Quote from: garlonicon on Today at 09:25:59 PM

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You don't need blockchain to do that. Computers have been solving this problem since the 1950s.

How? If you have a valid signature, then both transactions are valid: "Alice->Bob" and "Alice->Charlie". Both signatures are correct, because Alice has the private key, and can create as many alternative versions, as she wants. And if you don't have a blockchain, and you don't want to have a trusted third party, then how do you want to decide, which version is correct?

Why not have a trusted third party, e.g. an ordinary computer system? There's only one answer to this: because you want to evade government oversight or control into your system. If this is not your goal, then doing any other way is a pointless waste of time and resources.

Today, almost all blockchain-based digital currencies are defacto centralized (with the notable exception of Bitcoin and a few others). In other words, these systems are basically using blockchain for no valid reason other than to pretend they are "like Bitcoin" somehow. But unless evading the government is your goal, there is no reason to add the complexity and costs associated with the blockchain architecture.

Hence, if all you want is to store transactions, and you don't care about government control of those transactions, then computers have been doing this for a half century, and blockchain is not necessary (and indeed, would, net-net, make the system less secure since the architecture as far more complicated and thus adds many more attack points for hackers).

(It's worth noting now that realistically, only Monero and those like it truly solve the problem Bitcoin was initially designed to solve. With chain analysis and widespread KYC connected to so many endpoints, using Bitcoin is not very anonymous--certainly not in a way a criminal would trust their life with. And the Bitcoin network itself is majority-controlled by three known US companies, so Bitcoin could easily be taken over by the US government for instance, by simply ordering these three companies to do it).