Another one bites the dust

[M.W.]

What is the utility again of the blockchain? The internet made communication, commerce, and information gathering lightyears more efficient. The automobile allowed getting from A to B more comfortably and much faster. What does the blockchain provide in real-life utility? I can't see it, I want to consider true utility but so far I have not come across any.

Meta imo is a total hoax, we are already able to collaborate and work in a virtual environment either via VR or AR, chat, conference apps, video call apps,...payments we can already make in highly efficient and cost effective ways. My ownership rights are already protected via patents and other IP safeguards.

If you are trying to make the case that the blockchain may bring a few improvements here and there then I can see that. But nowhere does it offer any revolutionary ideas nor landmark improvements in how we live life. Completely empty promises that were never backed up by any intelligent reasoning and arguments...

This industry is so hard to get your head around bc 90%+ is prob vaporware with no real use case (and hence no real future), but the other 10% can change the world.

We really need to normalize bitcoin vs crypto. Totally different things IMO.

It's really not dissimilar to the Internet in the early days, the internet was a big deal but 90%+ of the companies went to 0 (looking at you pets.com). A difference is this time you can actually buy a piece of the base layer "internet" (bitcoin) instead of speculating which apps (website/alt coins) will survive.

 

[FreeGoldRush]

What is the utility again of the blockchain?

No counterparty risk. There isn't an intermediary or central authority for transactions that must be trusted. Fees dramatically lower, especially for complex contracts. Wall Street pulls hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy every year just to grease the wheels of trade. Blockchain makes the vast majority of that go away.

 

[M.W.]

That actually increases counterparty risk, not reduces it. Why do you think we have an options clearing house? For large exchanges/barter there are plenty escrow services that minimize the risk of trade between two counterparties, C2C. Blockchain may marginally improve the efficiencies but it nowhere offers the outlandish promises of revolutionizing our lives...

Fees won't be lower, you already see that the fees of financial transmissions are not lower than through the fiat system. You still need operators to run a blockchain, whether the actual transaction are decentralized or not. Those operators are not stupid and they may net net offer slightly lower total cost of transacting but not significantly lower. So, your claim of vast savings is illusory. Total global trade last year as 23 trillion. The few billion the financial services industry charges to move money around is exactly the 1-2% you pay for your transactions. This fee will not be much lower with or without blockchain.

No counterparty risk. There isn't an intermediary or central authority for transactions that must be trusted. Fees dramatically lower, especially for complex contracts. Wall Street pulls hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy every year just to grease the wheels of trade. Blockchain makes the vast majority of that go away.

 

[FreeGoldRush]

That actually increases counterparty risk, not reduces it. Why do you think we have an options clearing house? For large exchanges/barter there are plenty escrow services that minimize the risk of trade between two counterparties, C2C. Blockchain may marginally improve the efficiencies but it nowhere offers the outlandish promises of revolutionizing our lives...

We have clearing houses because we need a trusted intermediary to make the transaction work. With blockchain the transaction is mathematically guaranteed to work. A clearing house would just add risk and cost. You do not have to trust your counterparty to fulfill a contract. Blockchain enforces it mathematically.

I saw this exact same thing happen with the Internet. Most people had a very hard time getting their heads around new concepts such as buying things online. They absolutely "knew" that you had to walk into the store to make the transaction work safely. And it took years to get old people to realize the new forces that were at play.

Totally geek out on smart contracts. It is absolutely revolutionary.

"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain

 

[M.W.]

I agree with you but again this would reduce transaction costs by a few basis points, the blockchain still needs to be maintained and managed, we still need operators at the end nodes of each side and we do need operators that formulate the parameters of each transaction. There is a vast technology overhead that must be financially covered that will add up to costs that are insignificantly lower than what we currently pay. Nothing so far convinces me that costs will be so significantly lower that operators in this space can command billion dollar valuations. The reason those operations are valued in the billions of dollars is because they generate billions of dollars in revenues and earnings for their shareholders, guess who pays for that? You and I.

We have clearing houses because we need a trusted intermediary to make the transaction work. With blockchain the transaction is mathematically guaranteed to work. A clearing house would just add risk and cost. You do not have to trust your counterparty to fulfill a contract. Blockchain enforces it mathematically.

I saw this exact same thing happen with the Internet. Most people had a very hard time getting their heads around new concepts such as buying things online. They absolutely "knew" that you had to walk into the store to make the transaction work safely. And it took years to get old people to realize the new forces that were at play.

Totally geek out on smart contracts. It is absolutely revolutionary.

"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain

 

[guest_trader_1]

Blockchain is a glorified distributed database. Replications of data storages have been around for at least twenty years already. Just discuss blockchain with any computer scientist, they will immediately say: "nothing new, just a fancy name"

Every crypto boy came across blockchain because of Bitcoin, and they speak about it like it is some kind of revolutionary technology that will fix everything. If you understand what it is, you will see that it won't change anything. We already had distributed databases before blockchain appeared.

Just look at any streaming service, they all use some kind of distributed database with replication at several locations, they don't call it blockchain but it is pretty much the same technology.

Regarding trading and politics, once we are able to remove the middle man we will see a real improvement, I doubt that will change anytime soon.

This is the way to change things, remove people in charge in order to avoid corruption:
https://mezha.media/en/2022/10/15/t...etic-party-is-led-by-artificial-intelligence/

 

[M.W.]

I cannot agree more with you. It is not blockchain technology that revolutionizes things in the short to medium term, the biggest potential and also threat (depending on which side of the table you sit at) is artificial intelligence and further automation and hence improvement in the quality and efficiency of services as well as further losses of jobs for humans. This is what will revolutionize life and work in our life times...

When the most extreme crypto fan boys start shorting cryptos then you know that the balloon exploded and all the hot air is out. We will now see broad based consolidation in the crypto space at best. The worst outcome will be if regulators discover that the tokens were not backed and investors won't get their investments returned to them that were originally promised.

It is hilarious to read how our fan boys made 1500 shorting a crypto and at the same time lost tens of thousands of dollars (he claimed to always hold at least 10 bitcoin) in the past few days alone....correction: 40,000 USD in less than 24 hours...lol

Blockchain is a glorified distributed database. Replications of data storages have been around for at least twenty years already. Just discuss blockchain with any computer scientist, they will immediately say: "nothing new, just a fancy name"

Every crypto boy came across blockchain because of Bitcoin, and they speak about it like it is some kind of revolutionary technology that will fix everything. If you understand what it is, you will see that it won't change anything. We already had distributed databases before blockchain appeared.

Just look at any streaming service, they all use some kind of distributed database with replication at several locations, they don't call it blockchain but it is pretty much the same technology.

Regarding trading and politics, once we are able to remove the middle man we will see a real improvement, I doubt that will change anytime soon.

This is the way to change things, remove people in charge in order to avoid corruption:
https://mezha.media/en/2022/10/15/t...etic-party-is-led-by-artificial-intelligence/

 

[2rosy]

Regarding trading and politics, once we are able to remove the middle man we will see a real improvement, I doubt that will change anytime soon.

blockchain makes this easier with smart contracts (escrow services, market makers, lotteries, insurance policies, auctions ...). NFTs would be good for real world real estate titles or titles of anything. Just with that you automated away many people

 

[FreeGoldRush]

I agree with you but again this would reduce transaction costs by a few basis points, the blockchain still needs to be maintained and managed, we still need operators at the end nodes of each side and we do need operators that formulate the parameters of each transaction.

Have you studied smart contracts on the blockchain? The things you are describing essentially go away.

 

[guest_trader_1]

blockchain makes this easier with smart contracts (escrow services, market makers, lotteries, insurance policies, auctions ...). NFTs would be good for real world real estate titles or titles of anything. Just with that you automated away many people

NFTs ...

Of course, how could I have missed that?