Comment by margalabargala
1 day ago
> A blockchain is the logical extreme of where you end up when you think about how to sync backups
It's not. Blockchains are only eventually consistent among nodes. They're designed for synced backups among adversarial peers.
There's no reason for a government agency to use one internally. There are better ways to sync backups when the people with access to make updates are also authorized to do so.
Internally, you don't need it, agreed. But that is centralization risk exemplified in this incident. Which isn't necessary. Every notary could be a node. It would be a lot more resilient, and it would look a lot like a blockchain (not necessarily with a crypto currency though) if you do it properly.
You can have decentralization without blockchain. A defining feature of blockchain is that each node depends on the precise ordering of prior nodes which is a huge liability if you have network disruptions, etc, in a bureaucracy.
A git repo with cryptographically signed commits solves all the same problems without the headache.
Agreed that you don't need total ordering and hence consensus for pure asset transfers. But if you want to make any changes at all, like updating the list of nodes, you do. So in practice, you do need it. Every other proposal will fall short in a critical and avoidable way. Amending your git proposal with the necessary parts will turn it into a blockchain.
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You can't do any real money/real estate transactions without canonical order (chain of events). that's why git analogy is not applicable here. You'd need "main" branch to be canonically finalized for each and every participant.
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If every notary is a node, you need some mechanism to ensure they perform only legitimate transactions and constantly monitor them. It is easier to just have a central authority.
You need that anyway. It's not technology that's stopping notaries from falsifying transactions in the current system.