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Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only e

by api 9y ago

Yet so far I still see almost nothing on the block chain (beyond its core currency use case) that is useful outside the domain of block chain stuff. The only exception is things like Sia, and that's not cost or convenience competitive with Amazon S3 or Backblaze. Where is the value here? When I visited this I was expecting to see at least something about building something useful for... something... Building what for the blockchain? Oh kitties. Yeah. I am absolutely aware of the fact that early stage tech often looks like a toy, but here's the thing. PCs were a toy but it didn't take long at all (VisiCalc, etc.) before they had actual uses. BBSes were a toy but they were immediately useful to their users for trading data and messaging. We are now about eight years into block chain and beyond its one core use cases there is almost nothing. Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen. Can someone provide a counter example? What are people doing in the real world with this stuff?

goodroot 9y ago
Hello, api. You might want to check this page out: https://www.stateofthedapps.com https://www.stateofthedapps.com There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity. One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io https://colony.io. The whitepaper is a fun read.
- api 9y ago
  What I'm really looking for (and I've been asking this question in a lot of places recently) is some concrete examples of real world cases where this tech is being... you know... used as something other than just novelty or tinkering. Block chain centric use cases don't count since those just reinforce my worst case hypothesis-- that cryptocurrency is a financial MMORPG and a pure value-free bubble. What's an actual case of an actual team, project, or organization using this stuff to do something... actual? I'm both a developer and a founder and am very active in tech. I have yet to encounter a single case of someone using a block chain based application in the real world with the exception of the core currency/wire transfer use case of cryptocurrency. We have used it for that ourselves, but as others have noted the appreciation in value is actually harming this use case. What I see here is heaps of money being raised and a lot of developer time being spent building things without any contact with reality whatsoever. As they say in the military: the first casualty of war is the plan. IMHO there is nearly zero chance that you are building the right thing until you have shipped and iterated a few times, especially with something complex and rather byzantine. The only exception to that might be "scratch your own itch" or "dogs making dog food" projects, but those really aren't exceptions since if you are the customer you can (to some extent and in the early days) short circuit the process by testing on yourself in your own head as you go. Colony looks like groupware on the block chain. Groupware is a very well known tar pit of death.
  - goodroot 9y ago
    You might like this example, it puts decentralized smart-contracts in a digestible context: https://germanylandofinnovation.com/2016/10/19/german-company-rwe-is-using-ethereum-to-test-blockchain-car-charging/ https://germanylandofinnovation.com/2016/10/19/german-compan... -- Under the prototype, users interact with the charging station by agreeing to a smart contract that is programmed on top of the Ethereum network. Prior to charging, the user makes a deposit on the network, which is later released after the transaction is complete. The main difference is that instead of users being billed for the amount of time that they are connected to charging station–i.e. the way most stations work today–users pay only for the amount of electricity consumed during the charging process. The hope is that both the cost of the micro-transactions, and the allocation and consumption of electricity, will be made more efficient and ultimately save money. In addition, the blockchain plus smart contracts has the potential to streamline the process of purchasing power from a charging station. In theory, this can take place directly with the machine (charging station) and not require prior contact with the providing company or a human representative.
    - api 9y ago
      How is paying for electricity with Ethereum better for me than paying with a card? I don't see the advantage. When VisiCalc was demo'ed there were people lined up literally pulling out their checkbooks and offering to pay almost limitless amounts of money for the prototype. Spreadsheets had insane value to accountants. Other than the core use case of currency that I mentioned, where are the "killer apps" for block chain? A lot of it looks like minor and dubious improvements or solutions in search of a problem. Neither of those comes close to justifying the insane amount of money and resources being poured into this area.
      - davejohnclark 9y ago
        Have you come across https://www.provenance.org https://www.provenance.org? It's outside the currency/wire transfer space. Looked like an interesting application to me, but possibly too nascent to be a shining example
      - 9y ago
furyofantares 9y ago
The post does kind of explain that. In the centralized world with a thin protocol layer that captures little value and a fat application layer that captures a lot, we see far, far more development in the application layer. When you invert where the most value is captured, you invest where the most work is done. That said, all sorts of open source projects have shown that there are plenty of people willing to sacrifice their ability to capture value if it means they can produce even more value that is instead captured by users.
- api 9y ago
  That's a nice hypothesis. We are now almost a decade into cryptocurrency. Where is the evidence that this hypothesis is true? Don't get me wrong. I want to believe. I want a decentralized trust-free ubiquitous computing future. I want an alternative to conventional VC to fund startups. I want an alternative to adware/surveillanceware to fund products and services. That's why I am saying "put up or shut up" and calling BS on this mania. It's sucking all the air out of the room and if this really is a totally vapid value-free bubble its collapse is going to be a disaster.
- iman453 9y ago
  Isn't end user adoption driver by the application layer though. If the application layer developers aren't incentivized and don't build things on the protocol layer, what's the point of the protocol layer?
EGreg 9y ago
My favorite part about the blockchain is that it is a standard building block for decentralized byzantine consensus. Throw Ripple's XRP Consensus algorithm at 50-100 nodes and you know that 30% or more would have to be compromised to break the guarantees. That's really cool because I can code the rest of the interface (front end etc.) with sloppy security and then ACTUALLY BOLT ON a secure layer with guarantees at the end. Makes development much more streamlined. As the author of a huge codebase (https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform) I worry that there are lots of security holes. With such a large attack surface, most new open source projects are swiss cheese, like early Wordpress (which is still full of holes from plugins). Here, we just build our MODEL layer with a blockchain and KNOW the rules are going to be enforced. Combine that with IPFS and a token and suddenly you don't have to pay for hosting to scale to billions of people. It's nice.
- xchaotic 9y ago
  It's nice in an utopian kind of way, but it's actually less efficient - i.e. more costly overall. So you're talking Facebook paying for their hosting by showing ads vs you trying to charge customers real money or slow down their computers. I have a guess which one is going to prevail.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Hmm how do you figure? Having people host with several nodes running a consensus algorithm is worse than trusting all your data to one actor in "the cloud"?
- joosters 9y ago
  Ripple is not trustless, so the blockchain part of it is moot. Since you have to trust Ripple (because they have full control), you might as well let them store the blockchain data on their own centrally controlled database.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    What are you talking about? What exactly can Ripple do on its own network that you have to trust t not to do? And anyway it's open source software! Why don't you go download the XRP consensus protocol from their github repo and try it. Ripple's servers won't even be part of the network.
solotronics 9y ago
its only a matter of time before bank settlement and cross border payments are all done on blockchain. I would think that asset tracking and real esate deeds are a great application. Asking why these things aren't on the blockchain yet is like asking why businesses aren't using the internet in the 1970s.
- api 9y ago
  That's the core use case I mentioned: currency and wire transfer. I've used it for that and the value is there. I will add though-- the major reason cryptocurrency has so much value in that space is that the alternatives (bank wire, Western Union, etc.) are so terrible from a UX perspective. If those alternatives vastly streamlined their UX I think a lot of the value in cryptocurrency in the developed world might disappear. It might still have value in countries without good and reasonably stable banking systems.
  - CPLX 9y ago
    Are you at least somewhat aware that the user experience of cryptocurrency is currently abysmal, and worsening?
- joosters 9y ago
  Why? Putting blockchain in there just adds more FX transfers. USD<->GBP now becomes USD<->BTC<->GBP, so why would you expect that to reduce costs and improve efficiency?
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen. What's even worse, from my POV, is the humongous amount of electricity that is used to support the blockchain. And to what end? Personally, I won't start believing in the blockchain until a non-wasteful alternative to the present PoW scheme gets developed and actually deployed. Right now, this looks to me like the most direct way of turning human vices into cooking us live on this planet that humanity has ever invented.
- Fradow 9y ago
  Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Capacity (PoC) exist and are actually deployed for quite a while now. They don't consume lots of electricity and can be runned on cheap hardware. I run 2 PoS wallets on one of my computers. It doesn't affect it much, though not all coins are equal (some consume more resources). It just have to stay on.
- tikwidd 9y ago
  The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security. An alternative to Proof of Work such as Proof of Stake would be like a country having a nuclear arsenal, allowing it to cut back on military spending. The problem seems to be that the incentives are on the miners to switch to another proof system, and the existing miners wouldn't want to do that because it's their edge in the market (low electricity costs).
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    You're talking about the means of blockchain to self-preservation; I'm saying that we don't need blockchain, that it eats way too much for the fun it provides, so we should just kill it off and call it a day. > The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security. Yes. Wasteful as evil as the concept of a military is, countries need military forces to maintain peace, by keeping each other in check. It's an unfortunate direct consequence of the way humans organize themselves into societies. But blockchain is not a direct consequence of a fundamental issue in human organization process (if anything, it's just a direct consequence of human greed meeting 2010s tech). It's the least efficient way of doing anything, because it completely eschews the need to trust other actors. Yes, I believe trustless systems are mostly a bad thing, because trust is literally the efficiency hack that allows us to coordinate at scale. There are probably some theoretical problems where a trustless solution is perfect. But as it is today, the blockchain is trying to turn everything in the society into a Cold War-like military spending problem to avoid having to trust one another, even though trust-based systems work just fine.
0x4f3759df 9y ago
Why use a blockchain instead of a database? Because multiple organizations are involved and each wants to control the database. If a thing moves across multiple organizations then you can make a case for a blockchain application, logistics is an obvious example, but there are others like asset (expensive paintings / vintage wine) provenance. https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/ups-bets-on-blockchain-as-the-future-of-the-trillion-dollar-shipping-industry/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/ups-bets-on-blockchain-as-...
- CPLX 9y ago
  Sure. But this has been going on for awhile, what's the example of someone actually doing any of these things in a way that creates real efficiency?
  - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
    I feel like you are moving the goalpost. edit: If UPS doesn't count then nothing is going to count.
    - CPLX 9y ago
      The guy said it seems interesting in theory but asked where the actual value was. You replied with some theoretical examples. Lots of things are interesting in theory. Bitcoin is about to end its first decade though. Asking where the actual value comes from seems on topic to me.
      - ruiquelhas 9y ago
        I don't know about so called blockchain projects like ethereum, but bitcoin has value because it has inelastic demand. There are a lot of underserved people out there that need bitcoin, regardless of its value, in their daily lives because they can't use fiat currency for things like buying quality drugs online, getting rid of ransomware, laundering money, etc. Hell, if these don't pass the ideological test, just ask someone from Venezuela why do they need bitcoin.
bitoneill 9y ago
Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100 https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-...
- rrecuero 9y ago
  Fundraising: Ethereum ICOs Store of Value: Bitcoin Loans: SALT .... This is just the beginning
  - bitoneill 9y ago
    I found a non-coin blockchain example: Big Pharma Seeks DLT Solution for Drug Costs https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-day-big-pharma-seeks-dlt-solution-drug-costs/ https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-day-big-pharma-seeks-dlt...
    - elhudy 9y ago
      Are there any companies in particular that specialize in the implementation of such blockchain use cases?
rrecuero 9y ago
Scalability and adoption are moving targets. People were saying the same thing of the internet in the early days. Check SALT, millions in loans already distributed https://www.saltlending.com/ https://www.saltlending.com/
felipeccastro 9y ago
For example, steemit.com: a social network where you get paid (in tokens) for producing/curating content. As the network grows, the token gets more valuable, so there's a strong incentive for early users to join it. I'm not sure yet steemit will end up being a winner in this field, but I find this a very smart approach for challenging the network effect of big competitors.
- joosters 9y ago
  There's nothing there that is impossible without a blockchain. The steemit website might as well issue its tokens using a simple database. Running it on a blockchain adds nothing except a 'shiny new technology' feel.
  - ruiquelhas 9y ago
    And why would I need the tokens in the first place? Hell, why would I need to pay at all, given that there are free alternatives like Medium?
    - felipeccastro 9y ago
      You don't pay, you gain money. Unless, of course, you're a company that wants to buy advertising space. As a user (writer/curator), you earn tokens for doing what you already do for free in reddit or facebook. The tokens you earn are like altcoins, you can trade them for whatever you like.
  - felipeccastro 9y ago
    The tokens here are essentially altcoins, like ether or bitcoin. How would that be done with a simple, private database?
    - joosters 9y ago
      The steemit coins, as I understand it, have little to no other use (unless 'speculation/gambling' is a use case) so they don't need to be crypto coins at all. Instead they could be magic internet points that are all accounted for and transferable on steemit's website, with options there to buy more or to sell them for cash.
wepple 9y ago
I opened this link thinking “finally, someone will explain why blockchains are great, with some solid practical examples: ycombinator themselves” Nope. Still hype and noise.

by api 9y ago

goodroot 9y ago

Hello, api. You might want to check this page out: https://www.stateofthedapps.com https://www.stateofthedapps.com There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity. One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io https://colony.io. The whitepaper is a fun read.

api 9y ago
What I'm really looking for (and I've been asking this question in a lot of places recently) is some concrete examples of real world cases where this tech is being... you know... used as something other than just novelty or tinkering. Block chain centric use cases don't count since those just reinforce my worst case hypothesis-- that cryptocurrency is a financial MMORPG and a pure value-free bubble. What's an actual case of an actual team, project, or organization using this stuff to do something... actual? I'm both a developer and a founder and am very active in tech. I have yet to encounter a single case of someone using a block chain based application in the real world with the exception of the core currency/wire transfer use case of cryptocurrency. We have used it for that ourselves, but as others have noted the appreciation in value is actually harming this use case. What I see here is heaps of money being raised and a lot of developer time being spent building things without any contact with reality whatsoever. As they say in the military: the first casualty of war is the plan. IMHO there is nearly zero chance that you are building the right thing until you have shipped and iterated a few times, especially with something complex and rather byzantine. The only exception to that might be "scratch your own itch" or "dogs making dog food" projects, but those really aren't exceptions since if you are the customer you can (to some extent and in the early days) short circuit the process by testing on yourself in your own head as you go. Colony looks like groupware on the block chain. Groupware is a very well known tar pit of death.
- goodroot 9y ago
  You might like this example, it puts decentralized smart-contracts in a digestible context: https://germanylandofinnovation.com/2016/10/19/german-company-rwe-is-using-ethereum-to-test-blockchain-car-charging/ https://germanylandofinnovation.com/2016/10/19/german-compan... -- Under the prototype, users interact with the charging station by agreeing to a smart contract that is programmed on top of the Ethereum network. Prior to charging, the user makes a deposit on the network, which is later released after the transaction is complete. The main difference is that instead of users being billed for the amount of time that they are connected to charging station–i.e. the way most stations work today–users pay only for the amount of electricity consumed during the charging process. The hope is that both the cost of the micro-transactions, and the allocation and consumption of electricity, will be made more efficient and ultimately save money. In addition, the blockchain plus smart contracts has the potential to streamline the process of purchasing power from a charging station. In theory, this can take place directly with the machine (charging station) and not require prior contact with the providing company or a human representative.
  - api 9y ago
    How is paying for electricity with Ethereum better for me than paying with a card? I don't see the advantage. When VisiCalc was demo'ed there were people lined up literally pulling out their checkbooks and offering to pay almost limitless amounts of money for the prototype. Spreadsheets had insane value to accountants. Other than the core use case of currency that I mentioned, where are the "killer apps" for block chain? A lot of it looks like minor and dubious improvements or solutions in search of a problem. Neither of those comes close to justifying the insane amount of money and resources being poured into this area.
    - davejohnclark 9y ago
      Have you come across https://www.provenance.org https://www.provenance.org? It's outside the currency/wire transfer space. Looked like an interesting application to me, but possibly too nascent to be a shining example
    - 9y ago

furyofantares 9y ago

The post does kind of explain that. In the centralized world with a thin protocol layer that captures little value and a fat application layer that captures a lot, we see far, far more development in the application layer. When you invert where the most value is captured, you invest where the most work is done. That said, all sorts of open source projects have shown that there are plenty of people willing to sacrifice their ability to capture value if it means they can produce even more value that is instead captured by users.

api 9y ago
That's a nice hypothesis. We are now almost a decade into cryptocurrency. Where is the evidence that this hypothesis is true? Don't get me wrong. I want to believe. I want a decentralized trust-free ubiquitous computing future. I want an alternative to conventional VC to fund startups. I want an alternative to adware/surveillanceware to fund products and services. That's why I am saying "put up or shut up" and calling BS on this mania. It's sucking all the air out of the room and if this really is a totally vapid value-free bubble its collapse is going to be a disaster.
iman453 9y ago
Isn't end user adoption driver by the application layer though. If the application layer developers aren't incentivized and don't build things on the protocol layer, what's the point of the protocol layer?

EGreg 9y ago

My favorite part about the blockchain is that it is a standard building block for decentralized byzantine consensus. Throw Ripple's XRP Consensus algorithm at 50-100 nodes and you know that 30% or more would have to be compromised to break the guarantees. That's really cool because I can code the rest of the interface (front end etc.) with sloppy security and then ACTUALLY BOLT ON a secure layer with guarantees at the end. Makes development much more streamlined. As the author of a huge codebase (https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform) I worry that there are lots of security holes. With such a large attack surface, most new open source projects are swiss cheese, like early Wordpress (which is still full of holes from plugins). Here, we just build our MODEL layer with a blockchain and KNOW the rules are going to be enforced. Combine that with IPFS and a token and suddenly you don't have to pay for hosting to scale to billions of people. It's nice.

xchaotic 9y ago
It's nice in an utopian kind of way, but it's actually less efficient - i.e. more costly overall. So you're talking Facebook paying for their hosting by showing ads vs you trying to charge customers real money or slow down their computers. I have a guess which one is going to prevail.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Hmm how do you figure? Having people host with several nodes running a consensus algorithm is worse than trusting all your data to one actor in "the cloud"?
joosters 9y ago
Ripple is not trustless, so the blockchain part of it is moot. Since you have to trust Ripple (because they have full control), you might as well let them store the blockchain data on their own centrally controlled database.
- EGreg 9y ago
  What are you talking about? What exactly can Ripple do on its own network that you have to trust t not to do? And anyway it's open source software! Why don't you go download the XRP consensus protocol from their github repo and try it. Ripple's servers won't even be part of the network.

solotronics 9y ago

its only a matter of time before bank settlement and cross border payments are all done on blockchain. I would think that asset tracking and real esate deeds are a great application. Asking why these things aren't on the blockchain yet is like asking why businesses aren't using the internet in the 1970s.

api 9y ago
That's the core use case I mentioned: currency and wire transfer. I've used it for that and the value is there. I will add though-- the major reason cryptocurrency has so much value in that space is that the alternatives (bank wire, Western Union, etc.) are so terrible from a UX perspective. If those alternatives vastly streamlined their UX I think a lot of the value in cryptocurrency in the developed world might disappear. It might still have value in countries without good and reasonably stable banking systems.
- CPLX 9y ago
  Are you at least somewhat aware that the user experience of cryptocurrency is currently abysmal, and worsening?
joosters 9y ago
Why? Putting blockchain in there just adds more FX transfers. USD<->GBP now becomes USD<->BTC<->GBP, so why would you expect that to reduce costs and improve efficiency?

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> Whatever value has been delivered seems extremely minor compared to the vast sums of money being spent, making this perhaps the worst ROI I've ever seen. What's even worse, from my POV, is the humongous amount of electricity that is used to support the blockchain. And to what end? Personally, I won't start believing in the blockchain until a non-wasteful alternative to the present PoW scheme gets developed and actually deployed. Right now, this looks to me like the most direct way of turning human vices into cooking us live on this planet that humanity has ever invented.

Fradow 9y ago
Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Capacity (PoC) exist and are actually deployed for quite a while now. They don't consume lots of electricity and can be runned on cheap hardware. I run 2 PoS wallets on one of my computers. It doesn't affect it much, though not all coins are equal (some consume more resources). It just have to stay on.
tikwidd 9y ago
The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security. An alternative to Proof of Work such as Proof of Stake would be like a country having a nuclear arsenal, allowing it to cut back on military spending. The problem seems to be that the incentives are on the miners to switch to another proof system, and the existing miners wouldn't want to do that because it's their edge in the market (low electricity costs).
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  You're talking about the means of blockchain to self-preservation; I'm saying that we don't need blockchain, that it eats way too much for the fun it provides, so we should just kill it off and call it a day. > The 'end' is the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Defence forces consume a massive amount of energy and human resources. They are still funded because countries don't all trust each other and they want security. Yes. Wasteful as evil as the concept of a military is, countries need military forces to maintain peace, by keeping each other in check. It's an unfortunate direct consequence of the way humans organize themselves into societies. But blockchain is not a direct consequence of a fundamental issue in human organization process (if anything, it's just a direct consequence of human greed meeting 2010s tech). It's the least efficient way of doing anything, because it completely eschews the need to trust other actors. Yes, I believe trustless systems are mostly a bad thing, because trust is literally the efficiency hack that allows us to coordinate at scale. There are probably some theoretical problems where a trustless solution is perfect. But as it is today, the blockchain is trying to turn everything in the society into a Cold War-like military spending problem to avoid having to trust one another, even though trust-based systems work just fine.

0x4f3759df 9y ago

Why use a blockchain instead of a database? Because multiple organizations are involved and each wants to control the database. If a thing moves across multiple organizations then you can make a case for a blockchain application, logistics is an obvious example, but there are others like asset (expensive paintings / vintage wine) provenance. https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/ups-bets-on-blockchain-as-the-future-of-the-trillion-dollar-shipping-industry/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/ups-bets-on-blockchain-as-...

CPLX 9y ago
Sure. But this has been going on for awhile, what's the example of someone actually doing any of these things in a way that creates real efficiency?
- 0x4f3759df 9y ago
  I feel like you are moving the goalpost. edit: If UPS doesn't count then nothing is going to count.
  - CPLX 9y ago
    The guy said it seems interesting in theory but asked where the actual value was. You replied with some theoretical examples. Lots of things are interesting in theory. Bitcoin is about to end its first decade though. Asking where the actual value comes from seems on topic to me.
    - ruiquelhas 9y ago
      I don't know about so called blockchain projects like ethereum, but bitcoin has value because it has inelastic demand. There are a lot of underserved people out there that need bitcoin, regardless of its value, in their daily lives because they can't use fiat currency for things like buying quality drugs online, getting rid of ransomware, laundering money, etc. Hell, if these don't pass the ideological test, just ask someone from Venezuela why do they need bitcoin.

bitoneill 9y ago

Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100 https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-...

rrecuero 9y ago
Fundraising: Ethereum ICOs Store of Value: Bitcoin Loans: SALT .... This is just the beginning
- bitoneill 9y ago
  I found a non-coin blockchain example: Big Pharma Seeks DLT Solution for Drug Costs https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-day-big-pharma-seeks-dlt-solution-drug-costs/ https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-day-big-pharma-seeks-dlt...
  - elhudy 9y ago
    Are there any companies in particular that specialize in the implementation of such blockchain use cases?

rrecuero 9y ago

Scalability and adoption are moving targets. People were saying the same thing of the internet in the early days. Check SALT, millions in loans already distributed https://www.saltlending.com/ https://www.saltlending.com/

felipeccastro 9y ago

For example, steemit.com: a social network where you get paid (in tokens) for producing/curating content. As the network grows, the token gets more valuable, so there's a strong incentive for early users to join it. I'm not sure yet steemit will end up being a winner in this field, but I find this a very smart approach for challenging the network effect of big competitors.

joosters 9y ago
There's nothing there that is impossible without a blockchain. The steemit website might as well issue its tokens using a simple database. Running it on a blockchain adds nothing except a 'shiny new technology' feel.
- ruiquelhas 9y ago
  And why would I need the tokens in the first place? Hell, why would I need to pay at all, given that there are free alternatives like Medium?
  - felipeccastro 9y ago
    You don't pay, you gain money. Unless, of course, you're a company that wants to buy advertising space. As a user (writer/curator), you earn tokens for doing what you already do for free in reddit or facebook. The tokens you earn are like altcoins, you can trade them for whatever you like.
- felipeccastro 9y ago
  The tokens here are essentially altcoins, like ether or bitcoin. How would that be done with a simple, private database?
  - joosters 9y ago
    The steemit coins, as I understand it, have little to no other use (unless 'speculation/gambling' is a use case) so they don't need to be crypto coins at all. Instead they could be magic internet points that are all accounted for and transferable on steemit's website, with options there to buy more or to sell them for cash.

wepple 9y ago

I opened this link thinking “finally, someone will explain why blockchains are great, with some solid practical examples: ycombinator themselves” Nope. Still hype and noise.