Blockchain is easy to criticize. Hell, I've done it plenty and I worked in the space full time for a good year and a half. But the problems that they're trying to solve, decentralization, censorship resistance, sound money, true democratic governance, etc. are hard ones to solve. Maybe it turns out that they are inherently unsolvable for the foreseeable future. I think the promise that a solution to some of these problems may exist is what drives curious developers to keep pushing the envelope, because, much like fusion power, if we eventually "get it", it'll change the world. Blockchain innovation is a lot like that. Keep pushing.
> But the problems that they're trying to solve, decentralization, censorship resistance, sound money, true democratic governance, etc.
Noble goals. Still, blockchains are inherently limited to the digital world. No amount of digital freedom or security stops you from being oppressed by an unjust government, or robbed at gunpoint.
Taking Bitcoin as an example, there have been many cases of bitcoins being seized or stolen. The reasons behind these losses were much the same as the reasons people lose fiat currency. Someone with authority came and took it.
Frankly, I don't really understand what there is to "get". You can create a perfect system, but people have to operate within it. That means laws, and it means ceding authority to regulation.
None of this is to say that I am not interested in blockchain tech, and am not open to it as a solution. I just haven't seen a problem solved by it yet. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
I'm somewhat of a cautiously optimistic skeptic that finds the blockchain stuff really interesting and potentially important (I've been playing with it since 2010), but not super useful at the moment.
I think these are some of things people think about it:
- Your country's financial system is unreliable or run by tyrants and the currency is bad. It might be hard to get a stable currency. Moving income into bitcoin could help you (people were doing this in Venezuela).
- Your country was invaded and crossing the border requires you to interact with corrupt guards that steal anything of value you try and get out. Putting your wealth into a bitcoin wallet can allow you to escape with it intact if you memorize your seed words (there was a story about someone in Ukraine that did this crossing the border patrolled by Russian guards).
- Bitcoin is deflationary, the coins are limited and scarce, but the currency is divisible. This means they should hold value over time. Fiat currencies are vulnerable to monetary policy of governments, bitcoin is less so. Bitcoin may increase in value in part because other currencies are decreasing in value.
- Ability to move money more easily than other deflationary assets like gold (which have other problems). Universal currency across different governments that can be converted into local currency.
All of this is primarily just BTC. I think there are other potential interesting things with ability to have an audit log of immutable transactions of a block chain generally. I think some of the other things are cool (urbit is using ethereum for IDs), but a lot of the other things don't seem to have much purpose beyond being cool. Faster transaction times? The strategy Dai uses to stay pegged to 1 USD is neat.
> - Your country's financial system is unreliable or run by tyrants and the currency is bad. It might be hard to get a stable currency. Moving income into bitcoin could help you (people were doing this in Venezuela).
You know what unstable governments in the middle of a revolution don't have? Reliable power and internet.
> Your country was invaded and crossing the border requires you to interact with corrupt guards that steal anything of value you try and get out. Putting your wealth into a bitcoin wallet can allow you to escape with it intact if you memorize your seed words (there was a story about someone in Ukraine that did this crossing the border patrolled by Russian guards).
Sounds like a great way to get rubber hosed to death.
> Bitcoin is deflationary, the coins are limited and scarce, but the currency is divisible. This means they should hold value over time. Fiat currencies are vulnerable to monetary policy of governments, bitcoin is less so. Bitcoin may increase in value in part because other currencies are decreasing in value.
Deflationary, for consumers, is bad. I am also not convinced bitcoin in nearly divisible enough to actually be world currency. (And that's ignoring the fact that it would need something like 7 orders of magnitude improvement in throughput)
> Deflationary, for consumers, is bad. I am also not convinced bitcoin in nearly divisible enough to actually be world currency. (And that's ignoring the fact that it would need something like 7 orders of magnitude improvement in throughput)
I don't think it'll be used for frequent transactions unless they actually can fix the time/throughput issues, but that doesn't mean it's useless. There could potentially be a future where you move BTC to some other currency with faster transaction times in smaller amounts for immediate or frequent use.
Just because a lot of blockchain tech is filled with people running ICO pump and dump scams, speculators, and an enormous amount of bullshit in general doesn't mean there isn't also some cool stuff going on too. There's a lot of nonsense, but there are also some real current applications, and I think, some real future potential.
