the Mysteries and Myths of Blockchain Technology (youtube.com) 43
Long-time Slashdot reader mabu writes: Adam R. Smith, a software engineer with 40+ years of experience reportedly became frustrated with his friends and associates' claims about the potential of crypto technology and their subsequent losses of money in various schemes, and set out to write a series of articles explaining what blockchain is and whether it lives up to its claims. This ended up morphing into a passion project that produced an 84 minute documentary entitled, "Blockchain — Innovation or Illusion?
The film, which is currently making the rounds at various film festivals, has recently been released online in its entirety on YouTube. In it, Smith, who goes by the alias, "American Scream" explains what blockchain is in layman's terms, how it relates to conventional databases and tech, and how the crypto industry seems more dependent upon coercive psychology, than innovation. The film addresses a wide variety of topics including, "Is blockchain disruptive?", "Is de-centralization even worthwhile?", and explains the how and why tokens, mining, and other blockchain-based elements like smart contracts and NFTs operate.
In the second half of the film, Smith goes into specific claims and scenarios such as, "Is blockchain really immutable?" and "Can blockchain verify authenticity?" identifying common issues like "The Oracle problem" and whether arguments like, "Crypto helps bank the unbanked" and "Crypto is digital gold" really make sense?
John Reed Stark, former Chief of the SEC Office of Internet Enforcement called Smith one of his favorite technologists and that the film was "spot on" in its characterization of the technology.
Watch the full documentary here.
The film, which is currently making the rounds at various film festivals, has recently been released online in its entirety on YouTube. In it, Smith, who goes by the alias, "American Scream" explains what blockchain is in layman's terms, how it relates to conventional databases and tech, and how the crypto industry seems more dependent upon coercive psychology, than innovation. The film addresses a wide variety of topics including, "Is blockchain disruptive?", "Is de-centralization even worthwhile?", and explains the how and why tokens, mining, and other blockchain-based elements like smart contracts and NFTs operate.
In the second half of the film, Smith goes into specific claims and scenarios such as, "Is blockchain really immutable?" and "Can blockchain verify authenticity?" identifying common issues like "The Oracle problem" and whether arguments like, "Crypto helps bank the unbanked" and "Crypto is digital gold" really make sense?
John Reed Stark, former Chief of the SEC Office of Internet Enforcement called Smith one of his favorite technologists and that the film was "spot on" in its characterization of the technology.
Watch the full documentary here.
It's quite simple really... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's value is exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. The rest is just technology.
Re: It's quite simple really... (Score:4, Insightful)
Close. Bitcoins are cheap to create, nearly impossible to duplicate, but are quite easy to steal as all you have to do is trick a user and there is no repercussions
If I trick you and empty your bank account police and banks have your back, and come after me too. If I trick you and empty your bitcoin wallet. Well you are screwed. No one will help you, no one cares and no one has authority to undo changes.
The reason credit cards are popular online is fraud prevention for everyone. Buyers and sellers.
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Bitcoins are cheap to create
Even a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is literally orders of magnitude less energy efficient than using credit cards or even wire transfers to perform transactions. The single biggest problem with Bitcoin for those of us who don't mess with it is that Bitcoins are extremely expensive to create. It literally would use less energy to make something useful.
Why do you have to lie like that? Oh yeah, because Shitcoin is garbage.
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Depends on what you mean by 'create'. Adding a record to a digital ledger is cheap. Protecting that ledger from attack is expensive. Protecting credit cards and wire transfers from attacks is expensive.I can't tell you which is more expensive.
I could ask you why you have to lie, but I'll guess I'll just blame it on ignorance.
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Depends on what you mean by 'create'.
It's obvious that what's meant is minting the coins, and that is very expensive. It takes more energy to make a bitcoin than it does to produce real currency of equal value.
lol flamebait (Score:2)
The flames are coming from coal, oil, and natural gas, and they are used to heat water that makes steam that turns turbine generators that produce electricity used to mint bitcoins. And proof of work cryptocurrency is the least efficient way to engage in economic activity by a wide margin. Literally every other form of currency exchange uses less energy, even putting money in a coconut and sending it by swallow.
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even putting money in a coconut and sending it by swallow.
Depends on if it's African or European
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Which one uses more energy?
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I realize that is what is 'meant'. On the surface it seems true: new coins are created by solving the hash puzzle.
But if you look beyond the surface you realize that mining protects the blockchain, secures payments and prevents double spending. The 'minted coins' are just an extra incentive. (as an aside: miners also collect transaction fees).
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Even a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is literally orders of magnitude less energy efficient than using credit cards or even wire transfers to perform transactions.
Not sure about that one, but I could me mistaken. For conventional credit card transactions, a middle of the road HSM using 10A @1110V can process thousands of transaction per second, and typically that includes validating two pieces of security data.
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Even a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is literally orders of magnitude less energy efficient than using credit cards or even wire transfers to perform transactions.
Not sure about that one, but I could me mistaken. For conventional credit card transactions, a middle of the road HSM using 10A @1110V can process thousands of transaction per second, and typically that includes validating two pieces of security data.
It looks like you're agreeing with me, but you could be mistaken.
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Ah crap, I misread your statement. I was thinking you were saying that the newer proof-of-stake approach was cheaper than conventional, and now I don't believe that is what you were saying.
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Correct. PoS is cheaper than PoW, but still much more expensive than the traditional systems.
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Even a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is literally orders of magnitude less energy efficient than using credit cards or even wire transfers to perform transactions.
Not sure about that one, but I could me mistaken. For conventional credit card transactions, a middle of the road HSM using 10A @1110V can process thousands of transaction per second, and typically that includes validating two pieces of security data.
At 110V, 10A means 1.1kW. What is the HSM doing with 1.1kW? Functioning as a space heater?
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Even a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency is literally orders of magnitude less energy efficient than using credit cards or even wire transfers to perform transactions.
Sure? Any idea how many office spaces are powered and heated, and the mainframes and other computers, plus the commute energy of all the employees, all of this stuff that is required to keep international money transfers and banking systems afloat?
A decentralized, proof of stake crypto currency does all that, simpler, faster, cheaper and more secure.
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Sure?
Yes, I'm sure, this has been studied ad nauseam [imf.org]. If you wanted to know, you'd already know, but you want to be ignorant.
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Work on your reading comprehension.
And be friendlier next time, so you don't look like an idiot.
Re: It's quite simple really... (Score:1)
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Fairly cheap to create
Can easily be stolen, and it is almost impossible to prove it was stolen ...
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A Bitcoin is like a ticket that cannot be forged, that is very expensive to create, and that has printed on it "You can sell me for any amount you like as long as you find a buyer"....
"And has no intrinsic value."
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A Bitcoin is like a ticket that cannot be forged, that is very expensive to create, and that has printed on it "You can sell me for any amount you like as long as you find a buyer".
A Bitcoin is expensive to create due to competition in the mining sphere, but cryptocurrency in general is not a rare or expensive thing. What you're doing when you buy Bitcoin is gambling on the potential of selling it to the next fool at a profit, because that person believes they'll be able to do the same. If the collective delusion ever falls apart, Bitcoin's value would go down with it.
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A Bitcoin is like a ticket that cannot be forged, that is very expensive to create, and that has printed on it "You can sell me for any amount you like as long as you find a buyer". And it can be bought or sold without anyone knowing who the buyer or seller are, if you are very carful. It's value is exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. The rest is just technology.
Bro, Bitcoin (like other coins) are not fungible, and you need to go to extreme lengths (beyond being "very careful") to achieve anonymity. The lengths to achieve begin to resemble money laundering.
You would need a fungible coin created for anonymity, like Monero, to achieve this (assuming you find an exchange that lets you trade for it.)
I exited the crypto stuff a few years ago when things started to go south. I earned what I could and then bailed out.
I had hopes for the technology and concept, but
Halfway through the video. (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, I prefer Line Goes Up [youtube.com]. Much better presentation and arguments.
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...an 84 minute documentary
If it takes you 84 minutes to explain why cryptocurrency is bullshit, you aren't the "expert" you think you are.
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If it takes you 84 minutes to explain why cryptocurrency is bullshit, you aren't the "expert" you think you are.
+5 Insightful.
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i got bored after 8 minutes of "in a second i'll promise i'll explain blockchain to you so you understand". there's no way i waste another 74 minutes on this.
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This is hardly a documentary. More like an extremely opinionated criticism of someone who really doesn't like crypto, and the style is unpleasantly patronizing.
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And yet, more entertaining to watch than the linked 84-minute video.
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Anything that helps move the general population .. (Score:2)
... and its grasp of digital concepts, computers and networks out of the primitive levels of early bronze age and type-a cargo cult into something resembling a contemporary level of education and digital culture is welcome on my end. So good and helpful I'd say. Cudos to the people who made this.
Why not just evaluate the non-technical side? (Score:3)
Seems like we can compare it to other currencies.
If I have a dollar or a euro in my pocket, I can spend it most places, the transaction is nearly instant, and the value of it from one week to another is pretty much the same.
If I have a bitcoin, I can spend it far less places, the transaction takes quite a bit of time to perform, and the value of it fluctuates greatly over short timespans.
Seems like conventional currency has most of the advantages.
There's a role for the blockchain. But for those of us old enough to remember the 1990s, a lot of the block chain hype is like the hype of the dot com boom. But instead of adding "on the internet" to a business model, it's "on a blockchain".
Just like the boom and bust of the dot com era, it's often best to look at the new thing stripped from the tech hype, and ask if it makes sense by itself.
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I'll tell you what "blockchain technology" is (Score:5, Informative)
And I won't even go into technical details, nor will I pass judgment on what it's used for and who uses it.
Here's the cold simple truth: it's an ever-expanding ledger. The more people use it, the faster it grows. It never shrinks.
You know what happens when you keep filingl up your hard drive with data? At some point, you run out of space and you need a bigger hard drive. And the data is slower and slower to process. And just like burning a finite supply of fossil fuel for power, using blockchain to run the economy in not sustainable.
That's what it is at its core: an unsustainable system that keeps growing ever larger, slower and more unmanageable. And that's about the most neutral, least nasty things you can say about it.
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The ever-growing ledger is a huge part of the reason why its propaganda is a lie. Notably, it's not actually distributed if every user can't afford (in one way or another) to have a full copy of the blockchain. It's still a degree of centralization, but with a group that most users aren't part of instead of with a single entity. And it doesn't use a finite amount of power, either, it keeps increasing until the last coin is mined (which last I read wasn't expected to happen until 2140.)
Fade in to a torchlit cavern... (Score:2)
Several forms with cone-shaped hats decorated with celestial bodies undulate slowly around a shoulder-height cauldron, steaming, on a bed of coals. There were broomsticks...
PBS Nova already did that (Score:1)
It was a great documentary.
PBS Nova, November 9, 2022, Crypto Decoded S49 Ep18.
Might not hurt to watch both documentaries.