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Where are all the crypto use cases?

evanjconrad.com

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Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#171

Post by somebodythere »

radicalbyte wrote: post #98
nl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think self sovereign identity (ie, what Keybase did but standardized and anchored on a public blockchain rather than a private database) is an interesting consumer-facing technology that is crypto based and isn't a scam. Identity plays are tricky commercially but there do seem to be some interesting shoots of growth around it.

Nah, SSI is interesting but it has absolutely 0 need for a blockchain. It's just another case of a solution looking for a problem. The only reason anyone cares about blockchain is because of the ability to speculate. Remove that and it's a tiny niche tech - which certainly has use cases but nothing you can build a Facebook or Google around.

A blockchain also allows software programs to interact with each other in an uncensorable way, and ensures that those programs operate the way their source code says it does. It may be a niche technology, but I think these properties are useful for a bunch of types of apps.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#172

Post by pcthrowaway »

ahtihn wrote: post #97
WatchDog wrote: post #73

How are cryptocurrency loans supposed to work? If I need own enough crypto assets as collateral to cover the loan value, whats the point in getting a loan?

Same point as getting a margin loan against your stocks. Leverage.

Also avoiding taxable events, and keeping a desirable position

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#173

Post by nly »

WatchDog wrote: post #59
woopwoop wrote: post #43

> Crypto is successful at being money. If you don't believe me, then I'm happy to sell you the laptop I'm writing this on for 1,000 ETH instead of 1,000 USD. Ford F-150s are successful at being money. If you don't believe me, then I'm happy to sell you the laptop I'm writing this on for 1,000 Ford F-150s instead of 1,000 USD.

The counter argument might be that Ford F-150s aren't particularly fungible. A slightly stronger example might be gold, but people don't use gold as money anymore either.

Anything perceived to have a stable value, is fungible, and is easy to move can be used as money. Just look at prisons.

Gold stopped be used as money because people weren't really using it, they were using tokens pegged to it under a promise. That promise went away. Gold isn't exactly fungible (purity, fake gold etc), and it isn't easy to move in significant quantities. Gold makes for absolutely shit money in the 21st century

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#174

Post by drdrek »

"Crypto is successful at being money. If you don't believe me, then I'm happy to sell you the laptop I'm writing this on for 1,000 ETH instead of 1,000 USD." Lol, Great reasoning! ll happily give you 1000ETH for 1000 1K gold bars! I'll throw in a laptop for free! Pretty indicative of the level of thought invested in writing this.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#175

Post by captn3m0 »

somebodythere wrote: post #157
shafyy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you're responding to, but my view on this is: Having one online identity that is publicly viewable by everbody is a privacy nightmare. Yes, I know that it's pseudonymous, but it's possible for a sufficiently motivated entity to find out who is behind a pseudonym.

Zero-knowledge cryptography allows you to post opaque data to the blockchain and selectively reveal properties of it to chosen people and applications. For example, a zero-knowledge DID can generate a proof to an age-restricted application that you are over 18, without necessarily revealing your birthdate or any other information about yourself.

And this is already covered by the DID/VC W3C specs that don’t need a blockchain. An age restriction in particular will _always require the blessing of a central party_.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#176

Post by whatisweb3 »

bsaul wrote: post #158
shp0ngle wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto has exactly one such usecase. Darknet markets. Lots of drugs and lots of illegal materials are bought and sold using crypto, like stolen cards and child porn. So, “if you are child porn enthusiast, you are maybe using cryptocurrency” might be a valid usecase. However I don’t know how prevalent crypto is in any of these. I haven’t read any studies on it, and they might be hard to do. I don’t think any of the bi…

i believe it's true, however i distinctly remember that france's ancestor to internet ( called "minitel") first use was prostitution related, yet it also spawned other usages like yellow pages and train reservations. What's surprising about crypto however, is that this "second wave" of usages should already start to appear by now, and yet we don't see any sign of them.

The “second wave” of crypto uses are already present for those using these networks. For average mass market appeal, we will not see it until PoS and privacy enabled scalable L2s reach maturity.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#177

Post by koonsolo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #165
koonsolo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to read my article, you can pay me 0.001 Nano (sub-second, 0 fee transaction), or you can pay me $0.001. Oh no wait, you can't pay me $0.001!

> Oh no wait, you can't pay me $0.001! Plenty of settlement systems permit arbitrary precisions of dollars. It’s just useless for day to day purposes for most people, so a consumer version never took off.

As stated by Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment): "One problem that has prevented the emergence of micropayment systems is a need to keep costs for individual transactions low,[2] which is impractical when transacting such small sums[3] even if the transaction fee is just a few cents."

0 fee solves this issue. I don't see any traditional system that does the same or better than Nano to be honest.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#178

Post by ogogmad »

soco wrote: post #164
aeternum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But if the speculative use cases dwarf the normal ones, won't their interests come first? They will initially but just as we saw the the early internet, a crash can wipe out the speculation pretty efficiently and what remains might actually be useful.

Which early internet crash event are you referring to?

The dot-com bubble that crashed circa 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

I'm not convinced that crypto is like the dot-com bubble. With the early web, its use cases were fairly clear and immediate. With crypto, the use cases remain unclear and speculative even after 13 years of hype and fanfare.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#179

Post by once_inc »

mbar84 wrote: post #132

The only use case for blockchain is money. Everything else is a scam. We only need one money, the one with the most dominant network effects. Right now, if it every happens, that money looks like it will be Bitcoin. This will take a while. How long it takes depends not so much on Bitcoin itself, but on how bad the competition undermines their use case as money. In the meantime, people may find it surprising that ther…

Most altcoins and defi products would have a very different incentive structure if built as a second or third layer on Bitcoin, because the incentive and ability for rugpulls is vastly degraded.
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