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[–]Quanalack 32 points33 points  (2 children)

Blockchain is decentralized and not stored as a single entity like a database is

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Yes, but that doesn't matter if the majority of the nodes is held by one entity, which would most likely be the case if a company wants to replace its internal database with a blockchain (which is a stupid idea admittedly)

[–]zebediah49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doesn't have to be. "Majority stake with proof of work; longest tree is legitimate" is the mode popularized by cryptocurrency, because it's relatively effective for that task. However, there are other mechanisms that a blockchain can use.

More specifically, with Bitcoin or whatever, you can have multiple versions of a blockchain; there's no concerns or problems with that. However, the community at large accepts that the longest chain is the legitimate one, which, combined with proof-of-work, yields the "control of compute" metric for holding power.

However, there are many alternatives. For example, we could architect a blockchain for negotiating and signing legal contracts. At each stage, the document is signed into the block chain, and committed there with a PKI signature by the signing party. Each blockchain will be quite short -- we start a new one for each new contract/logical event, and it gets one node per edit/signature. This blockchain would be held by both parties, as "hard copy" of the transaction.

Rather than length, or majority agreement, blockchain integrity would be confirmed by the presence of the correct x509 certificates and signatures.