I disagree with the point, but for the sake of argument, why is this a negative? Large portions of pure mathematics would be deemed irrelevant by this standard. Blockchains and smart contracts are still a burgeoning technology, and projects like this demonstrate what is possible in a tangible way. Perhaps this particular project has no use that you can foresee, but it's the foundation upon which future projects of worth will be built.
I love pure mathematics but I don't quite agree that all the blockchain stuff falls in the same vein at all.
There is no "science" here. No positing of a theory that explains what happens when X happens. After the original paper which largely built on ideas that already existed, I don't believe the field of consensus protocol has been greatly enhanced by the crypto fad. In fact, almost all products, papers, and developments have been for the express purpose of commercializing a product.
Math does not purport to be "market-ready." It's foundational, and honestly, it still does need to be used in the sense that the measure of a good theory is it's applicability to actual problems (although sometimes, the problem itself isn't always easy to grasp).
I'm on phone and don't have links, but a lot of progress has been made in cryptography as an effect of applied research related to blockchain projects. Zero-knowledge Proof systems, for example.
A lot of other stuff could be argued to fall on the border of Computer Science. Do networking protocols like TCP fall into CS? Then so should Lightning.
I do think that Greg Meredith et als research and at lesst one of IOHK's papers count too.
My intention wasn't to focus on the mathematics of blockchains, but rather that experimental research in general should not be dedicated solely to those causes that solve real problems for real people. Proving Fermat's Last Theorem did not solve any tangible real life problems (that I'm aware of), but we pursued a solution nevertheless.
In terms of the original point, I agree that being able to run your own decentralized exchange is not a problem facing people today. However, by pushing the boundaries of the technology, we are building a foundation of knowledge and engineering for how to use smart contracts on blockchains in the future.
Also, 0x is open source [1], so in my opinion, this is much more akin to a research project than a commercial product. If commercial products can be built on it, even better. But I think we should be even more long term sighted than that, and accept that there are uses of these technologies that have yet to be discovered, and we won't be able to discover them unless we experiment.
1. Technology
2. Regulatory
3. Trust
4. Critical mass
This looks like it only address 1. Which is certainly a big hurdle but I would have loved to seen something explaining how to get 2 - 4 done.
From some of the answers bellow:
> You don't have to trust! 0x Exchanges are non-custodial
That's great. There should be a writeup on that front and center of the how and why.