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I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

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Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#201

Post by m3kw9 »

plebianRube wrote: post #108
acdha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… and that means that if cryptocurrencies ever see notable adoption, those same currency controls will be expanded to cover it. There's this popular mythology that cryptocurrencies are immune to regulation but in reality it's just that most countries don't spend time regulating things which aren't widely used. If that changes, cryptocurrencies are perfect for those governments to enforce since the public ledgers prov…

That is the whole point of bitcoin. There is no entity that can prevent you from using it. Anyone can say you are not allowed, but enforcing it is impossible in practice.

Unless you already had some BTC or onramp set up somewhere outside the country, they can make it hard to onramp(buying BTC ). You could also buy direct from someone but that is impractical. And then you have off-ramp to deal with once you need the cash

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#202

Post by dang »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #38

I keep saying this, but: Bitcoin is well over 10 years old by now. In 10 years, the internet was already clearly adding a ton of value all over the place. Bitcoin is not really a 'young technology' anymore, and the only thing it has enabled so far is risky, unregulated investment strategies, and an staggering amount of crime.

> I keep saying this, but:

Please don't do this. We want curious conversation, not repetitive talking points.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

I don't mean to pick on you personally—it's a serious problem with all threads on this topic.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#203

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

I work in this industry and have heard of only a few of these projects. The idea that this is a "top" list is ridiculous. This is more a testament to how messed up Google's search results are for niche subjects.

Dapper Labs is legit. Steem was a 2017-era source of ridicule within crypto. Gemini is just a conventional crypto exchange (like Coinbase). Algorand has some interesting tech but was a mixed bag from launch. The rest of these projects are totally obscure.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#204

Post by neals »

Ah yes, a blockchain thread on HN. It doesn't get more black and white than this. As a neutral person, I love these. However, there's so much personal trauma on both sides that I sincerely would like to give all commenter here a hug and tell them it will pass and it will end up OK for everybody. Please don't forget that we're all just people on here and that none of us have all the information and context matters.

Let's all respect that some people work on this and try to come up something good for everybody. And also, some people don't or have had bad experiences. Love <3

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#205

Post by NikolaNovak »

plebianRube wrote: post #108
acdha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… and that means that if cryptocurrencies ever see notable adoption, those same currency controls will be expanded to cover it. There's this popular mythology that cryptocurrencies are immune to regulation but in reality it's just that most countries don't spend time regulating things which aren't widely used. If that changes, cryptocurrencies are perfect for those governments to enforce since the public ledgers prov…

That is the whole point of bitcoin. There is no entity that can prevent you from using it. Anyone can say you are not allowed, but enforcing it is impossible in practice.

>>There is no entity that can prevent you from using it.

I feel that's a geek dream far outside of reality we live in.

Making it illegal to adopt or trade Crypto is possible and feasible. If your employer doesn't pay you in crypto,your landlord and bank and grocery store and public transport and health services don't take Crypto, then you're basically limited to the black market. Which tends to work well enough without complications of Crypto.

People envisioning dystopian future that needs Crypto, severely underestimate the ability of that dystopian future to prevent Crypto. Basically, their imagination of dystopian future is limited and naive. Humans can get bad and nasty and societies can get scary and Crypto is not the way out of such for ordinary citizens. Paper money, maybe. But Crypto requires so much equipment through so many telltales with so many ways for regular humans to reveal themselves accidentally that it's a totalitarian regimes' wet dream.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#206

Post by seibelj »

gitanes wrote: post #195
simonw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot. I want details: - Which countries? - What portion of the population are benefiting from crypto? Is it a tiny portion of nerds or has it become more mainstream now? - With the crash in cryptocurrency over the last few months are these people in those countries still glad that they used this, or are they regretting it? I don't doubt that there exist individuals in countries with high inflation who ha…

Argentina. 100% of annual inflation. People use crypto everyday to get money in and out of the economy.

This is absolutely true - binance plus stablecoins is how the economy works there.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#207

Post by im_down_w_otp »

Forge36 wrote: post #191
rzwitserloot wrote: post #38

I keep saying this, but: Bitcoin is well over 10 years old by now. In 10 years, the internet was already clearly adding a ton of value all over the place. Bitcoin is not really a 'young technology' anymore, and the only thing it has enabled so far is risky, unregulated investment strategies, and an staggering amount of crime.

The technology has promising applications. It's not clear that it's superior to existing alternatives (at least not enough that we're seeing many big moves to use it and publicize it's use). The Internet took 30+ years, granted "the start of the Internet" could be debated. Were we to do some word replacements Internet to radio, and Bitcoin to Internet your words would sound just as accurate following the dot-com bust…

I mean... it's a ledger with an incremental attestation mechanism. It's a subset of a Merkle Tree. That's about it. There are some deeply technocratic applications for such a thing, such as: slightly better chain-of-custody tracking, identifying regions of large datasets that have been modified, etc.

The idea was patented in 1979.

That's how old it actually is, and it's found its way into numerous useful things. However, exactly zero of them have been as revolutionary or transformative as say the automobile or the internet and are about a million more orders of magnitude short of all the promises made by people using it as a means to burn electricity to sustain a marketplace addicted to financialization instead of actual productivity.

Disclaimer: has dealt with Merkle Trees and cryptographic assurance in distributed database, global payments (root of trust & settlement), and safety-critical systems use cases.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#208

Post by jduckles »

bag_boy wrote: post #189

I think Helium is a pretty well known, real-world blockchain project. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/technology/helium-cryptoc...

Oh yeah Helium...that blockchain with a whopping $78k in annual revenue and a $2.1-billion valuation. [1] They're just paying venture money to hotspot owners at this point. There is no functioning business model.

[1] - https://twitter.com/liron/status/1551738599254773765

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#209

Post by matthewdgreen »

simonw wrote: post #26
hash872 wrote: post #14

I have an extremely low opinion of blockchain/crypto, but in the interest of fairness, I did read an FT piece a few months ago about how banks are apparently actually using the blockchain for currency trading: "HSBC and Wells Fargo are cutting out a key part of the currency market’s infrastructure from some trades after the two banks agreed to settle transactions directly on blockchain technology. From Monday, they w…

That sounds to me like someone used excitement about "blockchain" as an excuse to upgrade a two-decades old system to something a bit more modern. It looks like it's a private blockchain shared between two (at the moment) institutions, which means it's probably being used basically as an append-only log.

A blockchain is an append-only log. Upgrading ancient technology is a huge use-case for blockchain tech. The advantage of this platform is that settlement is probably much faster and it will presumably be relatively easy to add more than two parties to the system, without running into gnarly trust issues.

Re: I Looked into 34 Top Real-World Blockchain Projects So You Don’t Have To

#210

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #163
spicymaki wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bitcoin an investment or a currency? I don't think it can be both. If the value of bitcoin as speculative asset is going to rise, then it is best to not spend it, but to hoard it. If everyone is hoarding bitcoin how can you use it to buy things? If it is a currency then it needs to have a stable value. If the value stabilizes, then no one will want to invest in it. Since it does not have any "real" commodity value…

Is there not an entire currency speculation market? [0] > When speculative investing involves the purchase of a foreign currency, it is known as currency speculation. In this scenario, an investor buys a currency in an effort to later sell that currency at an appreciated rate, as opposed to an investor who buys a currency in order to pay for an import or to finance a foreign investment. [0] https://www.investopedia.c…

I don't think it's reasonable to think about it in such a simplistic way.

BTC has been subject to massive swings. Just looking at CoinDesk, it was easy to find a time where it doubled in value in less than a month. Why would any reasonable person spend that sort asset?

I think the dynamics of the market are as important as the technical features that some digital currency has.

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