Blockchain Decision Tree - Reading Assignment

Blockchain Business Course
#121
  1. A normal database is easier to use and set up as it is already used today. It is also cheaper to operate.
  2. Unnecessary cost can arise from the set up and operation of a blockchain intra or inter entreprise
  3. The purpose of blockchain is to keep an immutable record of transaction between two or more participants.
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#122

1)What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
Its faster, cheaper and more efficient. Its easy to perform CRUD.
2)What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
Expensive and inefficient
3)Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
Blockchain is generally used when trust is established by the network through the consensus protocol with many users. If we have only 1 writer than
traditional system works better

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#123

1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?

  • Easier and cheaper to build a solution
  • Competency & Skill is easier to find vs. lack of experience
  • More resources available

2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?

  • Expensive
  • Time intensive

3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?

Eliminate any unknown or untrusted middleman (person or organization) while still providing transparency for all parties, validation of any information that is being passed, and immutability of the blockchain once it is created.

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#124

  1. A normal databse is fast, easier and cheaper to use than blockchain. It is more well known therefore it is easier to create and maintain.

  2. Higher cost to maintain, and more consumes more time.

  3. This eliminates the need to have a trusted 3rd party while still providing transparency for all parties, Immutability and validation of information.

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#125

1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
A normal database would allow data to be modified and deleted while a blockchain only allows data to be appended.
2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
That it would be a lot more difficult to maintain and develop for then a normal database. You cannot solve everything with a blockchain.
3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
Blockchains make use of consensus between two or more parties. When there is just one writer it makes no sense.

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#126
  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
    Benefits are Proven Standards, Resources, people skills are more readily accessible to find for hire Operationally more Cost-Effective
  2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
    The most obvious consequences when insisting on a blockchain are higher cost to develop and maintain, difficulty to integrate with existing systems, less efficiency than before and in the worst case, being stuck in the status quo, because the consensus in order to make a decision canā€™t be reached.
  3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
    If there is no need for decentralization, a blockchain wouldnā€™t be justified, once you donā€™t need to trust other writers and sacrifice security.
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#127
  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
    CRUD instead of CR, more knowledge within the business
  2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
    Higher costs / inefficient
  3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
    Consensus needs different parties
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#128

  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
    more effective for day to day uses, cheaper, more history

  2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
    Itā€™s more expensive. It takes a long time to develop. Itā€™s difficult to find developers and similar projects as examples/references.

  3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
    With only 1 writer the information is already trustful and relatively secured with a normal database. The 1 writer is the super-user of the database, thus moving away from a centralized (CRUD) database to a decentralized (CR) database is not necessary.

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#129
  1. The normal database is easy, fast and centralized that can make decision quite fast compare to blockchain which needs time for consensus and validation for better optimum security.
  2. The consequences will be costly because of the difficulty of blockchain database in terms of building it and also the number devs that are skilled. not only that its not easy to run a blockchain as it needs a lot of validators and especcially community support to make sure its decentralized.
    3.To justify a blockchain would mean that more than 1 writer to a database is required in order to verify all transactions before appended to the blockchain. Itā€™s a trustless system or database with many participants with a bit of a saying by all in terms of voting or consensus.
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#130
  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
    Normal databases are more efficient, easier to set up and cheaper to use than a blockchain database. However, Blockchain adds value with regards to security, immutability of transactions, and transparency.
  2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?

Waste of resources and time to upgrade.
3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
Otherwise that writer is the sole owner of the information and there is no consensus involved.

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#131

What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?
It is cheaper, less time consuming and private vs blockchain.

What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
More time intensive unnecessarily, also more expensive. Slower retrieval of data and less privacy.

Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
For transparency and to remove the requirement for trust.

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#132
  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain?

Faster and more efficien, does not require high computational power
Easy and cheaper to build.

  1. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one?
    Higher cost, More development time, bad performance, and inflexibility

  2. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain?
    There is no need to find consensus when there is only one writer

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#133

  1. Normal database is cheaper to use because building a blockchain for enterprise use might turn out to be expensive. Also, if all the participants in the database are trusted, then using a blockchain might be unnecessary and probably even less efficient.

  2. You would be wasting money and time and lose out in efficiency.

  3. The trust is more decentralized.

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#134
  1. Itā€™s faster and cheaper
  2. It just costs unnecessary money and makes it slower to use than a normal db
  3. Because otherwise its sufficient to use a normal db
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#135
  1. The benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain are:
  • Queries are answered quicker if there is not a world state linked to the blockchain. This is because when information needs to be accessed in a blockchain, the application will need to connect to the blockchain through an API and then the blockchain will need to be traversed in order to find the relevant information. This can take time, and can therefore be inefficient, It may also take more computing power to do so, which can result in more costs. In a normal database values can be easily obtained.
  • An SQL or graph database can be easier to build than a blockchain database. This also means it can be cheaper and take less time to set up a centralised database compared to developing a blockchain. Finding developers which are familiar with blockchain technology can be difficult.
  • Centralised databases are more tried and practised within businesses than blockchain databases. This means that there are already tried and proven examples of how a normal database can be used and also how it integrates with a companies IT infrastructure. As a result of this there could arguable be less risk for the company to use a centralised database, problems will likely be encountered less in the development and the maintenance of the database for this reason. If an issue arises with a blockchain database it may be more expensive to fix this issue. Expanding on this managers or CEOs may find it easier to apply use case to centralised databases compared to a blockchain database, they may not understand the technology in enough detail to really deploy the blockchain in an effective way within the business simply because there is not enough data/history of how this can be done.
  • A general note as well could be that there are more development tools available to use for centralised datbases and also more choice with those tools as to what you can do.
  1. Many of the consequences have already been touched upon in the first answer, however to expand on these a major consequence of using a blockchain when it is not needed is a rise in business costs and therefore a decrease in efficiency. It will cost more processing power and therefore electricity to run a blockchain database, and it will also require further overheads to efficiently query the database either with a world state or to traverse the blockchain. Also more costs will be involved with the need to have all of the components of the blockchain - such as multiple nodes and orderer or an MSP, when in fact the database could have been maintained by 1 single entity. These rise in costs & decrease in deficiency will ultimately lead to a reduction in competitiveness within the industry or the market - either prices for the companies products or services will go up or profit margins will go down. These both in turn ultimately end at the same place which is a decrease profits. Margins decreasing will mean that less profits can be reinvested back into the business. You can even look from the perspective of having less money to spend in other areas such as marketing or customer service or even staff training. The flip side of this is if prices go up, demand for the product may go down as customers are priced out of the product or choose to go to a competitor with a better alternative. This leads to a decrease in market share.

It also should be noted that using a blockchain when it is not neccissary will also result in more costs in the development of the blockchain compared to a normal database, this could mean in the instance of a new start-up it may take longer than initially planned and in that time a consequence of this could be that investors are not happy with the delay in the project. Another company may capitalise on this and release their service or product before the start up or worse the start up may not get going at all.

In summary it could be looked at as one big opportunity cost, money, time and resources could have been put elsewhere, and if the blockchain is not providing the company with some sort of competitive advantage then the implications are ultimately decreases success in the market and a less optimal business infrastructure.

  1. One of the big advantages of of using a blockchain database is that writing of information onto the blockchain can be done by multiple individuals and equally validated by all the nodes (entities) on the blockchain. This is highly beneficial when 2 different parties may be operating within a network but their goals or motives may not be fully aligned. It ensures integrity and trust between users without the need for intermediaries (or at least less intermediaries as often there are external certificate authorities used to scale projects). If there is only a need for 1 writer to a database then simply put there is none of the described benefits to using a blockchain to begin with. Therefore it cannot be justified.
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#136

Excellent answer sir! really well documented! keep it like that please! :muscle:

Carlos Z.

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#137

  1. Normal databases are fast, efficient, cheaper to build and require less space than blockchain. It is hard to find blockchain skillsets compared to SQL databases.

  2. It would be a waste of time, money and resources better spent in other areas of a business.

  3. One writer to a database would not require trust between two parties which is one key aspect of blockchain. Also there would be less need for transparency and security of the blockchain data.

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#138
  1. Normal database is faster and cheaper.
  2. It would not solve desired problems, it would be waste of money any time.
  3. If only 1 person writes to database then you donā€™t need trustless solution.
#139

Thank you my good man. Appreciate the feedback.

Regards,

Liam.

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#140

  1. What are the benefits of using a normal database instead of a blockchain? Cheap, skill labor is easy to find, easy to support, fast.

  2. What do you think the consequences would be of using a blockchain when you in reality donā€™t need one? It would add a bunch of complexity which would increase cost and make it difficult to maintain.

  3. Why should there be more than 1 writer to a database in order to justify a blockchain? Thereā€™s no trust concern since thereā€™s only 1 actor/writer to the blockchain. It would be pointless to have the overhead.

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