Many of the values, people think Ethereum has, are myths: Consensus

Why expectation on Ethereum are so high? What is Ethereum’s strength and where is its place in decentralized architecture?

Many people are arguing these days about scalability, governance, privacy and other topics related to ethereum and other blockchains respectively. When Ethereum came, it brought us brave new world that amazed many people (…mmm today we can say masses).

Bitcoin and Ethereum became synonyms and main solution for decentralization and freedom on the internet. People are expecting them to solve all the issues mentioned above. The reason why we do not still have these solutions is that these expectations are wrong.

We simply want too much from Ethereum and other blockchain technologies. Instead, I believe that platforms will specialize in their strengths to find their perfect fit on the market of decentralized technologies. What is these fit and strengths for Ethereum?

The product of blockchains, including Ethereum, is a consensus. Many people automatically treat blockchains and ethereum as a networks where our actions are saved forever and are definite. Thus whatever happens in the world will be recorded and becomes an unquestionable truth. This is the myth.

First of all, the biggest, overlooked issue here is that this consensus and the state of the matters saved in it is not absolute, but relative. Likely, Ethereum will not take over the whole world. There will be many other blockchain networks running with different consensus. When a conflict in their states happens, there is no way to judge which one is the main.

From this point of view, blockchains and Ethereum don’t bring any solution in terms of keeping state of current things. E.g. having a land registry on Ethereum does not make sense. To have it there, first of all, everybody has to agree with that (or some authority has to decide to do so). Second of all, it will bring a kind of vendor lock, when functionality of the registry depends on particular technology with all its disadvantages. It brings a high level of uncertainty. This is also valid for the most kinds of apps running on Ethereum.

For above reasons, I believe that we should look for absolute value when thinking about main building blocks of decentralized architecture. From this point of view, the absolute value is for instance digital signatures of involved parties proving an ownership of the land. These building blocks can always be recorded in blockchain of owners choice for a greater transparency.

When we admit that consensus on state of things is not an absolute value of Ethereum, what is the main strength then? It is different kind of a consensus: the consensus on how things should be calculated — smart contracts. From this point of view, its strength is to drive state to change when we want to be sure it will happen on particular conditions. Thus it is most suitable for triggering of money transactions, insurance contracts and other transactions of assets.

I’m in decentralization field for a few years already. I was there when Ethereum was making its first public steps. At that time, there was already a vision of decentralized future in my head, that is called “Butterfly economy” (beconomy.live). From this point of view, I believe that Ethereum is just one of many tools necessary for building of the decentralized future.

I’m gonna expose other false expectation and solutions in the next articles soon. Stay tuned and please don’t forget to discuss! Thank you.

About the author: I’m breathing for butterfly economy — beconomy.live. You can reach me at kei@beconomy.live.