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If you look beyond the most vocal proponents you will see a range of opinions. I do think it will, over the next 10-20 years, completely revolutionize how we t

If you look beyond the most vocal proponents you will see a range of opinions. I do think it will, over the next 10-20 years, completely revolutionize how we think about digital assets and digital currency. For the average user it might not be any different than paying with Apple Pay. But there will be other novel applications and companies that emerge from this space much like what occurred in the years after the dot com boom.

colechristensen 4y ago
I really doubt crypto will have anything like the impact of the rise of the Internet in the 90s. There hasn't yet been a killer application besides money laundering and speculation bubbles. It's been long enough and there has been nothing but toy applications outside of people specifically trying to evade laws in various jurisdictions. The actual applications are just going to be boring. Holding on to crypto personally for actually paying for things is awful, and worse than cash. Not only can someone take it from me with violence, they can also take it from me because of inevitable software bugs. If there's a centralized account with an institution, it isn't at all different than an account with a bank with dollars. And it becomes easier to see my entire spending history for anybody that sells me something unless I actively launder my money.
- 676234e117 4y ago
  It may never meet the impact of the web but held to that standard, maybe no technology ever will. The killer application is Ethereum and the ideas it has spawned, including new global financial instruments like stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, NFTs.. and cryptography like zk-STARKs and MPC. With PoS and privacy enabled rollups this technology can certainly disrupt and compete with today’s popular payment processors in the next few years. But yes, the most successful consumer applications will probably be boring, like PayPal or Apple or Stripe adding blockchain based mechanisms under the hood.
  - coconuthacker42 4y ago
    what i dont get is that how can the people who want blockchain adoption not see that their decentralised currency is no good if its in-gates are controlled by a few very centralised companies?
    - 676234e117 4y ago
      In the current electronic fiat system, a few companies control both the gates and the network. Crypto at the moment decentralizes the control of the network, which is already a step forward. Crypto can also be used to decentralize control of the gates, such as allowing goods services and taxes to be paid in USDC and DAI, so that there is less need to use a CEX. But there are regulatory and technical barriers that prevent this from happening right now. The people who want blockchain adoption ideally would like to see those barriers to be overcome.
  - Yizahi 4y ago
    - stablecoins - this one is thousands years old, because it's essentially IOUs. Nothing new or special, excepts of course Giancarlo's token printer :) . - DEX - sure, new thing. We all see how it works out. This is what, 5th DEX exploit just this year? And I'm talking only about big exploits. - NFT - literally useless junk build on lies and insane lies. I dare you to name even one area which NFT can improve. - cryptography - maybe, I don't know. Though I suspect that those developments can be simply self serving for token industry and not really transferable to other industries. - BigCorp adding blockchain - why though? What would they get by introducing a private, inefficient, slow and not user friendly (users = employees of those corps) data storage? Private BC completely defeats all its small promises about decentralisation or privacy etc.
    - 676234e117 4y ago
      - ERC20 stablecoins are not a paper IOU but ok. - all these protocols are beta software, less than a few years old. Uniswap as one of the oldest is probably also the most secure. - NFT: ability to hold custody over a digital record without relying on a single private company's servers to uphold that. But I expect you will move the goalposts... - Cryptography: take a minute to look at developments in ZKP, MPC, new signature schemes. Many uses outside of pure blockchain[1]. - BigCorp: because they can extract value from it. If 5% of Shopify or PayPal users want to use crypto payments, the company can support that method and charge rent on it. Or they can ignore crypto, and let another company absorb the potential revenue. But because they like profit, this is why we see Shopify, Stripe, and PayPal all integrating crypto currency. [1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-zero-knowledge-proofs-for-private-web-attestation-with-cross-multi-vendor-hardware/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-zero-knowledge-proof...
shreyshnaccount 4y ago
except what stops apple and google from building basically the same features and also having full control over them? and you bet that people would rather use apple <whatever> than shady crypto scam <whatever> if they really want to. the takeaway is that crypto is going to change practically nothing and produces nothing of value anyway.
- 676234e117 4y ago
  Facebook already tried this, it was called Libra.
  - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
    except facebook doesn't already have something like gpay or apple pay that's widely used to integrate it with...
    - 676234e117 4y ago
      Nothing stops tech companies from building crypto wallets or services that hold custody over users funds, a lot of them are already doing that. Building a new blockchain where they fully control the network and its features is harder.
      - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
        look at atm cards. thaeres like 4 major players globally, controlling everything. I'm not talking about big tech building crypto wallets, I'm talking about them building features similar to what blockchains can do- fake DAOs, fake NFTs etc. the point I'm trying to make is that the end result of all these features doesn't inherently need a blockchain if a major player wants to build them

colechristensen 4y ago

I really doubt crypto will have anything like the impact of the rise of the Internet in the 90s. There hasn't yet been a killer application besides money laundering and speculation bubbles. It's been long enough and there has been nothing but toy applications outside of people specifically trying to evade laws in various jurisdictions. The actual applications are just going to be boring. Holding on to crypto personally for actually paying for things is awful, and worse than cash. Not only can someone take it from me with violence, they can also take it from me because of inevitable software bugs. If there's a centralized account with an institution, it isn't at all different than an account with a bank with dollars. And it becomes easier to see my entire spending history for anybody that sells me something unless I actively launder my money.

676234e117 4y ago
It may never meet the impact of the web but held to that standard, maybe no technology ever will. The killer application is Ethereum and the ideas it has spawned, including new global financial instruments like stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, NFTs.. and cryptography like zk-STARKs and MPC. With PoS and privacy enabled rollups this technology can certainly disrupt and compete with today’s popular payment processors in the next few years. But yes, the most successful consumer applications will probably be boring, like PayPal or Apple or Stripe adding blockchain based mechanisms under the hood.
- coconuthacker42 4y ago
  what i dont get is that how can the people who want blockchain adoption not see that their decentralised currency is no good if its in-gates are controlled by a few very centralised companies?
  - 676234e117 4y ago
    In the current electronic fiat system, a few companies control both the gates and the network. Crypto at the moment decentralizes the control of the network, which is already a step forward. Crypto can also be used to decentralize control of the gates, such as allowing goods services and taxes to be paid in USDC and DAI, so that there is less need to use a CEX. But there are regulatory and technical barriers that prevent this from happening right now. The people who want blockchain adoption ideally would like to see those barriers to be overcome.
- Yizahi 4y ago
  - stablecoins - this one is thousands years old, because it's essentially IOUs. Nothing new or special, excepts of course Giancarlo's token printer :) . - DEX - sure, new thing. We all see how it works out. This is what, 5th DEX exploit just this year? And I'm talking only about big exploits. - NFT - literally useless junk build on lies and insane lies. I dare you to name even one area which NFT can improve. - cryptography - maybe, I don't know. Though I suspect that those developments can be simply self serving for token industry and not really transferable to other industries. - BigCorp adding blockchain - why though? What would they get by introducing a private, inefficient, slow and not user friendly (users = employees of those corps) data storage? Private BC completely defeats all its small promises about decentralisation or privacy etc.
  - 676234e117 4y ago
    - ERC20 stablecoins are not a paper IOU but ok. - all these protocols are beta software, less than a few years old. Uniswap as one of the oldest is probably also the most secure. - NFT: ability to hold custody over a digital record without relying on a single private company's servers to uphold that. But I expect you will move the goalposts... - Cryptography: take a minute to look at developments in ZKP, MPC, new signature schemes. Many uses outside of pure blockchain[1]. - BigCorp: because they can extract value from it. If 5% of Shopify or PayPal users want to use crypto payments, the company can support that method and charge rent on it. Or they can ignore crypto, and let another company absorb the potential revenue. But because they like profit, this is why we see Shopify, Stripe, and PayPal all integrating crypto currency. [1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-zero-knowledge-proofs-for-private-web-attestation-with-cross-multi-vendor-hardware/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-zero-knowledge-proof...

shreyshnaccount 4y ago

except what stops apple and google from building basically the same features and also having full control over them? and you bet that people would rather use apple <whatever> than shady crypto scam <whatever> if they really want to. the takeaway is that crypto is going to change practically nothing and produces nothing of value anyway.

676234e117 4y ago
Facebook already tried this, it was called Libra.
- shreyshnaccount 4y ago
  except facebook doesn't already have something like gpay or apple pay that's widely used to integrate it with...
  - 676234e117 4y ago
    Nothing stops tech companies from building crypto wallets or services that hold custody over users funds, a lot of them are already doing that. Building a new blockchain where they fully control the network and its features is harder.
    - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
      look at atm cards. thaeres like 4 major players globally, controlling everything. I'm not talking about big tech building crypto wallets, I'm talking about them building features similar to what blockchains can do- fake DAOs, fake NFTs etc. the point I'm trying to make is that the end result of all these features doesn't inherently need a blockchain if a major player wants to build them