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Where are all the crypto use cases?

evanjconrad.com

101–110 of 273 posts

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#101
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't use these "DeFi loans" to buy a house in the real world. You can if the person selling the house agrees to accept the token (likely some form of stablecoin). Whether that matches your definition of 'real world' or not, these things have happened already. We will probably see less of this in the US, but I can imagine someone in another country gladly accepting tokens. I don't see why this is so far fetched…

Accepting tokens isn't the issue. The issue is you can't put up the house you're going to buy as collateral for a DeFi loan. You need to have other crypto assets worth 1.5x or more than the house you're going to buy.

> The issue is you can't put up the house you're going to buy as collateral for a DeFi loan.

Of course not, you don't own it.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart contracts is what makes it possible.

They are neither smart, nor contracts. They are pieces of code written in an esoteric language running in world's most inefficient and expensive VMs where every single operation is billed to the user.

Oh yea, that's definitely the end of the world and can never be improved upon.

https://ewasm.readthedocs.io/en/mkdocs/

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#103
Certificate Transparency. Both Chrome and Safari implement it and you will receive an e-mail from Cloudflare if someone creates a certificate for your domain:

It is kind of a blockchain with proof of authority. More precisely it is a Merkle tree with certificate authorities seen as trusted nodes by the web browsers. This idea was extended in something called General Transparency and implemented in the Google Trillian project: https://sites.google.com/site/certificatetransparency/genera...

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin, as one example, does a better job limiting supply and preventing inflation than its fiat alternatives. You assume that's a plus, but most of the world acts on the opposite assumption, i.e. NAIRU-like policies. I'm not picking a side, just pointing out that you disagree with almost every expert on the planet.

> I'm not picking a side, just pointing out that you disagree with almost every expert on the planet. The beauty of crypto is that if you don't like this feature of crypto, you don't have to use it. Everyone gets what they want! The "experts" who prefer inflationary currency can keep using that, and people who don't want their money inflated can choose otherwise.

What was the price of a gallon of gas in BTC 6 months ago vs now? Inflation proof, you say?

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#105

Firstly: I’m annoyed that crypto now seems to be synonymous with “blockchain”, rather than cryptography. Secondly: Most of the blockchain use-case feel a little like the argument for Bittorrent. It’s not that you can’t use it for sensibel purposes, but when you do you’re solving problem most people don’t have.

I think bittorrent solves actually does solve a problem most people have. If we lived in a bittorrent using utopia, you would never have to set up a web server because you could just seed static websites from a couple home computers. Popular sites would never go down due to DDoS because their users could support them with their own bandwidth. I think that's the idea behind the newer protocols like IPFS.

I think cryptocurrency could be used to solve a micropayments problem, but I doubt it will ever catch on if it depends on internet companies' forward thinking and benevolence.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#106
post #42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a broken record on why I believe this is a distinctively bad use case for public blockchains, for whatever it's worth. But it doesn't matter that I think this use case is doomed; what matters is: it's not a serious mainstream thing right now. If it becomes one, you won't have to argue; it'll be self-evidently an important use case.

Sorry to make you repeat yourself, but we’re looking at DIDs and I’d like to know your arguments against them. Do you mind linking to a comment or summarizing?

DIDs have nothing to do with blockchains, it's just that some people are trying to hype DIDs by artificially linking them with blockchains. They use "crypto" but the "old kind", the good one: cryptography.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#107
post #96
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to make you repeat yourself, but we’re looking at DIDs and I’d like to know your arguments against them. Do you mind linking to a comment or summarizing?

Two words. Identity theft.

Could you elaborate a bit on that please? How would that pan out?

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like the reverse case where my app runs in other people's machines and I get paid in crypto whenm people use it. Is there such a thing?

Google: "accept crypto payments" For example: https://bitpay.com/online-payments/

Accepting isn't enough. The issue is nobody prices in coin.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#109
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC offers censorship resistant money.

And I'm saying that enabling ransomware is actually doing worse than the alternatives. It turns out censorship of transactions has value.

malware enables ransomware: the root of the problem isn't payment. the root of the problem is the widespread insecurity of modern computer systems.

You could just as equally blame cash for enabling robberies and conventional ransoms. Should the government step in to censor all cash transactions?

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#110
Digital art and collectibles with easy ownership and provenance guarantees. You can't do that any other way.

No, a centralized database doesn't cut it. Remember how you hate "buying" movies from Google or Amazon only for them to shut down the service down the line? Why would you not hate the same thing for art?

Also, now it's cheap. Just buy some and relax, guys. Let it go.

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