Noob questions on blockchain

[Ecco]

Something thats been puzzling me about blockchain which I need some help on. I am a noob, so forgive me if i use incorrect terms etc.

Lets assume I am a baseball card collector and I have several other friends who are baseball card collectors across the world. We want to create a private distributed ledger of all the cards and then be able to trade them.

Assume technologically we dont have issues setting up.

1. How do we create a starting point with consensus on the initial version of truth of who owns what cards?
2. How is value attributed to a card - some are more rare and thus more "expensive" (money based) then others? Or is this not relevant because a contract to trade will determine how many less value cards equal one more valuable cards?
3. Say we have a new trader who wants to join, how do we introduce his stock into the ledger?
4. What if i acquire a new card (from a trade with somebody outside this group) how does this get added to my stock?

Maybe my questions are wrong, because i dont understand the technology. Its just been puzzling me and thought i would ask. Looking forward to the answers and maybe the debate.

 

[Ecco]

Maybe if somebody can guide me where to find these types of answers? Links where I can post this type of question?

 

[kingmilo]

1. The cards are created and taken stock of before anyone owns them, every card ever made is housed within the card making company. When that card is distributed to a person a record of that transaction is made, along with all information of that card, i.e. value.

2. Value in the case of cards is determined by a couple factors, one being how many cards of that type exist, the more rare the more valuable as you point out, the card company knows how many cards have been created and thus are able to qualify it's rarity. Some other factors might include popularity or history but this would be only specific to cards of course.

3. His stock would already be in the card companies ledger which would verify his stock and the rarity of it and then assign a value based on those facts. Your ledger gets updated with that information.

4. Again, the card is already known, along with it's rarity and value, so your stock is updated accordingly as well as the ledger you have with your friends.


I think probably the biggest misunderstanding of the blockchain is that people believe they are creating blocks by solving them. The entire blockchain exists from the beginning, it is not infinite, that's how value can we assigned to it. The more of the blockchain that is solved the more difficult it becomes to solve the next block, it then increases the rarity of solving a block which increases it's value along with other factors such as public interest. When you are assigned a wallet address that address already existed, it wasn't created for you, all addresses already exist and are handed out as requested. In short, the entire 'ledger' with every card already exists.

 

[Ecco]

1. The cards are created and taken stock of before anyone owns them, every card ever made is housed within the card making company. When that card is distributed to a person a record of that transaction is made, along with all information of that card, i.e. value.

This is the first problem, we all already own many cards and want to trade them using block chain. Are you suggesting block chain can not be applied to assets already in existence?

 

[kingmilo]

This is the first problem, we all already own many cards and want to trade them using block chain. Are you suggesting block chain can not be applied to assets already in existence?

No it can, I didn't actually realise you were talking about cards, I thought it was hypothetical to understanding how the blockchain works.
In your case you need to decide as a whole the value of all cards available. This value can increase and decrease depending on factors mentioned above.