Conversation

Hey, non-trolling question. Did that blockchain thing ever work out? Honest question. Like, it had massive hype and massive potential, and I still think it's significant tech. But what are some major apps that have been built on it? Not currencies, but platforms.

Replying to

Certificate Transparency.

scotthelme.co.uk

Certificate Transparency, an introduction

Certificate Transparency is an open framework for monitoring and auditing the certificates issued by Certificate Authorities in near real-time.

Replying to

and

CT logs are trusted parties, not distributed ledgers with a consensus mechanism. The way you're interpreting the definition renders it nearly meaningless and is something which already existed in widespread usage. CT logs are no more of a blockchain than a Git repository.

Replying to

and

SCTs also make them even more of a trusted party than a Git repository. Compare SCTs to OpenTimestamps. CT is just a notary system with trusted third parties. Blocks containing a hash of the previous block is just one property of a blockchain and was widely used before Bitcoin.

5:52 PM · Jul 20, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

and

Decentralization with a consensus mechanism rather than centralized trust is a core part of it. Blockchain is a generic term for the combination of technologies invented for Bitcoin (i.e. a decentralized, permissionless distributed ledger). A Merkle tree is just one part of it.

Replying to

and

Merkle trees are broadly used for many things including version control, integrity verification, file transfer, etc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tr Blockchain combines this with a consensus mechanism like proof-of-work/proof-of-stake to make a distributed, decentralized ledger.