This is incorrect, Engine transactions are Hive blockchain transactions, so they are very much distributed across a network.

They are custom json transactions, I can create a custom json transaction right now transferring 10,000,000 Leo to my account to another account, but that custom json is meaningless if there isn't a balance. So looking at the chain, all you see is "deposit slips" that can be filled out any way someone wants but are not an guaranteed representation of value. To be 100% sure of a transaction, you need to query a Hive Engine RPC node.

Can you tell me which one of these transactions are real, one of them is forged.

On chain, there is absolutely no difference between the two.

This is also incorrect. You're confusing tampering with a node with tampering with the system as a whole. I can run my own Hive node and modify balances and transactions all I want, but that doesn't mean it's correct based on the protocol of the system. Engine is no different. Sure the Engine team can modify things on their node, but others can validate the info on their node to see if they are reporting correct information or not just like with any other blockchain platform. More on this later.

No one does. 99% query only Engine's node. The only way to protect from this is to run your own node or hope someone else does and identifies it.

What is meant by "protected by cryptography" is that the transactions are cryptographically signed using a public/private key pair, which Engine transactions most certainly are as a result of being transactions on the Hive blockchain.

Again back to my first response, the public/private keys is to issue a untrusted custom json transaction, that's it. As you can see above, that's easy to forge, so third parties cannot confirm it without validating the transaction from a node they trust.

Also, what?? Numerous other blockchains have this nowadays - EOS, WAX, TRON, and many others including Ethereum sidechains which seem be popping up left and right. Hive simply cannot compete in the generic smart contract platform arena.

I kind of agree here, but I can't see any other way for Hive to be relevant enough that people want to use it for large projects. We have had the same functionality for 4 years and no large project has come to take advantage of that. The thing is we have a lot of people actually using Hive on a daily basis for something other than gambling apps. We would have a lot more potential if Hive was dumbed down from being a blogging platform and that logic put into a smart contract on chain potentially beside competing social media application contracts like Leo.

As the developer behind Splinterlands, you got to admit using custom jsons for every thing is wonky. Especially using them for financial transactions (aka transfering HE tokens).