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Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

reuters.com

11–20 of 487 posts

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what was all that effort being spent on Not being left behind if you're wrong. I'm in a tech-adjacent industry and see it all the time. Competitor A comes out with "shiny new technology" and markets the hell out of it. My company panics because we're suddenly lagging behind and rushes a competing project into development. Competitor B sees all of this and hops in too. All of a sudden it's the new direction of the i…

An example from the top of your head ?

GPU acceleration in scientific computing. My god in 2011 it was the only thing anyone talked about. Every COTS solver package cobbled together support in less than a year and were promising order of magnitude speedups.

In 2018 it's still hanging around but realizing a 20% speedup on certain classes of problems. Maybe.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#12
post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

I have 1 Bitcoin therefore blockchain will succeed.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#14
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My major questions have always been: where is the business value in blockchain applications? what can a blockchain app do that can't be done by non-blockchain (beyond decentralization - bc I don't think this produces much business value)?

Sending money without fees and delay? Have you ever tried a normal bank transfer? How long did it take? Have you ever tried, say, nano? It literally takes seconds and 0 fees. Here is some value.

The delay and cost is a function of mandatory compliance and recourse, rather than anything to do with technology.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#15
Of course banks can do it better with the traditional technologies. They operate in a centralized, trusted and regulated environment. Their consensus algorithm is "settling disputes in courts".

And still, it takes up to 5 days to receive a payment from USA in the EU and the sender pays 40$ for the wire transfer.

The blockchain technologies will disrupt the banks themselves, because they are the intermediaries in this industry. I can receive the equivalent of $1 mil in BTC from oversea in less than 10 minutes and the sender pays fractions of a dollar in fees.

The banks will be in a tough position the more people accept payments for their services and products in BTC. We're not there yet, of course, but who knows where we'll be in 5-10-20 years.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#16
post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

governmemts are thinking of putting assets and laws on Blockchain, stock exchanges are waiting for scalability to start putting everything on the blockchain. Immutable government records already exist. Where do you base your argument?

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what was all that effort being spent on Not being left behind if you're wrong. I'm in a tech-adjacent industry and see it all the time. Competitor A comes out with "shiny new technology" and markets the hell out of it. My company panics because we're suddenly lagging behind and rushes a competing project into development. Competitor B sees all of this and hops in too. All of a sudden it's the new direction of the i…

An example from the top of your head ?

Semantic web related technologies. Oh man, this was the future rdf triplets, ontologies ...

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#18
post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

governmemts are thinking of putting assets and laws on Blockchain, stock exchanges are waiting for scalability to start putting everything on the blockchain. Immutable government records already exist. Where do you base your argument?

If there is a definitive source of trust (ie. the government) then a blockchain is a very inefficient mechanism for distribution.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#19
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My major questions have always been: where is the business value in blockchain applications? what can a blockchain app do that can't be done by non-blockchain (beyond decentralization - bc I don't think this produces much business value)?

Sending money without fees and delay? Have you ever tried a normal bank transfer? How long did it take? Have you ever tried, say, nano? It literally takes seconds and 0 fees. Here is some value.

The delays have little to do with technology, and a lot to do with regulations and bureaucracy. Largely put in place to combat money laundering, fraud, terrorist financing, etc etc. Yes, there's some small banks that have horrible APIs and shoddy servers, but for most transfers the delays come down to things that if cryptocurrency were ever mainstreamed would be tacked onto it.

That is why it takes time to get approved on coinbase and other exchanges that try to follow the law.

Re: Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

#20
post #12
post #7

It is interesting that even in an article like this that they still say things like "for all its potential, blockchain is still in its early days." It is sticking with the unfounded assumption that it will be a success in the future, if only it is given more time. In technological terms, it is old. Innumerable efforts have been attempted, yielding almost no fruit. At what point are the fundamental assumptions going t…

I have 1 Bitcoin therefore blockchain will succeed.

Hodl
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