Discovering the real blockchain

This post originally appeared on ZeMing M. Gao’s website, and we republished with permission from the author. Read the full piece here.

Behrad Babaee, a technology evangelist in Aerospike, writes about why he changed his mind about blockchain: Why I Changed My Mind About Blockchain – The New Stack

The article gives insights on database scalability and how a scalable blockchain like BSV solves the problem.

The good news is that top IT system architects in the world aren’t fooled by the crypto schemes. They even rightfully despise it.

But the bad news is that they don’t realize crypto is not a story told about blockchain but a lie against it.

To discover the truth, they shouldn’t look over it but look underneath it.

I hope more people open their eyes like Behrad Babaee did. 100 (perhaps even just 10) IT system architects like Behrad Babaee can draw enough companies and developers to create that “parallel universe” he described in his article. It will change the world and make it far more productive and efficient.

Yet very few are seeking fundamentally better systems solutions. They focus on fixing the existing weak links within the present paradigm. And sadly, they do that because inefficient solutions are precisely what get them paid well and paid continuously.

Scaling and decentralization

Some still write off BSV by claiming that BSV achieves scalability by sacrificing decentralization because the big blocks give “data centers” an advantage as claimed by Dr. Craig Wright. This points to a key question and can be a meaningful discussion.

But there is a typical misunderstanding about what Satoshi said, and what Bitcoin actually is.

First, about “data centers,” Dr. Craig Wright only repeats what Satoshi said in his first and other early replies in the cryptography list. This is a verifiable historical fact, not an opinion.

Second, it is an error to equate “data centers” with “centralized”. The entire crypto industry is built on a misunderstanding of what decentralization is. I spent an entire chapter “Decentralization, a Widely Misunderstood Concept” in my book “BIT & COIN: Merging Digitality and Physicality” to explain this. I welcome informed criticism and discussions.

Third, even though BTC promotes “everyone a node,” it ends up with the same nodes network pattern as BSV anyway: the nodes network being concentrated on less than four dominating nodes.

Sometimes, economic reality overrides political ideologies regardless, and this is one of those cases.

But this is not bad news. This is exactly what Satoshi predicted. It works as intended. The network (both BTC and BSV) is still decentralized in the true sense of decentralization.

What’s critical to “decentralization” is not the number of nominal nodes but the following:

(1) the nature of nodes’ economic interests, and

(2) the nature of the relationships between the nodes and that among nodes, customers, participants, and the public.

The former relates to whether the nodes’ economic interest is attached or detached from the transactions (e.g., whether nodes are interested like banks or data aggregators, which is bad, or disinterested like electric utility providers, which is good).

The latter relates to transparency, competitiveness, built-in incentives and penalties, and feedback.

BTC and BSV are both doing well in terms of decentralization (when compared to systems based on non-POW consensuses), except for the following differences:

(1) BTC carries a gigantic unnecessary baggage in terms of inefficiency in order to justify its pretense of “everyone a node” narrative, but

(2) BTC enjoys a much higher level of hashing power thanks to its much higher valuation.

The former is inherent to BTC’s design philosophy and, therefore, could be perpetual, but the latter is contingent and could change at any time.

As a result, they are clearly aiming at meeting different market needs. Digital gold people naturally prefer BTC, while economic productivity people naturally choose BSV.

Enterprise adoption

Enterprise adoption of blockchain will happen. Apps can already be built on existing blockchain. However, the world is waiting (not deliberately but only instinctively) for the integration of IPv6 and a universal blockchain with unbounded scalability at the TCP/IP level plus an infrastructure buildout, such that applications at the top layers may benefit from the following:

(1) predictable scalability, security, and cost efficiency,

(2) a universal and locked standard that guarantees long-term compatibility and applicability,

(3) a common base infrastructure already built out so that one doesn’t have to build his own wheels (if not wheels, the wagon) for every application and repeat the work every time and many times.

The technological basis for all the above solutions is already here despite the crypto noise and subversion. We need awareness, education, conversion, developers, and marketing.

At the same time, there will be some companies that are willing to pioneer the building of their own wagons without waiting for a mature rail system. If successful, they will enjoy a first-mover advantage.

See: The future of blockchain; and Scaling is more than big blocks.

Watch BSV DevCon 2024 highlights: Building real-world solutions for real-world problems