The central problem in this entire debate is two groups talking past each other. The skeptics say "what is it for?" expecting a detailed answer, and the response from crypto enthusiasts is vague and high level; most of what I hear is heavy on words like "revolutionize" and "decentralize" but very, very short on specifics. Or I get argument by analogy to other technologies.
If I heard a single use case where blockchain technology actually created real value in the world, and was better than other alternatives, I'd listen. But it has to create real value, based on the real world and not some fantastical notion of what money is or governments are for.
I think we skeptics want a grounded narrative, and we're stuck hearing a thesis statement and nothing to back it up.
I also find funny how all the fighters for the bright future, peace and rainbows are planning to become filthy rich in the process of making the world a better place. People like Vitalik and Charlie Lee (Litecoin) happily cashed out their coins into dirty filthy USD in 2018 and became millionaires. You remove the chance to become crazy rich and who really gonna stay there?
How about uncensorable donations? For example Wikileaks got blocked by banks and payment processors when they wrote about the war crimes the US committed.
The US could block the banks, but they could never block crypto donations.
Not now that companies like chainalysis exist: the transactions are on a public ledger. Monero was designed for private payments, and its value hasn't exploded like Bitcoin or Eth...
People this uninformed are somehow the vocal majority of blockchain talk on HackerNews. What a seriously embarrassing misconception which demonstrates ignorance on a fundamental level.
I've been in this space since very early on. I've yet to see another problem that crypto solves other than pseudo anonymous transactions, mostly valuable in the black market space.
Of course there are awesome use-cases, but the real problem of the skeptics is that they can't let go of their fiat.
Take Nano for example: sub-second, 0-fee transactions, of any amount, to any (unbanked) person in the world. Of course, there is no way that any other (fiat) system can achieve this (due to operation costs, regulation, etc)
But the response of skeptics will always be "but I have to convert my fiat money". And at that point, it's not free and instant anymore.
But just because the new system loses its benefits because of backwards compatibility with the old system, doesn't mean that it is inferior. Maybe for some things, you don't need to pass through the old system anymore. One example is mining pool payouts, which can do payments through Nano to get the 0 fee transactions. (see https://2miners.com/blog/how-to-get-payouts-for-ethereum-min...).
You can argue that this mining is all a scam etc, but in the end real value is transferred using the most optimal network. More optimal than any central system that you can think of (remember 0-fee, instant trancations).
> ... but the real problem of the skeptics is that they can't let go of their fiat.
>But the response of skeptics will always be "but I have to convert my fiat money".
Here's a thought experiment for you. Your mother/father/neighbour's entire wealth is converted, at no cost to them, into BTC/ETH/whatever. What is their reaction?
Is it, 'thank god we didn't have to pay those conversion fees!'
With the exception of Libya, Western Union supports transfers to all of those countries. Fees look like $3-7 to transfer $400.
Using crypto is unlikely to be much cheaper or faster for me - my salary is paid in USD, so if I want to transfer cryptocurrency I will need to convert it from USD first, which is neither free nor instant. The same problem likely applies to whoever I'd be sending money to in the foreign country - if they need money to buy food or pay rent, its extremely unlikely they will be able to pay in cryptocurrency.
Thank you. This hits at the essence of why “I can send money instantly!” is such an absurd argument.
It’s not money. You can’t use it as money. You have to convert it to money, at a loss.
If that counts as ‘sending money’, then hell, I can send someone an email saying “I promise to pay $100 to the bearer of this note”, and just hope that they’ll be able to exchange that for money at a reasonable loss.
They are different. And sending a FAX is not sending postal mail. And sending email is not sending a FAX.
Sending money as quickly as sending email is not the same as putting paper checks in envelopes in the postal system. Like free speech, bitcoin can't be censored if you hold your own keys. For some people, PayPal censorship and freezing accounts still works okay for them.
So a use case the average citizen doesn’t give a flying fuck about.
Oh gosh, I wish I could transfer money to <country I never had any desire to send money to>~ let’s sacrifice consumer protections, privacy and stability for that said nobody ever.
It’s just like ‘financial inclusion’ from the ilks of Peter Thiel is code for shoveling vulnerable and financially illiterate people into the gears of the pyramid machine
They asked for a use-case, I presented one. And to be honest, I don't give a shit what the sceptics think about it. I just wanted to prove once more that even when you present a valid use-case, "the sceptics" twist and turn to still only see the negative side of it.
Keep being blind, I have absolutely no problem with that. It's nice entertainment here on HN, with all those folks frustrated of missing out on the biggest investment opportunity of their lifetime.
"I didn't miss out, it's just all a scam and I want no part of that"
This constantly-in-hysterics tone is why people find it tiresome to try to understand crypto advocates. Cool - you like your new technology. That’s great. I’ve been in the same boat with countless things and I know what it’s like.
But if you respond to perfectly reasonable and polite questions about its use cases by screaming “you’re just asking these mean questions because you’re jealous!”, then it doesn’t exactly help the impression that the cryptocurrency market are predominantly driven by speculators hoping they’ll get rich like a handful of early fans did.
This saddens me, because I’ve long been a fan of digital cash and its promise. I hope Bitcoin or suchlike can fix its serious flaws and become a viable means of exchange. I’ll cheer any cryptocurrency which seems to be seriously trying to do that. But, respectfully, people like you are what I hate about the modern crypto scene: tribalistic, loudmouthed, unthinking, and obsessed with the pipe dream of getting rich off the next round of buyers, rather than improving our world.
The crux of what makes it popular is decentralization which is a fantastic feature and I'd argue the single feature that it has that regular currencies can't ever have. However, everyone doesn't have a wallet and about 60% of all bitcoin is in the hands of only about 10,000 wallets. It's one of those things, if everyone had it then it would work great but because no one has it, it doesn't work at all. In order to get it you need someone you trust to trade you it, which means a centralized exchange, high fees, and slow transactions. However, if you only ever live in a bitcoin or other decentralized coin economy, meaning you never have to trade out of it into another currency, then it can work for you. Say Tesla accepts bitcoin, and everyonjhe pays in bitcoin, it still has to pay it's suppliers who don't accept bitcoin, this means it has to make a conversion to regular currency, adding an additional step, making things slower and less liquid. It's one of those things that just won't work, until it does.
I don't buy this framing for a second. Crypto is popular, I mean actually popular amongst most people on the ground, only because the price keeps going up; with the implicit promise that it will keep going up. Everything else is creative story telling. On-paper benefits are trotted out only to post-hoc explain the growth (which is mostly there from pumping and people seeing past growth) and to pump the coin further. "Decentralized" is only as important as it keeps the "this is still crypto right?" identity in lay-peoples minds that is tied to magic money out of nowhere. Otherwise it can be weakened arbitrarily.
Centralize it and implement something like M-Pesa, or build it on top of the existing mobile networks. The solution is selling standardized contracts to small hold farmers that pay out automatically; the problem has nothing to do with decentralization or trustless transactions.
The blockchain adds nothing here, and creates a layer of complexity that makes it more brittle.
> The solution is selling standardized contracts to small hold farmers that pay out automatically
And how easy do you think that is in Kenya?
You and I being able to take stable banking and government for granted says more about our own position in the world than it does about the efficacy of the technology itself.
You think Kenya doesn't have even a single, large, stable bank/trust/underwriter? You think they don't have underwriters that can delegate most of the money and authority to overseas institutions, worse comes to worst?
Countries with bad credit frequently issue bonds and instruments in the state of New York. If it's good enough for a nation I'm sure companies can work something out.
If I heard a single use case where blockchain technology actually created real value in the world, and was better than other alternatives, I'd listen. But it has to create real value, based on the real world and not some fantastical notion of what money is or governments are for.
I think we skeptics want a grounded narrative, and we're stuck hearing a thesis statement and nothing to back it up.