On: “In 2018 the blockchain/decentralization story fell apart”

[minimaxir]

> Economics always wins.

Yep, supply and demand. Currently there's no demand for crypto/blockchain as appropriate substitutes already exist.

[wallacoloo → minimaxir]

> no demand

“No demand”. Isn’t Bitcoin still trading for several thousand dollars? Maybe you, and maybe most people, don’t have any want for cryptocurrency, but don’t let that make you think that nobody has demand for it.

[bduerst → wallacoloo]

Most of the increase in transactions you see now are from HFTs speculating, who generate demand on any high-risk instruments if they think it has a return somewhere. Demand for Bitcoin as an asset isn't that different from any other commodity, but demand for Bitcoin as a currency is not there as many competitive substitutes exist.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-16/high-spee...

[duskwuff → bduerst]

And that's when the transactions are even real. There's significant evidence that >80% of volume is wash trades used to drive traffic to fraudulent exchanges.

https://www.blockchaintransparency.org/

[pushtheenvelope → minimaxir]

not sure I understand. cryptocurrencies in aggregate still have a market cap in the billions, which points to some demand.

[bduerst → pushtheenvelope]

Market cap is misleading as a signal for demand, since it's based only on the last few transaction prices.

That doesn't mean the whole market can be traded at that price, especially for something as volatile as Bitcoin.

[Nuzzerino → minimaxir]

Citation needed. Not every country or community has access to your cushy first-world banking system.

[filleduchaos → Nuzzerino]

I'm not from the first world and yes, there's far better fintech solutions than cryptocurrencies here.