hi all,
I’ve been thinking about the possible use of blockchain for smaller settings. Like a local exchange/trading system (LETS), or a network such as Edgeryders. Key elements that blockchain provides is a distributed nature, a public ledger, and a permanent ledger. Yet in practice, as shown in the Bitcoin network, ultimately because of the computing resources needed to validate the distributed ledger, centralisations occurs (e.g. on a handful of Chinese computing clusters). For me the key to agency, to power of action is that tools should be controllable at the level of use. So if a group uses e.g. blockchain that blockchain should be run by the group using it. Otherwise your specific usecase might be corrupted, made impossible or hindered by the more generic use forms surrounding it.
Was reading this explanation of blockchain the other day, which made me think about blockchain in the Edgeryders case. On how to recognize contributions towards a project before it becomes part of a transactional stage (like when it becomes an undertaking of the company) yet after it has left the realm of occasional contributions.
The article was A Letter to Jamie Diron
It posits blockchain as simply a way to create distributed software tools. And adds that this is usually cumbersome (in terms of effectiveness and efficiency) compared to more centralized tools, or where a middle man has a role. Except when that distributedness is what you need to be able to do something at all, because you are otherwise locked out or because otherwise you are hindered to do it well. That is the case for the type of network that Edgeryders forms. But also e.g. LETS.
So I was wondering about how to translate some aspects of a network like Edgeryders or something simpler like a LETS to a blockchain setting.
One is how to deal with negative accounts. In a LETS most ‘tokens’ come into circulation simply by having a transaction. You and I both have nothing. You do something for me, and I reward you with some tokens. Now I have -x you have +x, and we have brought x in circulation.
Mining in a blockchain is a reward (in tokens) for doing the calculations needed to verify the ledger. It is artificially made ever harder, needing ever more effort, to get a reward. This is meant as a way of ensuring loyalty, as it creates real costs. In a LETS or other defined network such as Edgeryders such effort doesn’t need to be made ever harder to maintain loyalty, as there is a real net of social relationships existing that can be the carrier of such loyalty. So one could imagine all members of a LETS or network contributing computing power needed for the consensus about the ledger. With lower powered nodes doing the computing (e.g. a Raspberry Pi sitting next to your router). Running a small node could be seen as your membership-fees of sorts.
Questions resulting:
What are viable ways to deploy blockchain for a ‘defined user group’ e.g. Edgeryders without relying on infrastructure run by others / globally (e.g. Ethereum)
Are negative wallets possible in a blockchain, or made to be possible?
Is there a way to strip out the ‘forced’ increasing difficulty of consensus building about a ledger (which in Bitcoin is leading to detrimental centralisation of nodes), and have the needed computing power equally distirbuted over all users?
Thoughts?
In LETS with negative balances, all balances have to level out to zero at all times, which is a nice invariant to be checked by nodes when confirming the next block.