The endless search for a crypto use case
networked.substack.com
The endless search for a crypto use case
1–10 of 272 posts
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#2Are we there yet?
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#3I mean it has good use cases they're not just the ones that scheme promoters want to be true. I know TFA pokes some holes in the censorship resistance attribute of bitcoin but i think everyone can agree it does provide value transfer solution that is much harder to block than Visa/Stripe/etc.
1). Silk Road or dark net markets in general. Can't be done with Visa or other existing solutions at any kind of scale
2). Funding of political dissidents. Wikileaks, canadian truckers, etc. These people got blocked by traditional payment providers but still received crypto. (there are still other obstacles for dissidents but at least this solves 1)
3). Money laundering. Find someone who sells bitcoin miners, buy them with dirty money and use them to mine bitcoin sent to fresh address not tied to your other activity.
4). Uniswap and maybe flash loans in defi seems like new things I haven't seen in tradfi or elsewhere. Maybe some cool promise here
I'm sure they're others. But I think the key common thread is that all of them require censorship resistance. If what you're doing isn't likely to be censored by authorities then you're being incredibly wasteful by using blockchain
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#4The only use, which is enough, is to subvert those who claim authority over others.
A specific example is committing crimes: buying or selling drugs, money laundering, tax evasion, etc.. but maybe its building a nest egg to help escape an abusive relationship or God knows what. Hiding money from some sort of extortion.
Most "crypto" isn't hidden, it isn't crypto. It's gimmicky marketing. Not currency either.
Fully fungible (all units equal) crypto (hidden) currency (means of exchange, store of value) is incredibly useful. Everyone understands why untraceable money that you can send cheaply, globally and securely in an instant is useful.
Monero, maybe not the best or final ideal tech, but it has real utility.
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#5> In crypto, on the other hand, you can speculate on shitcoins and make bets in DeFi, and that’s about it.
Giant long article and only one small mention of DeFi (which I'd argue is a great use case, despite all the hacks going on) and it isn't even accurate. DeFi isn't about betting.
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#6The practical use case is pretty simple - being able to hold large sums of money yourself securely while being able to move it to who/where ever you want in less than an hour, 24/7, no questions asked.
Before Bitcoin it was practically impossible to do this without a bank as an intermediary and even then would require large fees, talking with people, lots of hang ups, just to manage your own money.
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#7I agree with basically everything here. There two fundamental problems here:
1. Crypto is being designed by smart engineers who fully understand the financial system. Specifically they don’t understand why it is the way it is. It didn’t just magically appear this way full of obvious flaws. It grew over thousands of years; and
2. Most of the people pushing crypto are honestly just trying to get rich quick. Most missed out on the Bitcoin wealth transfer so they are eager to jump on or create the next Bitcoin. And pretty much all of them have a vested interest in convincing you.
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#8There is only one use case and that is the originally intended use, as a currency completely decoupled from any one country’s monetary meddling and thus liberating the populace from poor central planners and/or authoritarians. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#9ENS (Ethereum Name Service) [0], Handshake (An experimental peer-to-peer root naming system.) are so far the only valid use-cases and a need for a blockchain.
Unless you want a repeat of this [2] or this [3] with .io or someone on the other end changing the domain or address from one to another whenever they want to.
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677
[3] https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all...
Re: The endless search for a crypto use case
#10I mean it has good use cases they're not just the ones that scheme promoters want to be true. I know TFA pokes some holes in the censorship resistance attribute of bitcoin but i think everyone can agree it does provide value transfer solution that is much harder to block than Visa/Stripe/etc. 1). Silk Road or dark net markets in general. Can't be done with Visa or other existing solutions at any kind of scale 2). Fun…
So illegal stuff. Ok.
While there might be cases you consider moral or ethical even though they’re illegal I’m not sure I’d consider this a net positive or any reason to think crypto will enjoy mass adoption.