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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?

#31

Post by Nursie »

hattmall wrote: post #26

The best use case I know of is Handshake. A domain name system that would be resistant to seizures and censorship. Domains are purchased and a fee is paid which gives a sustainable reason for the coin to have value. Though I think the same thing could be accomplished on Ethereum with web3. Of course running your own or shared DNS can have the same value, but I think Blockchain is a legitimate case for decentralizing…

Is there oversight? Does this do an end run around (for instance) trademark law?

I'm not casting judgement when saying this, but if there isn't a governing body then that's attractive to some people but a huge red flag for others.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#32

Post by danielmarkbruce »

mike741 wrote: post #25
chowells wrote: post #11

This is the strawman-iest strawman I've seen in a long time. By this logic, there's a use case for getting stabbed in a back alley. Some people need surgery, after all. The proper question is what does cryptocurrency do better than alternatives? On the whole... I think bypassing financial controls to enable ransomware is not an improvement on the previous system.

> The proper question is what does cryptocurrency do better than alternatives? Bitcoin, as one example, does a better job limiting supply and preventing inflation than its fiat alternatives. Of course, this doesn't make the article any less of a strawman.

If you define inflation as the devaluing of the currency, it doesn't really.... The mechanism by which a currency loses value matters little.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#33

Post by nappy »

christopherwxyz wrote: post #9
nappy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm missing something here, this is insurance, not lending.

Both products are lotteries with premiums.

They are categorically different. The issuer of an insurance policy does not bear risk upfront. Insurance policies are not collateralized.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#34

Post by nl »

tptacek wrote: post #8

If these are powerful use cases, you probably won't need to inform us about them; we'll all be using Filecoin instead of S3, or Radicle instead of Gitlab. Instead of "here are some popular use cases", you'll say "you rely on crypto every day, in order to access this structured knowledge graph thing everyone uses". If replacing S3 and Github are the strongest cases you can make, I'm dubious: I don't doubt there are pe…

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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#35

Post by TameAntelope »

> It's wrong though. Or at least, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny because it isn't falsifiable. If you firmly believe this claim, there's no new information you could learn that would cause you to update your belief towards the negative.

Point of order, but "There are no use cases for crypto." is absolutely a falsifiable statement, and in fact this article goes on to falsify it.

Even "There are no powerful use cases for crypto." is falsifiable along the same lines (it's arguable if the article successfully falsifies this statement, however).

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#36

Post by chowells »

max_ wrote: post #28
chowells wrote: post #11

This is the strawman-iest strawman I've seen in a long time. By this logic, there's a use case for getting stabbed in a back alley. Some people need surgery, after all. The proper question is what does cryptocurrency do better than alternatives? On the whole... I think bypassing financial controls to enable ransomware is not an improvement on the previous system.

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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#37

Post by guerrilla »

mike741 wrote: post #25
chowells wrote: post #11

This is the strawman-iest strawman I've seen in a long time. By this logic, there's a use case for getting stabbed in a back alley. Some people need surgery, after all. The proper question is what does cryptocurrency do better than alternatives? On the whole... I think bypassing financial controls to enable ransomware is not an improvement on the previous system.

> The proper question is what does cryptocurrency do better than alternatives? Bitcoin, as one example, does a better job limiting supply and preventing inflation than its fiat alternatives. Of course, this doesn't make the article any less of a strawman.

> 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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#38

Post by tptacek »

nl wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #8

If these are powerful use cases, you probably won't need to inform us about them; we'll all be using Filecoin instead of S3, or Radicle instead of Gitlab. Instead of "here are some popular use cases", you'll say "you rely on crypto every day, in order to access this structured knowledge graph thing everyone uses". If replacing S3 and Github are the strongest cases you can make, I'm dubious: I don't doubt there are pe…

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.

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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#40

Post by throwawaymaths »

ogogmad wrote: post #27
AlexandrB wrote: post #2

This article seems like it's reaching. I don't think "money" accurately describes what cryptocurrency is because most people who use USD don't trade on the FOREX markets, but most cryptocurrency users are primarily focused on the exchange rate of BTC to USD, not it's functionality as a currency. It's better described as a security, and while it can be used as a medium of exchange its volatility can make that expensiv…

> Right now, you can take out a loan without involving a bank from one of the many crypto lending protocols. You put up some collateral and can take out a loan for extremely cheap, because there isn't a bank in the middle to take a cut. "Loan" is a very misleading description of what this is. This is margin trading. A loan is when you post a non-liquid asset in the real world -- like a house -- as collateral. Margin…

Loans do not need collateral, for example educational loans.
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