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It's honestly so strange to hear person after person replying in comments here "why would i want to cut out costly middleman x or y?" Presumably all smart devel

It's honestly so strange to hear person after person replying in comments here "why would i want to cut out costly middleman x or y?" Presumably all smart developers. Do people just not realize that credit cards extract like 5% from purchases? That all these middlemen extract that much or more from every interaction you do with them? That some middle men (ahem, robinhood) are straight up fraudulent and will cheat you when they can get away with it? Have they not gotten BS charges from their bank they had to call in to complain about or just eat and bite their tongue? So many reasons to cut out these middlemen where possible. It's now possible where it wasn't before because of cryptocurrencies

sprafa 5y ago
Basically. There's quite a bit of cargo cult behavior.
nonameiguess 5y ago
This doesn't get rid of middlemen, though. Blockchain is not truly peer to peer. It relies on blockchain nodes, which you can run yourself, but mostly people don't do that, and it isn't free to do. The reason users of the blockchain don't currently have to pay anything to use it is that owners of blockchain nodes earn money by holding coins that appreciate relative to their local legal currency at a sufficiently fast rate that they don't need to charge their users. That doesn't seem like a permanently sustainable business model. Coin values can't keep shooting up forever, and at some point blockchain node owners are going to need to either shut down or directly charge blockchain users, and then you're back to the same situation as normal payment processors.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  > Blockchain is not truly peer to peer. "Blockchain" isnt a single thing. Bitcoin is definitely peer to peer. Most cryptocurrencies are operated in a peer to peer way. > It relies on blockchain nodes, which you can run yourself, but mostly people don't do that Most people not doing it is irrelevant. They can if they want. They can get rid of more middle men if they want. Even using custodial cryptocurrency services get rid of some layers of middlemen and so is still a win. > and it isn't free to do Yes it is. There is no substantial cost in running a bitcoin node for example. > The reason users of the blockchain There is no such thing as "the blockchain" > the reason.. users .. don't currently have to pay anything to use ["the blockchain"] is that owners of blockchain nodes earn money by holding coins that appreciate relative to their local legal currency at a sufficiently fast rate that they don't need to charge their users. You're wrong on many many levels, as I told you in my other comment to you. Please stop trying to explain things that you clearly don't understand.

sprafa 5y ago

Basically. There's quite a bit of cargo cult behavior.

nonameiguess 5y ago

This doesn't get rid of middlemen, though. Blockchain is not truly peer to peer. It relies on blockchain nodes, which you can run yourself, but mostly people don't do that, and it isn't free to do. The reason users of the blockchain don't currently have to pay anything to use it is that owners of blockchain nodes earn money by holding coins that appreciate relative to their local legal currency at a sufficiently fast rate that they don't need to charge their users. That doesn't seem like a permanently sustainable business model. Coin values can't keep shooting up forever, and at some point blockchain node owners are going to need to either shut down or directly charge blockchain users, and then you're back to the same situation as normal payment processors.

billytetrud 5y ago
> Blockchain is not truly peer to peer. "Blockchain" isnt a single thing. Bitcoin is definitely peer to peer. Most cryptocurrencies are operated in a peer to peer way. > It relies on blockchain nodes, which you can run yourself, but mostly people don't do that Most people not doing it is irrelevant. They can if they want. They can get rid of more middle men if they want. Even using custodial cryptocurrency services get rid of some layers of middlemen and so is still a win. > and it isn't free to do Yes it is. There is no substantial cost in running a bitcoin node for example. > The reason users of the blockchain There is no such thing as "the blockchain" > the reason.. users .. don't currently have to pay anything to use ["the blockchain"] is that owners of blockchain nodes earn money by holding coins that appreciate relative to their local legal currency at a sufficiently fast rate that they don't need to charge their users. You're wrong on many many levels, as I told you in my other comment to you. Please stop trying to explain things that you clearly don't understand.