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I compare the 2017 crypto hype to the dot com bubble, people finally realized the potential but the real life value isn't there yet, lot's of scam ICOs just lik

I compare the 2017 crypto hype to the dot com bubble, people finally realized the potential but the real life value isn't there yet, lot's of scam ICOs just like all the companies that raised money during the tech bubble. Just like the dotcom bubble people said internet/tech was dead, there are people saying blockchain is dead. I think that out of this batch there will be the Google's, Amazon's, etc that emerge and actually deliver real world value as opposed to just hype

rajacombinator 8y ago
No evidence of any useful non-Bitcoin blockchain applications so far, so no reason to expect any Amazon/google type successes. If someone figures out something useful to do with “blockchain” it will probably blow up quickly.
- gibsons77 8y ago
  TIL that MakerDAO, DAI, Digix, dydx, dharma protocol, 0x, derivatives tokens, Augur, and Aragon aren't useful.
  - rspeer 8y ago
    Glad you could get caught up.
    - gibsons77 8y ago
      So you think decentralized finance is a ruse? I can trade AAPL stock derivatives using ETH on the blockchain today. How is that not useful?
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Stock trades are already decentralized. You can trade AAPL stock derivatives directly without using a blockhain or a stock exchange, so the blockchain part hasn't added anything useful to the transaction.
        gibsons77 8y ago
        That's just simply not true. Stock markets / futures markets are not decentralized in any sense of the word. You still require a 3rd party if you're going to trade derivatives over the counter.
        jsutton 8y ago
        Tell us how you can trade stock derivatives without a intermediary like a broker.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        It's called OTC trading. It's been a thing for more than a century. Blockchain trading is simply a dark pool with less protections, and dark pools have also been a thing in finance for decades.
      - skybrian 8y ago
        Who is it useful to and why is it better than the trades you can make with an ordinary brokerage account? Keep in mind that much of finance is not obviously useful from an outside perspective, so "here's a trade you could do" is not enough to show usefulness.
        gibsons77 8y ago
        I agree that this particular example may not seem useful (since there are other, centralized ways to trade AAPL derivatives), but the useful thing here is that it's all within the same ecosystem. I've traded for years using brokerages, clearing houses, and banks, and this removes all of that overhead. The pegs are maintained by arbitrage and this allows the removal of almost all of the overhead associated with futures markets. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not here to convince anyone; you should convince yourselves that it's either useful or not. There's certainly a lot of real development going on if you know where to look, and the hype is warranted if you can see the whole picture.
        skybrian 8y ago
        If it were a system that handled all the taxes for you, that would be genuinely useful. Keeping track of it all yourself seems like it would be a drag?
        rhlsthrm 8y ago
        24/7 open trade market that can't be closed or shut down, no middleman fees (just network fees which will trend lower as scaling solutions are brought online).
  - recursive 8y ago
    I've never heard of any of those, so I looked up the first one, MakerDAO. I'm pretty sure that's a "crypto asset". "Dai is an asset-backed, hard currency for the 21st century."
    - gibsons77 8y ago
      Yeah, but it's a stablecoin pegged to the USD. This allows other projects, like dydx to create derivatives products based on this peg. You have other protocols that use the DAI peg to create stock market derivatives. Today, I can trade ETH for a token pegged to AAPL's stock on the blockchain.
      - brokensegue 8y ago
        I can do that for free on Robin Hood with dollars that I already have. Explain why I should care.
        gibsons77 8y ago
        I remember showing a friend this really crappy online video stream in the late 90s, and I think he said something like "How can this ever be useful? I can rent a DVD and watch high quality video without any interruptions." He wasn't wrong.
        heavenlyblue 8y ago
        So it is a coin that is backed by the law system of the country you may not be residing in?
        rhlsthrm 8y ago
        Yes, but right now it's much more stable to be holding that than one of the pure crypto assets. Anyone can make a stablecoin backed by another country's currency.
  - rajacombinator 8y ago
    DAOs etc are interesting but untested. When push comes to shove will they show up with the assets they claim? I doubt it.
- m-i-l 8y ago
  That's the problem - the only functioning use for public blockchains after 10 years is for crypto assets, i.e. for money making schemes, so will there be anything left at all if the people interested in making money move on? In contrast, when the dot-com bubble burst and the get-rich-quick folks moved on, there were clear established use cases for the technology beyond simply making money, and as a result mass adoption was well underway. Pretty much all other so-called blockchain projects at the moment are either using it where they don't need to (i.e. they have no need for decentralised trust) or aren't using blockchains in the original sense at all (i.e. they're using some centralised version of it, which defeats the point).
  - petra 8y ago
    The blockchain offers: 1. for the CEO/manager in a big company - a very high security mechanism, verified by the billions of $ in bitcoin. Great quality assurance, and politically, that's a good choice to make for something as risky as computer security. Nobody got fired for choosing blockchain. 2. Trust in needed when you want many companies to collaborate. Nobody like centralized trust(a-la banks). They charge a lot of money, they usually end up as a monopoly, and they have power over you. nobody likes to give up power. IBM's blockchain, i.e. Hyperledger, is open-source, governed by many companies, so i assume the money/power situation is far better. You could probably leave IBM's hosting if you really wanted.
- papito 8y ago
  The jury is still out on cryptocurrencies. The blockchain hype is priced into Bitcoin and other crypto. It will remain around in some form but not even close to its peaks. It's ridiculously expensive per transaction, your account can be wiped out if someone gets your token, it's not "untraceable", etc.
  - rhlsthrm 8y ago
    > It's ridiculously expensive per transaction, your account can be wiped out if someone gets your token, it's not "untraceable", etc These are all problems that are close to being solved. Sharding will solve high transaction fees, multisigs and account recovery mechanisms already exist for private key safety, zkSnarks solve privacy.

rajacombinator 8y ago

No evidence of any useful non-Bitcoin blockchain applications so far, so no reason to expect any Amazon/google type successes. If someone figures out something useful to do with “blockchain” it will probably blow up quickly.

gibsons77 8y ago
TIL that MakerDAO, DAI, Digix, dydx, dharma protocol, 0x, derivatives tokens, Augur, and Aragon aren't useful.
- rspeer 8y ago
  Glad you could get caught up.
  - gibsons77 8y ago
    So you think decentralized finance is a ruse? I can trade AAPL stock derivatives using ETH on the blockchain today. How is that not useful?
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Stock trades are already decentralized. You can trade AAPL stock derivatives directly without using a blockhain or a stock exchange, so the blockchain part hasn't added anything useful to the transaction.
      - gibsons77 8y ago
        That's just simply not true. Stock markets / futures markets are not decentralized in any sense of the word. You still require a 3rd party if you're going to trade derivatives over the counter.
      - jsutton 8y ago
        Tell us how you can trade stock derivatives without a intermediary like a broker.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        It's called OTC trading. It's been a thing for more than a century. Blockchain trading is simply a dark pool with less protections, and dark pools have also been a thing in finance for decades.
    - skybrian 8y ago
      Who is it useful to and why is it better than the trades you can make with an ordinary brokerage account? Keep in mind that much of finance is not obviously useful from an outside perspective, so "here's a trade you could do" is not enough to show usefulness.
      - gibsons77 8y ago
        I agree that this particular example may not seem useful (since there are other, centralized ways to trade AAPL derivatives), but the useful thing here is that it's all within the same ecosystem. I've traded for years using brokerages, clearing houses, and banks, and this removes all of that overhead. The pegs are maintained by arbitrage and this allows the removal of almost all of the overhead associated with futures markets. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not here to convince anyone; you should convince yourselves that it's either useful or not. There's certainly a lot of real development going on if you know where to look, and the hype is warranted if you can see the whole picture.
        skybrian 8y ago
        If it were a system that handled all the taxes for you, that would be genuinely useful. Keeping track of it all yourself seems like it would be a drag?
      - rhlsthrm 8y ago
        24/7 open trade market that can't be closed or shut down, no middleman fees (just network fees which will trend lower as scaling solutions are brought online).
- recursive 8y ago
  I've never heard of any of those, so I looked up the first one, MakerDAO. I'm pretty sure that's a "crypto asset". "Dai is an asset-backed, hard currency for the 21st century."
  - gibsons77 8y ago
    Yeah, but it's a stablecoin pegged to the USD. This allows other projects, like dydx to create derivatives products based on this peg. You have other protocols that use the DAI peg to create stock market derivatives. Today, I can trade ETH for a token pegged to AAPL's stock on the blockchain.
    - brokensegue 8y ago
      I can do that for free on Robin Hood with dollars that I already have. Explain why I should care.
      - gibsons77 8y ago
        I remember showing a friend this really crappy online video stream in the late 90s, and I think he said something like "How can this ever be useful? I can rent a DVD and watch high quality video without any interruptions." He wasn't wrong.
        heavenlyblue 8y ago
        So it is a coin that is backed by the law system of the country you may not be residing in?
        rhlsthrm 8y ago
        Yes, but right now it's much more stable to be holding that than one of the pure crypto assets. Anyone can make a stablecoin backed by another country's currency.
- rajacombinator 8y ago
  DAOs etc are interesting but untested. When push comes to shove will they show up with the assets they claim? I doubt it.
m-i-l 8y ago
That's the problem - the only functioning use for public blockchains after 10 years is for crypto assets, i.e. for money making schemes, so will there be anything left at all if the people interested in making money move on? In contrast, when the dot-com bubble burst and the get-rich-quick folks moved on, there were clear established use cases for the technology beyond simply making money, and as a result mass adoption was well underway. Pretty much all other so-called blockchain projects at the moment are either using it where they don't need to (i.e. they have no need for decentralised trust) or aren't using blockchains in the original sense at all (i.e. they're using some centralised version of it, which defeats the point).
- petra 8y ago
  The blockchain offers: 1. for the CEO/manager in a big company - a very high security mechanism, verified by the billions of $ in bitcoin. Great quality assurance, and politically, that's a good choice to make for something as risky as computer security. Nobody got fired for choosing blockchain. 2. Trust in needed when you want many companies to collaborate. Nobody like centralized trust(a-la banks). They charge a lot of money, they usually end up as a monopoly, and they have power over you. nobody likes to give up power. IBM's blockchain, i.e. Hyperledger, is open-source, governed by many companies, so i assume the money/power situation is far better. You could probably leave IBM's hosting if you really wanted.
papito 8y ago
The jury is still out on cryptocurrencies. The blockchain hype is priced into Bitcoin and other crypto. It will remain around in some form but not even close to its peaks. It's ridiculously expensive per transaction, your account can be wiped out if someone gets your token, it's not "untraceable", etc.
- rhlsthrm 8y ago
  > It's ridiculously expensive per transaction, your account can be wiped out if someone gets your token, it's not "untraceable", etc These are all problems that are close to being solved. Sharding will solve high transaction fees, multisigs and account recovery mechanisms already exist for private key safety, zkSnarks solve privacy.