The author could stand to do some more thinking on this. It's not that he's incorrect, he just doesn't understand the utility of Bitcoin in spite of his point.

Think of this scenario. The French government has a top notch security protocol in place to secure the private key to the ownership of the Mona Lisa. But we have a change of government and some high ranking government official gets corrupted. They have access to the keys and he uses them to transfer the Mona Lisa to one of his rich buddies Joe Shmoe.

What happens now? According to the blockchain Joe Shmoe is the rightful owner. Can he just enforce that ownership against the French government and force the Louvre to move the Mona Lisa to his beach house in St. Tropez? Or can the French government force him to reverse the transaction. But what if he is smart enough to destroy the private key? Transferring ownership at this point becomes virtually impossible.

It would absolutely be true for a completely virtual item, but he fails to realize that because the artwork is physical, all you need to do is generate a new token for it. The old one was destroyed, so there is no conflict here. You must keep in mind that the token is just a virtual representation or reference to the actual thing. The important part in such a system would be to ensure there are never multiple tokens pointing to the same physical resource existing at the same time.

This is an extreme example and I think no one would argue for a Big Bang introduction of an art blockchain. But it highlights the core problem of using blockchain for the real world. For every transfer of ownership you have 2 operations. These have to be in sync in all time to work properly. In Computer Science this is called an atomic transaction. You either execute all of the operations or none of them. This is already hard in a single database, it is near impossible within 2 systems and is essentially impossible in the real world.

This is dumb. Yes the virtual world is not the same as the real world. And? You know a written ledger or database doesn't actually map 1:1 to what occurs in the real world either right? Are those useless too?

In reality the source of truth would most likely be the courts of the world. And we already have that. Unless the French state is OK with giving up ownership of the Mona Lisa (which would most certainly go through a complicated legal process), it will never change owners. And if it does, this is what we call theft and the French state has a legal mandate to take ownership back.

All in all: when your source of truth is the legal system, there is absolutely no point for a blockchain and you might as well record ownership in a database.

Yeah I understand him. He's basically saying the real world is messy and a blockchain doesn't change that. Well obviously. And yes state officials and judges and whoever can be corrupted. That's EXACTLY why you want a blockchain. His argument is essentially, "Well humans are involved, humans are corruptible, therefore the blockchain is useless". Sure, the blockchain can't fix that. What it can do though, is demonstrably prove the chain of ownership. So while you cannot stop a judge or political official from being corrupt, you can at least have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE CORRUPTION. And if you are dealing with something purely virtual, like cryptocurrency itself, then no one other than the owner of the keys can control the resource. So forget judges and courts. They can send you to prison, but they can't take your property without you giving them the key.

His argument is like saying, "Well the judge can rule however he wants, so evidence of a crime and having a trial with objective procedures is pointless". You can't fix corruption through physical means, but being able to identify it is good regardless, and trying to minimize it by adhering to objective rules is basically the core foundation of our society.

If you think this stuff is useless and doesn't work, then we may as well go back to might makes right, and let whoever can kill the most have all the power. Does the author realize we moved towards politics and a legal system to get away from that mess? I mean the legal system doesn't solve corruption either, so I guess it's just as useless as the blockchain and we should throw it out the window lol. I don't blame him though, most people don't have the time or inclination to deeply consider these issues.

Let me state that again for emphasis: TL;DR: the author's argument can be used to justify getting rid of our own legal system, the scientific method, etc., because there is no objective principle, process, or concept that maps to the real world and can eliminate human corruption.

The author could stand to do some more thinking on this. It's not that he's incorrect, he just doesn't understand the utility of Bitcoin in spite of his point.

Think of this scenario. The French government has a top notch security protocol in place to secure the private key to the ownership of the Mona Lisa. But we have a change of government and some high ranking government official gets corrupted. They have access to the keys and he uses them to transfer the Mona Lisa to one of his rich buddies Joe Shmoe.

What happens now? According to the blockchain Joe Shmoe is the rightful owner. Can he just enforce that ownership against the French government and force the Louvre to move the Mona Lisa to his beach house in St. Tropez? Or can the French government force him to reverse the transaction. But what if he is smart enough to destroy the private key? Transferring ownership at this point becomes virtually impossible.

It would absolutely be true for a completely virtual item, but he fails to realize that because the artwork is physical, all you need to do is generate a new token for it. The old one was destroyed, so there is no conflict here. You must keep in mind that the token is just a virtual representation or reference to the actual thing. The important part in such a system would be to ensure there are never multiple tokens pointing to the same physical resource existing at the same time.

This is an extreme example and I think no one would argue for a Big Bang introduction of an art blockchain. But it highlights the core problem of using blockchain for the real world. For every transfer of ownership you have 2 operations. These have to be in sync in all time to work properly. In Computer Science this is called an atomic transaction. You either execute all of the operations or none of them. This is already hard in a single database, it is near impossible within 2 systems and is essentially impossible in the real world.

This is dumb. Yes the virtual world is not the same as the real world. And? You know a written ledger or database doesn't actually map 1:1 to what occurs in the real world either right? Are those useless too?

In reality the source of truth would most likely be the courts of the world. And we already have that. Unless the French state is OK with giving up ownership of the Mona Lisa (which would most certainly go through a complicated legal process), it will never change owners. And if it does, this is what we call theft and the French state has a legal mandate to take ownership back.

All in all: when your source of truth is the legal system, there is absolutely no point for a blockchain and you might as well record ownership in a database.

Yeah I understand him. He's basically saying the real world is messy and a blockchain doesn't change that. Well obviously. And yes state officials and judges and whoever can be corrupted. That's EXACTLY why you want a blockchain. His argument is essentially, "Well humans are involved, humans are corruptible, therefore the blockchain is useless". Sure, the blockchain can't fix that. What it can do though, is demonstrably prove the chain of ownership. So while you cannot stop a judge or political official from being corrupt, you can at least have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE CORRUPTION. And if you are dealing with something purely virtual, like cryptocurrency itself, then no one other than the owner of the keys can control the resource. So forget judges and courts. They can send you to prison, but they can't take your property without you giving them the key.

His argument is like saying, "Well the judge can rule however he wants, so evidence of a crime and having a trial with objective procedures is pointless". You can't fix corruption through physical means, but being able to identify it is good regardless, and trying to minimize it by adhering to objective rules is basically the core foundation of our society.

If you think this stuff is useless and doesn't work, then we may as well go back to might makes right, and let whoever can kill the most have all the power. Does the author realize we moved towards politics and a legal system to get away from that mess? I mean the legal system doesn't solve corruption either, so I guess it's just as useless as the blockchain and we should throw it out the window lol. I don't blame him though, most people don't have the time or inclination to deeply consider these issues.

Let me state that again for emphasis: the author's argument can be used to justify getting rid of our own legal system, the scientific method, etc., because there is no objective principle, process, or concept that maps to the real world and can eliminate human corruption.

The author could stand to do some more thinking on this. It's not that he's incorrect, he just doesn't understand the utility of Bitcoin in spite of his point.

Think of this scenario. The French government has a top notch security protocol in place to secure the private key to the ownership of the Mona Lisa. But we have a change of government and some high ranking government official gets corrupted. They have access to the keys and he uses them to transfer the Mona Lisa to one of his rich buddies Joe Shmoe.

What happens now? According to the blockchain Joe Shmoe is the rightful owner. Can he just enforce that ownership against the French government and force the Louvre to move the Mona Lisa to his beach house in St. Tropez? Or can the French government force him to reverse the transaction. But what if he is smart enough to destroy the private key? Transferring ownership at this point becomes virtually impossible.

It would absolutely be true for a completely virtual item, but he fails to realize that because the artwork is physical, all you need to do is generate a new token for it. The old one was destroyed, so there is no conflict here. You must keep in mind that the token is just a virtual representation or reference to the actual thing. The important part in such a system would be to ensure there are never multiple tokens pointing to the same physical resource existing at the same time.

This is an extreme example and I think no one would argue for a Big Bang introduction of an art blockchain. But it highlights the core problem of using blockchain for the real world. For every transfer of ownership you have 2 operations. These have to be in sync in all time to work properly. In Computer Science this is called an atomic transaction. You either execute all of the operations or none of them. This is already hard in a single database, it is near impossible within 2 systems and is essentially impossible in the real world.

This is dumb. Yes the virtual world is not the same as the real world. And? You know a written ledger or database doesn't actually map 1:1 to what occurs in the real world either right? Are those useless too?

In reality the source of truth would most likely be the courts of the world. And we already have that. Unless the French state is OK with giving up ownership of the Mona Lisa (which would most certainly go through a complicated legal process), it will never change owners. And if it does, this is what we call theft and the French state has a legal mandate to take ownership back.

All in all: when your source of truth is the legal system, there is absolutely no point for a blockchain and you might as well record ownership in a database.

Yeah I understand him. He's basically saying the real world is messy and a blockchain doesn't change that. Well obviously. And yes state officials and judges and whoever can be corrupted. That's EXACTLY why you want a blockchain. His argument is essentially, "Well humans are involved, humans are corruptible, therefore the blockchain is useless". Sure, the blockchain can't fix that. What it can do though, is demonstrably prove the chain of ownership. So while you cannot stop a judge or political official from being corrupt, you can at least have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF THE CORRUPTION. And if you are dealing with something purely virtual, like cryptocurrency itself, then no one other than the owner of the keys can control the resource. So forget judges and courts. They can send you to prison, but they can't take your property without you giving them the key.

His argument is like saying, "Well the judge can rule however he wants, so evidence of a crime and having a trial with objective procedures is pointless". You can't fix corruption through physical means, but being able to identify it is good regardless, and trying to minimize it by adhering to objective rules is basically the core foundation of our society.

If you think this stuff is useless and doesn't work, then we may as well go back to might makes right, and let whoever can kill the most have all the power. Does the author realize we moved towards politics and a legal system to get away from that mess? I mean the legal system doesn't solve corruption either, so I guess it's just as useless as the blockchain and we should throw it out the window lol. I don't blame him though, most people don't have the time or inclination to deeply consider these issues.