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So far I haven’t seen a usecase that absolutely needs a blockchain either. I mean one that can only be addressed by a blockchain and will fall apart without it.

So far I haven’t seen a usecase that absolutely needs a blockchain either. I mean one that can only be addressed by a blockchain and will fall apart without it. But many people have used it as a general enough hammer to hit every nail they can find with it. As last it as people make money on it, even hypothetical money, it’s going to stay popular.

louwrentius 6y ago
I think that making money part is due to a game of musical chairs. No actual value is generated.
- smt88 6y ago
  > No actual value is generated. I actually (unfortunately) don't think this is true in a financial sense. The only people with an incentive to use a semi-anonymous "currency" with extremely high transactions fees are criminals. You can argue that not all crimes are harmful or immoral, and you'd be right, but that's outside the scope of my comment. The more crypto is used as a payment for crime, the more value it has. It becomes an investment vehicle for crime. If you think global crime will increase (and increasingly use crypto), then you can invest in it using Monero or whatever people think offers the best combination of liquidity and privacy these days.
  - louwrentius 6y ago
    I think you are right in a narrow sense. But from the perspective of a society, it seems to create 'negative' value. I have a few words to say on that. https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...
- rbecker 6y ago
  Facilitating transactions is a valuable service.
  - louwrentius 6y ago
    That tech already exists with a fraction of the transactional cost, in the far majority of situations.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      That's a different claim than you started out with. Additionally, remittence gets a lot harder internationally. Some of those services charge very hefty fees. Being the best at something is different than not doing something at all. You don't have to be the very best at something to generate value doing it.
- buhrmi 6y ago
  Shitcoins can be fun. Fun can be valuable.
- johnrgrace 6y ago
  No, when the flow of money is constrained it interupts actual labor. The great depression is the classic instance where if money had been made work would have been done and everyone would have been better off.
- bawolff 6y ago
  What does "generating value" mean in this context. Aren't most transactions just shifting resources around? If i have a bunch of cookies and my friend has a bunch of cup-cakes, and i trade some cookies for some cupcakes, what abstract value was created? The total number of cupcakes and cookies stayed the same, they just shifted around (like musical chairs). Neither me nor my friend are any richer, although we may be happier. Was this transaction useless?
shalmanese 6y ago
Buying drugs/murders on the darknet and getting untraceable ransoms from your cryptolocker malware are at least two solid use cases. One could argue evading currency controls is a 3rd. The problem is that there's been no new uses found for blockchain after the initial uses discovered.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  Blockchain isn't completely anonymous though. Bitcoin, for instance, can be and has been deanonymized to catch criminals. The entire concept of a blockchain is create an extended ledger, which isn't exactly an idea focused on privacy.
  - BlueScreenDeath 6y ago
    How can people that are able to user the internet and apparently can read still be so incredibly ignorant?
  - louwrentius 6y ago
    It's an idea focussed on.... what exactly? It seems like a solution in search for an actual problem.
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    That's not an inherit limitation of a blockchain. Monero exists. It actually delivers on privacy where bitcoin couldn't.
  - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
    Monero is private and has taken over as the far better option for the few real use-cases
- louwrentius 6y ago
  In that vein, I really like this book: http://www.americankingpin.com/ http://www.americankingpin.com/ About the rise and fall of The Silk Road
- 6y ago
pa7x1 6y ago
A blockchain decentralizes trust, you can always solve the same problem a blockchain tackles by introducing a central point of trust. The question is if this choice is acceptable, more resilient, cheaper...
- louwrentius 6y ago
  I think the case is made by Bruce that the whole concept of decentralised trust is an oxymoron. In the end you do trust the code, a computer running the code or some currency exchange.
  - menzoic 6y ago
    You trust a decentralized network of computers running code, not just a single one, that's the main point. There's both centralized and decentralized exchanges available.
    - asjw 6y ago
      A bank is not a single entity, it's made of people converging after reaching consensus There are a lot of banks, with different interests that usually compete with each other and work under regulations that have been discussed and approved after reaching consensus There are several different central banks, that work together under regulations discussed and approved because they reached consensus The "decentralised" exchange already exists
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Lammy 6y ago
So far I haven’t seen a usecase that absolutely needs an Array either. I mean one that can only be addressed by an Array and will fall apart without it. But many people have used it as a general enough hammer to hit every nail they can find with it. As last it as people make money on it, even hypothetical money, it’s going to stay popular.
splintercell 6y ago
Here's a usecase: Blockchain can be used to issue something like Apple stocks in a decentralized manner which achieves million times more scale and lower cost than what's possible now. Obviously a centralized entity like New York Stock Exchange could also copy the technology of using Merkle hashes and possibly achieve much bigger scale, at the end of the day it would still be the coordination issue for a single organization. At the end of the day blockchain solves the coordination problem in a low trust environment in a definitive manner. As it turns out that the cost required to solve this coordination problem is really high when you compare it to the high trust, but low scale environment. but blockchain manages to achieve planetary scale throughput (obviously not right now because this is the foundation layer, things need to be built up). It's like cash versus Visa. Cash is possibly billion times more scalable than Visa because Visa needs to reconcile a single database but cash transactions do not, as long as the recipients locally verify that they're receiving a real bill.

louwrentius 6y ago

I think that making money part is due to a game of musical chairs. No actual value is generated.

smt88 6y ago
> No actual value is generated. I actually (unfortunately) don't think this is true in a financial sense. The only people with an incentive to use a semi-anonymous "currency" with extremely high transactions fees are criminals. You can argue that not all crimes are harmful or immoral, and you'd be right, but that's outside the scope of my comment. The more crypto is used as a payment for crime, the more value it has. It becomes an investment vehicle for crime. If you think global crime will increase (and increasingly use crypto), then you can invest in it using Monero or whatever people think offers the best combination of liquidity and privacy these days.
- louwrentius 6y ago
  I think you are right in a narrow sense. But from the perspective of a society, it seems to create 'negative' value. I have a few words to say on that. https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...
rbecker 6y ago
Facilitating transactions is a valuable service.
- louwrentius 6y ago
  That tech already exists with a fraction of the transactional cost, in the far majority of situations.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    That's a different claim than you started out with. Additionally, remittence gets a lot harder internationally. Some of those services charge very hefty fees. Being the best at something is different than not doing something at all. You don't have to be the very best at something to generate value doing it.
buhrmi 6y ago
Shitcoins can be fun. Fun can be valuable.
johnrgrace 6y ago
No, when the flow of money is constrained it interupts actual labor. The great depression is the classic instance where if money had been made work would have been done and everyone would have been better off.
bawolff 6y ago
What does "generating value" mean in this context. Aren't most transactions just shifting resources around? If i have a bunch of cookies and my friend has a bunch of cup-cakes, and i trade some cookies for some cupcakes, what abstract value was created? The total number of cupcakes and cookies stayed the same, they just shifted around (like musical chairs). Neither me nor my friend are any richer, although we may be happier. Was this transaction useless?

shalmanese 6y ago

Buying drugs/murders on the darknet and getting untraceable ransoms from your cryptolocker malware are at least two solid use cases. One could argue evading currency controls is a 3rd. The problem is that there's been no new uses found for blockchain after the initial uses discovered.

Judgmentality 6y ago
Blockchain isn't completely anonymous though. Bitcoin, for instance, can be and has been deanonymized to catch criminals. The entire concept of a blockchain is create an extended ledger, which isn't exactly an idea focused on privacy.
- BlueScreenDeath 6y ago
  How can people that are able to user the internet and apparently can read still be so incredibly ignorant?
- louwrentius 6y ago
  It's an idea focussed on.... what exactly? It seems like a solution in search for an actual problem.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  That's not an inherit limitation of a blockchain. Monero exists. It actually delivers on privacy where bitcoin couldn't.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Monero is private and has taken over as the far better option for the few real use-cases
louwrentius 6y ago
In that vein, I really like this book: http://www.americankingpin.com/ http://www.americankingpin.com/ About the rise and fall of The Silk Road
6y ago

pa7x1 6y ago

A blockchain decentralizes trust, you can always solve the same problem a blockchain tackles by introducing a central point of trust. The question is if this choice is acceptable, more resilient, cheaper...

louwrentius 6y ago
I think the case is made by Bruce that the whole concept of decentralised trust is an oxymoron. In the end you do trust the code, a computer running the code or some currency exchange.
- menzoic 6y ago
  You trust a decentralized network of computers running code, not just a single one, that's the main point. There's both centralized and decentralized exchanges available.
  - asjw 6y ago
    A bank is not a single entity, it's made of people converging after reaching consensus There are a lot of banks, with different interests that usually compete with each other and work under regulations that have been discussed and approved after reaching consensus There are several different central banks, that work together under regulations discussed and approved because they reached consensus The "decentralised" exchange already exists

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Lammy 6y ago

So far I haven’t seen a usecase that absolutely needs an Array either. I mean one that can only be addressed by an Array and will fall apart without it. But many people have used it as a general enough hammer to hit every nail they can find with it. As last it as people make money on it, even hypothetical money, it’s going to stay popular.

splintercell 6y ago

Here's a usecase: Blockchain can be used to issue something like Apple stocks in a decentralized manner which achieves million times more scale and lower cost than what's possible now. Obviously a centralized entity like New York Stock Exchange could also copy the technology of using Merkle hashes and possibly achieve much bigger scale, at the end of the day it would still be the coordination issue for a single organization. At the end of the day blockchain solves the coordination problem in a low trust environment in a definitive manner. As it turns out that the cost required to solve this coordination problem is really high when you compare it to the high trust, but low scale environment. but blockchain manages to achieve planetary scale throughput (obviously not right now because this is the foundation layer, things need to be built up). It's like cash versus Visa. Cash is possibly billion times more scalable than Visa because Visa needs to reconcile a single database but cash transactions do not, as long as the recipients locally verify that they're receiving a real bill.