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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?

#61

Post by hiq »

seibelj wrote: post #44
bruce511 wrote: post #13

He misses the two main use cases, and the two things that crypto are used for that dwarfs everything else. A) it's a great speculative asset. Huge volatility in value means fortunes can be made (and lost) in days not lifetimes. All those crypto ads on the radio talk about "investing" in Bitcoin - marketing it as an asset, not about using it as currency. It appears to be a zero sum game. I'll make no judgement about i…

I paid a contractor in Vietnam to do a side project for me once in a stablecoin. Because it avoided the central bank, they could avoid the stealing of their hard currency via the standard international payment system. One beneficial use case from the US perspective is further global dominance of USD (if you are into that sort of thing). This limits the ability of corrupt governments from inflating their fiat, which i…

> Because it avoided the central bank, they could avoid the stealing of their hard currency via the standard international payment system.

How much was paid in fees in total, from your currency to theirs (I assume VND)? If it's a USD stablecoin, I assume they still had to convert it to VND, or at least they'd have to if they were paid mostly like this (to pay their taxes).

Wise and others are quite cheap for the currencies they support.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#62

Post by latchkey »

wmf wrote: post #22
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #10

Helium as an incentive for the LoRaWAN network is the killer app for crypto. People are building a world wide LoT network. It's all decentralized. It's all being created by people who earn helium as a reward. I think the same model can be duplicated for other needs. If we give it time we'll see more solutions being created using the same model.

Does Helium have any usage yet? I heard they're charging higher prices than cellular carriers.

Does it have to be a lower price if it works better?

Uber / Lyft is often more expensive than taxis, once the VC funding dried up.

That said, I still generally prefer shared rides cause it is an easy app to pull up on my phone.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#63

Post by aeternum »

jrumbut wrote: post #58
flaque wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “can you come up with something that will see mainstream use that eclipses the toxic speculation that's perceived to characterize every crypto application“ This is a far better question to put to crypto. The article isn’t attempting to address that question though. My bet is “yes”, at maybe 80% confidence. I would say it’s fairly difficult to see though, because speculative projects grow very quickly and dwarf “nor…

But if the speculative use cases dwarf the normal ones, won't their interests come first? Why would I want to hitch my wagon to that star? What will happen if the speculation dies down and the ledger isn't so widely distributed anymore?

>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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#64

Post by mrweasel »

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.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#65

Post by latchkey »

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.

It is kind of entertaining to see how many profiles on HN still have their keybase identity in them.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#66

Post by WatchDog »

bruce511 wrote: post #13

He misses the two main use cases, and the two things that crypto are used for that dwarfs everything else. A) it's a great speculative asset. Huge volatility in value means fortunes can be made (and lost) in days not lifetimes. All those crypto ads on the radio talk about "investing" in Bitcoin - marketing it as an asset, not about using it as currency. It appears to be a zero sum game. I'll make no judgement about i…

Adding to B, it's also great for money laundering and avoiding sanctions.

If you are a Russian oligarch, it's great for being able to pay your superyacht crew.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#67

Post by seibelj »

hiq wrote: post #61
seibelj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid a contractor in Vietnam to do a side project for me once in a stablecoin. Because it avoided the central bank, they could avoid the stealing of their hard currency via the standard international payment system. One beneficial use case from the US perspective is further global dominance of USD (if you are into that sort of thing). This limits the ability of corrupt governments from inflating their fiat, which i…

> Because it avoided the central bank, they could avoid the stealing of their hard currency via the standard international payment system. How much was paid in fees in total, from your currency to theirs (I assume VND)? If it's a USD stablecoin, I assume they still had to convert it to VND, or at least they'd have to if they were paid mostly like this (to pay their taxes). Wise and others are quite cheap for the curr…

I’m extremely deep in this space, so I will provide some more anecdotes.

A lot of the Chinese crypto engineers (of which there are many) are paid in USDT. This avoids all of the capital controls and knowledge the state has. There is an entire subculture of Chinese who operate their businesses in USDT, mostly digital ones but it has bled into the physical world as well. In Hong Kong duffel bags full of paper currency would be swapped for USDT by various money changers.

A lot of people look at crypto and see what’s on the surface. The easy, instant movement of essentially unlimited money without government oversight and intervention is scaring many authoritarian governments. See the total ban on crypto by the Chinese dictatorship.

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#69

Post by usrusr »

charcircuit wrote: post #47
ogogmad wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>You can't use these "DeFi loans" to buy a house in the real world. Sure you can. Take out a loan, convert it to USD at an exchange, withdraw into your bank account, buy a house.

Only if you already had the money equivalent in the first place. Whatever you used as collateral will be something the other side would have gladly bought for the same amount. It's a speculative transaction between you and the other side that is completely unrelated to the house.

In real life, the collateral for the loan you use to buy a house is that house itself, something you did not own before (and arguably not before you are done paying back to mortgage).

Re: Where are all the crypto use cases?

#70

Post by latchkey »

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…

> 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 at this point.

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