For a long time, I thought of the blockchain as almost synonymous with cryptocurrencies, so as I saw stuff like “Odyssey” and “lbry” appearing and being “based on the blockchain”, my first thought was that it was another crypto scam. Then, I just got reminded of it and started looking more into it, and it just seemed like regular torrenting. For example, what’s the big innovation separating Odyssey from Peertube, which is also decentralized and also uses P2P? And what part of it does the blockchain really play, that couldn’t be done with regular P2P? More generally, and looking at the futur, does the blockchain offer new possibilities that the fediverse or pre-existing protocols don’t have?
What do you think I’m missing in my estimate? Do you have any experience in CS?
You’re just talking about ownership of a title right?
A deed contains a lot more information than the owner. Mine is 4 pages long. Contains a map of the street, various easements, et cetera.
Yeah, but that kind of data would be better in an auxiliary database. There’s no reason to include it in the blockchain.
well but doesn’t that beat the purpose of using the blockchain in the first place? why not just store everything in the auxiliary database?
Depends on why you want to use the blockchain, I guess. If you want a system to allows anyone to verify ownership of property without 3rd parties (government, etc) being involved then the auxiliary database should work fine.
What purpose were you thinking of, that would be defeated by an aux DB?
The title defines the property and the rights attached to it though.
Like the block chain might be able to confirm who owns the property ID, but not what is defined by that property ID. The only way to confirm what is represented by a given property ID is… by referring to a trusted authority which can provide the title.
Property ownership is much more complicated than just an address and a name. A title defines the boundaries of the property, and confers many and varied legal rights.