Seems a bit thin on details - aka happy path only...
Hmm this seems to be fairly happy path, and it might be true, though I have questions/observations:
* My understanding of the blockchain processing is that it is computationally intensive, taking non-trivial compute power and a finite time (10 minutes for BTC at the moment??), so 'almost instantly' is subject to understanding. 10 minutes versus 3 days for a check to clear? Sure
* It is also my understanding that, at least for BTC (at the moment), around 6 'independent' (correct?) verifiers of the transactions in the next block is required (concensus mentioned in article), so although you have disintermediated the current payment system, you reintermediated those folks;
* The fear for verification is that if a common group of verifiers make up some high proportion of the total verifiers then it becomes a bit dodgy since they can verify spoofed transactions. From memory there was some concern in BTC land a couple of years ago when a 'mining' group got ~45% (correct?) of the pool, which they then voluntarily scaled back. What happens for these ledgers?
* It is also my understanding that as a 'reward' for verifying the block the verifiers are rewarded in BTC for the effort (hence 'mining'). Eventually that was to be replaced by a transaction fee that is associated with each transaction as payment for the verification effort.
Since this new system cannot create currency (aka forging), it either would need another token for payment (analogous to BTC) or the transaction fee is a cut of the invoice price. I am sure that there may be some folks out there that are willing to verify for free, but like most things that are free you may not have a great experience (with say turnaround time).
On the other hand if you do add a transaction fee, you could expect that the higher the fee the higher priority for verification. What does that fee look like? Do I pay 0.X% for 3 day turnaround, and X.0% for 'almost instantaneously'? Is there a market for transaction verifiers? If so how to I get that - remember they have to be 'independent'. I smell Wall Street.
* Is this a single global ledger, a global ledger per currency, combination thereof, or some arbitrarily created ones, say for a supplier?
* Who verifies the verifiers? Given currency ones is that is supranational? Government? Self-regulated (remembering self-regulation is to regulation what self-esteem is to esteem)?
If it is some ledger created for that supplier, who are the independent verifiers? Or is the supplier allowed to mark their own homework?
* How do you deal with cross currency transactions - that is, getting the cross rate? Is that set at transaction time or delivery (given it takes non-trivial amount of time to create/transport goods)? Do you trust that rate setter?
* What are the laws surrounding problems that occur (they always will - see the history of the credit card industry). What happens when returning goods? What happens in disputes?
With respect to the RFID, yes they use it for stock control now, but now it proposed to use it for financial transaction control. To stop the swap out of goods for cheaper knockoffs, is it embedded in the product itself? When I get a pallet of cement, do I scan each bag to make sure I got them all, or just the pallet, trusting the supplier (and deliverer!)?
Hmm a bit of a wall of text. But although this could be a miracle, just saying it will be so without explaining what it actually means in practice is a bit thin.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
