this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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It's past the point where if people want to use block chain tech for a practical purpose they just need to shut up about it and no one will even think about what's on the back end making a system work. The crypto-bros have been so loud and annoying for too long. No one wants anything to do with it now.
Blockchain is so rarely the right tool for the job that I would be generally skeptical of any project which uses it.
Event tickets are definitely not a good use case.
I agree one time use events are not a good use case. The main solution blockchain brings to the table is to be a long-term record keeping system for where blocks in the chain are either non-fungible or act as historical progression of actions. This usage as a short-term verification for a one-time event is not a good fit for blockchain technologies. There is a good reason why it is good enough for banking, but people associate the value on a token as what blockchain is used for when the value is self created by people in control of the blockchain(which is usually the token holders). Blockchain is simple, and people just overthink it as having more than it is because it is "computer stuff."
I wouldn't consider blockchain "simple". Especially when the alternative truly is simple, where the system is based on a "single" source of truth.
"blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes."
It is pretty simple. Blockchain is record keeping with cryptographic metadata as a form of discerning its place in the blockchain ledger/history.
The integrity verification is up to the creator of the blockchain or community, which is separate from what the blockchain is and acts as a supplementary system. In fact, blockchain can have a "single source of truth" because it depends on who controls most of the verification stake. such as having over 50% of the "mining" capacity coming a single entity will allow that entity to be the single source of truth. There is a risk that a decentralized network can become centralized. Fortunately, blockchains like Bitcoin and ethereum have a large enough pool of decentralized verification "miners" that keep the system from falling into a centralized entity. I remember when Bitcoin first started becoming popular, there were mining pools that were growing large enough that there could be a single centralized mining network that will control it.
You are correct that there is a complexity, but it is not the blockchain itself that is complex. It is the verification we attach to it when it comes to large-scale decentralization efforts.