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Git is the most wildly successful and broadly useful application of the ~blockchain~ merkle tree data structure. It’s fantastic and here to stay.

The digital money angle? Eh it’s okay. Everyone loves a gullible population that prefers to be paid in not-money.

Eventually crypto will have to invent all the overhead and governance it was trying to escape. You know, so things like Musk’s little pump-and-dump the other week stop being possible.

For the downvoters: The original bitcoin paper explicitly says it’s using a merkle tree data structure under the hood. Same as that used by git.



How is git an application of blockchain when it predates Bitcoin by several years?


It’s the same data structure. Bitcoin just added the proof-of-work idea to extending the chain and attached the concept of “value” as a social construct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree


How does consensus work in git?


Multiple peer reviewers look at a pull request and when it passes muster, it gets merged to the longest chain. You can always make a fork and keep going with a new chain.

Same as bitcoin. You can always split off a new chain. You might not convince everyone that your new chain is the chain, but you’re welcome to try.


a) Where is there a requirement for "multiple peer reviews" on git?

b) What is the longest chain? How do I determine if the longest chain is in Gitlab, on my computer or my coworker's computer? Where does the pull request go?

c) How do I indicate that I have approved a pull request in git?


I don’t have these answers for you, it depends on the project.

How do you know that the exchange you’re using buys bitcoin on the same blockchain as the exchange I use? Because they said so?

When’s the last time you downloaded the whole blockchain for any coin and verified the whole sequence of blocks from the very first one? I certainly never have. But I regularly have the whole chain for git projects on my machine.

Point is it’s the same data structure. Bitcoin’s innovation is in how blocks get added, but it’s not as revolutionary as it looks from the hype. Read the original paper if you don’t believe me, it’s very well written and incredibly approachable




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