If you remain skeptical, that's fair. The good news is, Ethereum is reaching adulthood this year by switching to proof of stake and launching the web of layer-2 networks. Within another three years or so, the "actual applications" will become so ubiquitous as to be impossible to ignore.
I've tried to remain open minded for a long time on this issue, but honestly that list still looks really bad. At a glance, all the top companies seem to only be useful for coin trading/borrowing/lending/financialization.
Do you have any example of a use case with traction that serves a need not created by the existence of the cryptocurrency market itself?
For example, Eco is a non-crypto app that seeks to compete with CashApp, Venmo, and Apple Pay.
Although Eco is a fully non-crypto app, it is built on top of crypto rails.
Eco offers its users greater savings rates than traditional banks by using crypto to literally cut out the middlemen.
As well, Eco accounts are not FDIC insured-- but, I think that's a temporary downside of the current regulatory landscape. It seems like there's no reason why Eco accounts couldn't be FDIC insured in the future. Happily, the benefit of cutting out the middlemen is forever.
I think that's fair because right now, most or almost all crypto apps are circular.
Yet, I have found it useful to try and separate the fundamental innovations from the current set of assets being manipulated.
Here is a partial list of fundamental crypto innovations:
- non-custodial wallets in general to protect people from predatory institutions or governments
- smart contracts that always do what they say they'll do
- inherent global jurisdiction of blockchains, ie. borderless
- vastly reduced transaction costs to stand up and operate new, networked financial instruments and other kinds of digital asset systems (property registries, etc.)
The fact that these innovations are currently majority operated on dog money, Bitcoin, ETH, etc. is a temporary characteristic of this early stage of crypto's growth.
In the future, these same innovations will operate on everything in the economy.
For example, Tesla stock (backed by custodially-held physical shares, not synthetics) has been available on Solana for some time.
> non-custodial wallets in general to protect people from predatory institutions or governments
You can do that now by hiding money in your mattress. In both cases, it's not on you to protect your money, and a lot of people who are tech savvy have been failing to do so. Regular folks are going to get robbed often.
> smart contracts that always do what they say they'll do
Except when they don't, because they have a bug, and all the money is stolen.
> inherent global jurisdiction of blockchains, ie. borderless
This is only true if you are able to spend the money as cryptocurrency. Once you try converting that into fiat, you start hitting those borders really quickly.
> vastly reduced transaction costs
Except that the transaction costs are higher, on average, and especially so if you consider the fees for converting from fiat, and back to fiat.
> Tesla stock (backed by custodially-held physical shares, not synthetics) has been available on Solana for some time
Sure, but a financial institute is holding those shares. You could cut the middle-man here (the cryptocurrency) and just use the financial institution.
Thanks for that link. I've been long on BTC since the beginning, and I fully love the concept of crypto.
But busy with work (and I sold my startup 2 years ago) I went completely dark on the Crypto world. Now I'm trying to catch up with it and both DeFi and everything Layer 2 seem to be the future.
Which part? Could you say more? If you make a comment like this, I feel like it should be obvious what you mean, but it isn't at all obvious to me in this case.
There's a large subset of the talented people on HN that were wrong about crypto years ago-- they couldn't see that the casino and the innovation are, unfortunately, inseparable-- and many now cling to their original incorrect points of view, even as crypto is clearly changing the world like the internet did in the 90s and mobile in the 00s.
I have been full-time in crypto for years. I could write you a 10,000-word essay on crypto's promising use cases. But, I believe that you, and many others on HN, don't want to hear it.
That's too bad, because you guys grew up on sci-fi and rigor, and now you're ignoring that crypto is both rigorously successful and cypherpunk sci-fi come to life.
It’s pathetic because you’re just writing nonsense and can’t even describe anything practically productive about crypto. None.
By the way, I could ALSO write you 10,000 word salad about how commonly found stones can solve the wrongs in modern finance. That doesn’t say anything about common stones. It just says modern finance is FLAWED.
You are not showing yourself to be a person that it is worthwhile for this person to waste time on. There are other people in this thread with your point of view but who are commenting in good faith, rather than in bad faith like you are.
That is one kind of bad faith argument but there are others. In this case it is asserting that something is some adjective ("pathetic"), getting a response, and then just reasserting the same thing without responding to the response.
It was a bit brusque. I think that's the word you're looking for. If that's what bad faith means to you (which still seems a stretch of the definition so you can get the guidelines invoked and win the internet) then both sides of the discussion are guilty of this.
On the other side of the aisle, we have people pointing out that there aren't any interesting dApps, with the reply being:
"Sure there are! Here's a list dApps that are just more layers on moving cryptocurrency!"
That's only interesting if you assume the blockchain is valuable and interesting. This is a circular argument. Do you have anything better?
"Sure do! Here's a list dApps that are just more layers on moving cryptocurrency! Register on this site to hear me talk about NFTs!"
Is that "bad faith" too? I don't think so. There's a divide though, and it's a tiresome one. Some of us think the emperor has no clothes. Others think they are the best clothes ever. We probably all need our eyes checked.
There's a difference between "pointing out that there aren't any interesting dApps" and saying "This is just pathetic". The former is a reasonable point to make while the latter is a bad faith insult.
Instead of the thinly veiled ad hominem of trying to paint the user as a troll by crying "bad faith! bad faith!" Why didn't you provide some killer examples instead? This omission is as frequent as it is telling.
I am widely published inside the crypto industry on twitter and on a few podcasts over the years. For example, here is an episode on the many present & future uses of NFTs (episode requires a free Real Vision crypto account)
No, they were exactly right. In ten years, cryptocurrencies have produced nothing of value except speculation. This is like saying the Dutch that didn't sell their homes to buy into the tulip bulb craze were wrong. Sure, people have made huge gains, like all ponzi schemes generate. Most are bagholders, though.
> even as crypto is clearly changing the world like the internet did in the 90s and mobile in the 00s.
Crypto hasn't changed a single thing about the world. There is not a single popular thing backed by crypto. Every example you gave in this thread was either weak, like that DeFi Pulse link, or just straight not even using crypto, like Eco.
When you as an expert can't even identify a popular product using crypto at it's core, it doesn't speak very highly.
> I have been full-time in crypto for years. I could write you a 10,000-word essay on crypto's promising use cases. But, I believe that you, and many others on HN, don't want to hear it.
I am an actual cryptographer and would love to read world salad like that.
> That's too bad, because you guys grew up on sci-fi and rigor, and now you're ignoring that crypto is both rigorously successful and cypherpunk sci-fi come to life.
Stop. Libertarian dorks that don't understand the history of finance is hardly the sci-fi we want.
I've responded to several commenters who say this with my real world examples, the most notable of which are paying people in Venezuela to do work for me when most mainstream forms of monetary exchange are nearly impossible in/out of that country.
Venezuelan here. You're exaggerating the use of bitcoin in Venezuela. You might have paid some people with it but on the streets you use and want USD. Zelle, PayPal or USD in cash. No one wants another volatile currency, we've had enough of those.
I have not heard of that to be honest. What does happen is you might settle change with random stuff. Say you buy groceries for $8.50. You might pay half with a transfer in bolivares (local currency) and the rest with a $5 bill. Then they'll give you back a chocolate and a bar of soap as change as they might not have enough. It's bizarre
I am, uh, paying two contractors in Venezuela in cryptocurrency (not BTC) by their request. Not sure how I'm exaggerating it. Unless you think I'm only paying one contractor, I guess.
Why would that matter? Do you believe that you aren't transacting with USD when you buy something using the VISA network? Or with apple pay? Or a check?
There is a vast market for efficient, fast, and affordable methods of transferring money/wealth across political boundaries. Blockchain/crypto seems to be filling that niche for many people, myself included, without "speculation and crime" being a factor. There is no "remittance app" for it because you can do it with your pick of various widely available crypto coins and exchanges.
And after ten years, there isn't one actual application of cryptocurrencies except for speculation and crime.