While I agree there is a lot of BS in the crypto world I think we are dealing with a classic case of overestimating in the short run and underestimating in the long run.
Instead of starting with decentralization in your thinking and then trying to find value through that, start instead with de-institutionalization. The potential of crypto is not the individual currency but the network of currencies.
Our parents/grandparents invented the internet but didn't find ways to turn it into what it is today. Our generation invented the blockchain but it will be our kids who will end up turning it into valuable infrastructure. They will not be limited to understanding and applying it like we do but be able to think about it from a "born blockchain" perspective.
We keep trying to think how we can use it for things we already have solutions for which is of course not really going to do much. Instead we have to think about things that we don't have solutions for and which can't be done easily.
CryptoKitties is one of the best examples of how this can be used and if you think that is silly then you are right so are many other ideas that end up turning into amazing businesses.
So I say, let a million cryptocurrencies bloom it's the network itself that's the utility not the individual currency.
>Our parents/grandparents invented the internet but didn't find ways to turn it into what it is today.
Repeating this over and over again doesn't make it true. Google, Amazon, and Ebay we're established in the first year of the eternal September, and immediately started changing people's lives. We're 10 years after Bitcoin, and still with nothing to show for it but money laundering and pump and dump schemes.
The TCP/IP protocol was decades old before it became useful to build companies on top of exactly because it required A LOT of networked connectivity, people to make various investments and critical mass from users.
In the early days of TCPIP, you needed a university membership to get access, and network-capable computers were even more rare. So you're saying that there aren't enough networked computers for blockchain to be viable?
We're currently sitting at around 8 networked devices for every human being, how many more do we need? 15? 20? What is holding blockchain back, since it is definitely not university membership?
I am saying that there aren't enough cryptocurrencies and thus the network is not pervasive enough to become infrastructure plus it's still mostly academic and you need to understand it conceptually to start making sense of it.
Most people don't even most of those who are involved in it.
The thing is I’ve never seen a compelling and novel use for blockchain. Everyone and their dog has some shiny presentation for how they’ll use the tech, but no one and I literally mean - no one - who I’ve talked to about it has an answer for the question “how is blockchain solving a problem that is currently unsolvable with other tech?”
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of decentralized anything is cool to me. I’d love for it to be an avenue for reclaiming sovereignty or privacy or whatever else. I just have yet to see it actually solve a new problem. And switching from the way things are to using blockchain “just cuz” isn’t really a step forward imho. It’s a step sideways, where now we have a different backend but in the end nothing has improved.
I’d be happy to hear novel solutions blockchain provides :)
Instead of starting with decentralization in your thinking and then trying to find value through that, start instead with de-institutionalization. The potential of crypto is not the individual currency but the network of currencies.
Our parents/grandparents invented the internet but didn't find ways to turn it into what it is today. Our generation invented the blockchain but it will be our kids who will end up turning it into valuable infrastructure. They will not be limited to understanding and applying it like we do but be able to think about it from a "born blockchain" perspective.
We keep trying to think how we can use it for things we already have solutions for which is of course not really going to do much. Instead we have to think about things that we don't have solutions for and which can't be done easily.
CryptoKitties is one of the best examples of how this can be used and if you think that is silly then you are right so are many other ideas that end up turning into amazing businesses.
So I say, let a million cryptocurrencies bloom it's the network itself that's the utility not the individual currency.