Talk:Blockchain/Archive 6

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Semi-protected edit request on 21 June 2021

A section on blockchain standardization would benefit this article and explain the ongoing adoption of blockchain by governments, corporates and the like. //VirtualKittenMittens VirtualKittenMittens (talk) 09:01, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Suggest adding a section on blockchain standards: "

 Already done Looks like this edit was made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Standardization

Standards Australia submitted a New Field of Technical Activity proposal in April 2016, on behalf of Australia to the International Organization for Standardization to consider developing standards to support blockchain technology. This proposal resulted in the creation of ISO/TC 307, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies.

The committee’s Chairperson, Craig Dunn, says the aim of ISO/TC 307 is to meet the growing need for standardization in blockchain. “We can achieve that by providing internationally agreed ways of working to improve security, privacy, scalability and interoperability and so encourage the technology’s widespread adoption through greater innovation, enhanced governance and sustainable development,” he says.

ISO/TC 307 has working groups relating to blockchain terminology, reference architecture, security and privacy, identity, smart contracts, governance and interoperability for blockchain and DLT, as well as standards specific to industry sectors and generic government requirements. The ISO states that blockchain technologies show much potential as it provide capabilities that cannot normally be met in any other way, but, they require other technologies to be able to interoperate. It is this linkage and mutual dependency with other technologies that necessitates a mutual dependency and interoperability of standards.

ISO/TC 307 has twelve external liaisons to date, including the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the European Commission, the International Federation of Surveyors, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). More than 50 countries are participating in the standards development process.

Most national standards bodies and open standards bodies are or are expected to be working on blockchain topics such as National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

" VirtualKittenMittens (talk) 10:07, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

 Partly done: @VirtualKittenMittens: This is mostly based on official statements from ISO itself and similar organisations. Claims such as "Most national standards bodies" therefore seem like WP:SYNTH. It would be better if you could find additional sources, ideally not directly related to the issuing standards organisations, which discuss this - this might also help write a better summary of the situation, and would likely give a more compelling flow to the text by putting it in context. Given the contemporary craze for blockchain technology and cryptocurrency in particular (as an example), I would assume such sources (whether from scholarly journals or from reputable news organisations) exist. There's no real fundamental problem with this (none of it seems inaccurate), beyond the overabundance of WP:PRIMARY sources and the minor issue with the last paragraph, so I could add it if you can't find or don't have time to do what I suggest.

In the meantime, I'll add a greatly summarised version of this. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback @RandomCanadian:. I agree with the proposed improvements and suggest the text below. Changed "Most national standards bodies" to "Many" and added a source external to the standardization process (WEF). Added an introductory text to explain the need for standards with sources from a DLT industry news source and the world bank. Removed the quote from the ISO chairmen. "

Standardization

There is a growing industrial need for blockchain standards because interoperability is considered critical to widespread adoption. Blockchain technologies show much potential as it provide capabilities that cannot normally be met in any other way if the requirement of interoperability between blockchains and with other technologies is met.

In April 2016, Standards Australia submitted a proposal to the International Organization for Standardization to consider developing standards to support blockchain technology. This proposal resulted in the creation of ISO Technical Committee 307, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies. The technical committee has working groups relating to blockchain terminology, reference architecture, security and privacy, identity, smart contracts, governance and interoperability for blockchain and DLT, as well as standards specific to industry sectors and generic government requirements.. More than 50 countries are participating in the standardization process together with external liasons such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the European Commission, the International Federation of Surveyors, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Many other national standards bodies and open standards bodies are also working on blockchain standards. These include the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). "

My first contribution to Wikipedia, so still getting a hang of it. VirtualKittenMittens (talk) 15:02, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Rollback

Hi, it would be helpful if an admin could roll back the promotional edits of Srualajli2 on the large swath of pages (including this one) that he added his Dappscape advertisements to. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:40, 14 July 2021 (UTC) @David Gerard: in case you are online. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:44, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

looks like they've all been cleaned up - David Gerard (talk) 20:24, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 September 2021

Add NFT's to the uses of blockchains citing the NFT page on wiki. FridgeOP (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Melmann 22:00, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Differences with "Conventional" Databases

The article talks about blockchain as a database. While this can be ("mostly") correct from a formal point of view ( with a database understood as an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically), it ends up being misleading due to the acceptance of features expected in "conventional" (SQL, NoSQL, graph, keyvalues,...) databases. The core differences to be highlighted from my point of view are:

• Databases deal with *storage and access* of any sort of data, local or distributed, while Blockchain is focused in *geographically distributed* transmission (network) of value. In that sense, a blockchain is closer to a message bus than to a database. There are effort to create stateless blockchains based on zero knowledge probes than do not fit into the database category, since such data does not exists any more, and can not be accessed electronically, since only indirect proofs of correctness exists in the organized collection of data, but they continue to be useful as message bus of value among peers (probably as an distributed tamper proof scheduler of transactions in conventional, otherwise decoupled, databases).

• Databases are designed to offer a best effort approach, prioritizing Availability and/or Partitioning over (distributed) Consistency, while Blockchain prioritizes (distributed) (eventual or transactional) Consistency over Availability and Partitioning. This is again a consequence of their effort to *transmit value*. From a physical point of view, Blockchain is focused on creating a *virtual and distributed present* (of money or more in general of rights and obligations) with real-time restrictions and a history of past events just to warrant the non-tamperable "virtual and distributed present", while databases are focused data with or without any restriction to *physical time and or space* constrains.

• From a software architecture point, the previous point translates to the next fact: databases behave like a reactive "slave" component controlled by external applications (backend, middleware of frontend apps) while blockchain behaves like an "active" component, where applications acts as "slaves" reacting to blockchain modifications. This is the most interesting point from a practical point of view and marks the biggest difference with conventional databases. The "read" part of the blockchain is similar to a database, but the "write" part has a complex "network consensus mechanism" that does not apply to the definition of a database.

• From a security point of view, a database is a centralized component controlled by a trusted source, while a blockchain leaves trust to the decentralized consensus. (This is the only point clear in the article). Also, constrained by the effort of creating a geographically distributed transmission (network) of value, some implicit rules of value management exists. That is, an external owner has by design control only over its values (values/tokens/right/obligations) and any incoming transaction can only be use to accept a decrease in the stored values or to accept and increase of obligations (with probes-of-existence notarization being the exception to the rule).

In conclusion, the term "database" must be removed to avoid incorrect interpretation of the blockchain word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.61.178.46 (talk) 16:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Git and Github as precursors

Should Version Control such as Git and Github be included as precursors. Until recently, I thought I was in the minority in thinking that, but I just heard Nicholas Weaver, admittedly in an extremely critical and anti-Blockchain lecture, share my opinion. CessnaMan1989 (talk) 01:26, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Split blockchain game section into its own article

I've noticed that this was merged here after AfD in 2018 (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blockchain game). The section has grown since, and I think the topic has stand-alone notability now. I think we should split it into its own article, and leave a shorter summary here. Note I've created redirects GameFi, play to earn and play-to-earn targeting this section; if the split occurs those terms should be retargeted. There's also a tiny fork (NFT game->Non-fungible_token#Games). Surprisingly, all of this is totally missing from our article on video game monetization... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:23, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it's just a bit too early. At least for one, we don't have a good name for these types of games and as per the AFD, it would probably be something like "Blockchain use in video games" until we have a clear industry term. But the larger problem is the market in this area is still super speculative. There's a handful of examples, but no single "successful" game yet. That may change if the big publishers are throwing their hat in. And I still this would be an area we should be very careful trending into given the nature of how promotional anything tied to cryptocurrency can be - that's not to say non-crypto RSes aren't covering this, but expanding too much could be a honeypot for those types of sources. I think careful expansion here until we have a clear successful game is the right approach, and avoid CRYSTALBALL. --Masem (t) 15:11, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I think we are past the point of this becoming notable, although most sources are still from the "crypto walled garden". But consider:

• academic papers that uses the term blockchain game: [1], [2], [3], [4]...
• news that seem outside the said walled garden (so discarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cointelegraph and like...): PC Gamer: [5], Venturebeat: [6], The National News: [7], Financial Post: [8], IGN: [9], Rock Paper Shogun: [10], Yahoo Finance: [11], Kotaku: [12], Vice (magazine): [13]...

I think we are past the tipping point for this to be notable, and the most common term is "blockchain game", with "play to earn", "NFT game" and "GameFi" being less common terms. I know well crypto has been rather spammy on Wikipedia - I was there, AfDing a bunch of this crap - but I think it's time to start covering them better. At least some of those previously spammy concepts/projects have progressed to the point they are now notable, and we should not be knee-jerking this area due to past spam issues. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:06, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I want to point out that several of those links are plans by major publishers to look into blockchain games but by no means commitments, hence why I think we're still in crystal ball territory here, but the type of thing that can change in a few months or a year once a major studio produces a game with blockchain. We don't want to have an article on a fad that disappeared a few months after we create it. --Masem (t) 13:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Masem, Some are plans, but some of those games are big (like Axie Infinity [14]). We have a Category:Blockchain games, might as well have the main article for it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:31, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

That's probably a fair enough reason, and given the state of when it was merged [15], even what's in here and video game monetization. But for purposes of following procedure, I'll ping the AFD closer and merger, @Black Kite:, to make sure they agree there's enough from the current section at Blockchain#Games to recreate and expand the article. --Masem (t) 17:41, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Black Kite gave their okay [16] so I'm going to start building that article out. --Masem (t) 19:38, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

@Masem If you point me to a draft or the place you've started your work, I'll be happy to chip in. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:55, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Already at Blockchain game --Masem (t) 14:35, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 10 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lendawg2303.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2020 and 2 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Thenihalsingh. Peer reviewers: Esk00, Beril gur, Komalbadesha, Ryanliou, Candreaangulo, Go23bears, Sid900.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 September 2020 and 6 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): 八路军被服厂李厂长.

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Blockchain in the Banking Sector: A Review of the Landscape and Opportunities

This analysis, which appeared in Harvard Law School of Corporate Governance just this January, is the single best tour d'horizon I've seen yet, but I didn't want to marble the article with it.

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/01/28/blockchain-in-the-banking-sector-a-review-of-the-landscape-and-opportunities/

kencf0618 (talk) 14:51, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Blockchain vs. Decentralized blockchain

The History section of this article points out that "blockchain" is a fairly old tech, while "decentralized blockchain" is a related newer tech. The "structure" section then goes on to describe decentralized blockchains without differentiating the two. I believe this section should start out with a general description of blockchain technology, then describe decentralized blockchains, rather than confuse the issue. I do not have the expertise to do this, hence posting on the Talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.32.223 (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2022

The first decentralized blockchain was conceptualized by a person

should be changed to

The first decentralized blockchain appeared in 1997 as a core part of the Transient-key cryptography system, and was later adapted by a person Dmichaels999 (talk) 04:57, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

No. Change will not be done as is, as t would remove the mention of Satoshi.

Please write a paragraph to be placed before the mention of Satoshi, and do not claim it was a blockchain as this would be anachronistic, this is what we usually call a predecessor. Please check the history section of almost any technology for examples. In Computer#History see how there is no claim that an abacus was the first computer, but it's just part of a chain of technologies that lead up to the subject. When you have written the paragraph, please add a source that backs up that the system was a predecessor, or inspiration to the blockchain. Once you have done so, you can open another edit request.--TZubiri (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Can you please add some sources for this discussion. I am also unclear as to what is being proposed here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:19, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

How Does Blockchain Technology Help Organizations When Sharing Data

Blockchain is a database system that securely stores and preserves data, eliminating security, privacy, and control issues while allowing many organizations and individuals to securely share data and have reliable access over time. real to the same data. Data can be quickly exchanged between companies thanks to the decentralized nature of the blockchain. The information can be stored in a ledger on a blockchain. A blockchain creates a distributed ledger and is accessible to many connected devices. Users can exchange files and values over a network. Kirti Kanan (talk) 07:27, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 200 - Thu

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Page numbers dropped

@Grayfell: Thank you for improving the text on finalization. However, switching the {{sfn}} syntax to <ref></ref> with the remark that it is silly to have one single source in the 'sources' subsection ([17]) had a highly undesirable side effect: the page numbers in the cites are now lost. Ability to provide page numbers in the cite is not silly at all. Please consider reverting or let me know which technique allowing me to put the page numbers back might be acceptable to you. Викидим (talk) 10:20, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

See Template:Rp if this is absolutely necessary. The goal should be to summarize sources and to use those sources to determine encyclopedic significance, or alternately, to support specific information discussed by other, more general sources. Since this entire subsection is a summary of a single, relatively minor source, it should be possible to summarize more broadly. Since this source is only partly about "finality", and the source is defining the term as a form of industry jargon to discuss another issue, I would suggest that maybe a direct paraphrase of specific paragraphs of this source (bordering on WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE) is not the best approach to including this information. One way to fix this issue would be to cite more than one source which directly discusses the usage of this term. Grayfell (talk) 19:54, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! The 5-digit page numbers, used in the source and emitted by {{rp}} into the text, will look pretty bad, so I would eventually follow the second path suggested by you (additional sources). Hopefully, this will also allow me to reintroduce text that describes a well-known feature of bitcoin blockchain, very long settlement times (the mention of this feature was also deleted by your other edit). Викидим (talk) 20:31, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

For future reference, this edit removed content sourced to charts hosted on blockchain.com showing average confirmation times with almost no other context. That really seems like WP:OR to me, in addition to WP:RS issues. I think info specifically about bitcoin's long settlement times could be included in this article about blockchain in general, but hopefully reliable independent sources could contextualize why this is a feature, and also why it matters. The topic itself is already confusing enough, and is too often poorly explained by sources, so the article will benefit from restraint, IMO. Grayfell (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Bad category

This is in Category:Writing systems, but a blockchain is not a writing system. 50.107.191.81 (talk) 22:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Good catch. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

51% Attacks are due to Decentralization

At #Decentralization the article states:

"One risk of a lack of decentralization is a so-called "51% attack" where a central entity can gain control of more than half of a network and can manipulate that specific blockchain record at will, allowing double-spending"

This risk of a 51% attack is caused by decentralization and not by a lack thereof. I suggest changing this part to:

"One risk of decentralization is a so-called "51% attack" where a central entity can gain control of more than half of a network and can manipulate that specific blockchain record at will, allowing double-spending"

-- Zaubentrucker (talk) 16:34, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Is this your personal opinion? Do you have a reliable source saying this? Retimuko (talk) 23:36, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

51% attacks are a problem that Blockchains have:

[18]https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/9/1788

Blockchains are also decentralized, as that is their purpose.

Therefore, this sentence is not correct: "One risk of a lack of decentralization is a so-called "51% attack""

That's because a lack of decentralization is not a feature of Blockchains, but Blockchains are the ones at risk of the "51% attack". Zaubentrucker (talk) 08:56, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I see that the sources don't say this. You reach this conclusion. In Wikipedia this is called original research. Retimuko (talk) 08:09, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The current source for that sentence is a Fortune article. It doesn't support that this was due to a lack of decentralization, so the current wording is also original research. The source arguably implies a connection, but this isn't sufficient.

MDPI is a garbage publisher regardless, but there is a valid point here anyway. "Decentralization" is being used as jargon, and it's not well-explained so this kind of thing is misleading or at least confusing. The article is already prone to presenting isolated facts as if they were connected, but this is bad form for an encyclopedia article. We need to use sources to directly explain what these terms mean and why they are connected.

For background on this specific point, Bruce Schneier,[19] David S. H. Rosenthal, and many others in the relevant fields have made strong cases that blockchains as currently used are not decentralized, at least not in the ways which actually matter. From this perspective, the issue isn't whether or not real decentralization is there, it's something more basic. Rosenthal in particular makes the distinction between "permissioned blockchains" which predate the hype around blockchains by several decades, and "permissionless blockchains" which are what this Wikipedia article is describing.[20] All that's mostly just background for why this term isn't as clear-cut as the current article implies, though.

Due to the glut of garbage sources, the link between (de)centralization and 51% attacks should be directly and unambiguously explained by a reliable source. The Fortune news blurb isn't sufficient for this. Grayfell (talk) 03:04, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Grayfell, I agree, especially about the need for a unambiguous explanation.

While 'One risk of a lack of decentralization is a so-called "51% attack" may be logically incorrect, 'One risk of decentralization is a so-called "51% attack" ' is also problematic.

With decentralization, a 51% attack is possible, but without clarification, that seems to imply that decentralization is bad. I think a better perspective is that the more narrow decentralization is, the easier it is to get 51%, and the broader decentralization is, the harder it is to get 51%.

JD Lambert^(T|C) 16:05, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2023

A consortium blockchain is a type of blockchain that combines elements of both public and private blockchains. In a consortium blockchain, a group of organizations come together to create and operate the blockchain, rather than a single entity. The consortium members jointly manage the blockchain network and are responsible for validating transactions.

Consortium Blockchain Consortium blockchains are permissioned, meaning that only certain individuals or organizations are allowed to participate in the network. This allows for greater control over who can access the blockchain and helps to ensure that sensitive information is kept confidential. Consortium blockchains are commonly used in industries where multiple organizations need to collaborate on a common goal, such as supply chain management or financial services.

One advantage of consortium blockchains is that they can be more efficient and scalable than public blockchains, as the number of nodes required to validate transactions is typically smaller. Additionally, consortium blockchains can provide greater security and reliability than private blockchains, as the consortium members work together to maintain the network.

Some examples of consortium blockchains include R3 Corda, IBM Blockchain Platform, and Quorum. These platforms are designed to provide a secure and efficient way for organizations to collaborate and share data, while still maintaining control over their own information. Shahbaj rangrej (talk) 21:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done but I had to find a source to confirm this. Particularly with blockchain stuff, we want to make sure high quality sources are being used. --Masem (t) 21:22, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Duplicate links

There are duplicate links throughout the article, some for basic terms like "cryptocurrency" and "transaction". I removed some from the History section as per MOS:DL but I wanted to bring it here before removing more, since it's semi-protected. Was there a previous consensus to keep these duplicated links? Matuko (talk) 13:16, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

"Blockchain" entry is semi-protected

Cannot add or amend Wikipedia page about Blockchain due to it being "semi-protected". What to do in this regard? Ciankinsella (talk) 14:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

See the instructions at WP:EDITREQ Masem (t) 14:49, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Why is there no Criticism section?

Blockchain, like most fad technologies and marketing buzzwords, has more than it's share of criticism, but this article barely touches on any criticism outside of a brief mention of energy use for cryptocoins. Glaring omission. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 06:49, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Source Section

Under Source there is a note on a self-published citation

"A public blockchain has absolutely no access restrictions. Anyone with an Internet connection can send transactions to it as well as become a validator (i.e., participate in the execution of a consensus protocol).[self-published source?] Usually, such networks offer economic incentives for those who secure them and utilize some type of a proof-of-stake or proof-of-work algorithm."

I would like to suggest a few superior sources.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Blockchain_Foundations_and_Applications/-KyDEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

- The next statement about ethereum and bitcoin is supported here on page 45

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Blockchain_Consensus_Mechanisms/GJVlEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=public+blockchain+consensus+protocols&printsec=frontcover FrostFlower984 (talk) 11:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)