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The issue of the "promise" of cryptos (and blockchain in general) is that it tries to solve problems that are not tech problems. They are mostly political/gove
by shafyy 5y ago
The issue of the "promise" of cryptos (and blockchain in general) is that it tries to solve problems that are not tech problems.
They are mostly political/governmental problems that are solved by a working democracy. In countries where there is no working democracy, the dictator won't give two shits if this NFT proves that you own this piece of land before taking it from you. Blockchain in itself is not something that brings political stability to a country.
- judge2020 5y agoIf everything is considered ‘owned’ based on NFTs, and other stuff relies on that to verify ownership and provide services, then the government talking the physical land only gives them the utility of the land itself, and not the other stuff (eg. The ability to sell the property) - plus, the government superseding a fictional blockchain-backed real estate market is likely to cause a market crash. Blockchains and NFTs make sense only when the blockchain becomes the source of truth, and it does solve real problems - it just doesn’t work for cryptocurrency when someone’s $1 could be worth 30 cent or 6 dollars in just a year. Nobody wants that amount of uncertainty.
- 0x0 5y ago> "only gives them the utility of the land itself" "only"? I'd say the "utility of the land" IS the only value of "having" land.
- coolspot 5y agoObviously you’re missing that most of any land’s value comes from the fact that it can be wrapped as NFT. It is well known historic fact that Romans fought for new land knowing that the time will come when you could wrap it into NFT to make finally useful! Same story with Columbus and his ICO (Initial Columbus Odyssey).
- amusedcyclist 5y agoNo better bear case for crypto than articles and comments in its defense
- morelisp 5y agoI gotta give you credit, "NFTs are important because you can otherwise only have the actual use of the land, not the financially-speculative value of the land" is a bold take given that usually the cryptocurrency pitch (that CCs are a good store of value because they won't inflate relative to real assets) is exactly the opposite.
- jameshart 5y agoClaiming you have the ability to sell some property when all you actually have is an NFT that purports to represent ownership of the property, but the property itself is in the hands of a government that doesn’t recognize that NFT is going to have a significant impact on the sale price you can get for that NFT. Property rights are always going to rest on the rule of law, and in places where the rule of law is strong, property title law is well established and doesn’t need a distributed ledger to disrupt it. Disrupting it would generally be bad.
- bo1024 5y agoActually, my understanding is that cryptocurrencies are having impact in developing countries. They can address hyperinflation, access to financial services, general friction in exchanging money etc.
- dadoge 5y agoMore people need to appreciate this
- icelancer 5y agoThey never transact with people in countries that have strict financial controls, so the problem does not exist for them. I pay people in Venezuela in cryptocurrency because nothing else is a viable option.
- pessimizer 5y agoThere's an assumption that people should think evading currency controls and taxes is somehow heroic. I'm happy that crypto allows people to violate US sanctions, but that's because I'm specifically against US sanctions, not the rule of law.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y agoWhich cryptocurrency do you use for it?
- 5y ago
- sneak 5y agoThe nice thing about Bitcoin is that it doesn't have a jurisdiction or location[1]; you can solve some problems in some places via a functioning government, but Bitcoin solves some problems in all places simultaneously. [1]: this is not to claim, as some do, that it is unregulatable, although it may be.
- shafyy 5y agoWhat problem does Bitcoin solve?
- Gibbon1 5y agoFar as I can tell bitcoin boosters are either people that can't trust people for some reason, like they are doing something grossly illegal. Or they hate having to trust people.
- coolspot 5y agoHow to get a ransom without being caught? How to pay a drug/malware/CP dealer? How to receive a bribe without physical exchange/trail? Cash doesn’t work well for any of these use ases, while crypto (esp. Monero) is just perfect!
- hanniabu 5y agoWhy bother answering if every response will be dismissed with "yeah but that's not a real use case"
- sneak 5y agoThe threat of unwarranted civil asset forfeiture. The threat of arbitrary unbounded inflation. Perhaps you don't consider those risks to you to be very big, so you don't place much value on mitigating them. Other people do, however.
- shafyy 5y ago> The threat of unwarranted civil asset forfeiture. That's exactly what I'm saying in my original comment, though. Do you think a government that wants to disown your assets cares if you have an entry in a database that proves that it's yours by law? THEY are the law, fuck your blockchain. > The threat of arbitrary unbounded inflation. Again. People who are affected by this usually don't have the means to just log into Coinbase and buy some crypto. Even if, it's not like it's a very stable place to put your money in to.
- Bayart 5y ago>working democracy That's a sizable assumption to begin with. Democracies are less and less, well, working because the Internet itself has eroded trust significantly and is moving the parameters of epistemology around. That is a problem caused by tech, so how is it not a tech problem ? The work done in the blockchain space on trust is IMO very important.
- brundolf 5y agoThe blockchain has nothing to say about trust outside of its ledger, which is to say in the physical world. Even if you try and hook it up to physical sensors, the sensors themselves can be compromised just like anything else. Any people who are currently distrusted by other people could just as easily put lies into the blockchain, so it has nothing to say about that kind of trust either. The only thing the blockchain allows you to trust is “X was entered into the blockchain previously”.