7 ms·

So, this is the argument I hear all of the time: that there is interesting work being done. In my noodling around in the space, I haven’t found a project that

by freen 5y ago

So, this is the argument I hear all of the time: that there is interesting work being done. In my noodling around in the space, I haven’t found a project that makes me think “ahh, this is a really compelling use case for the blockchain”. What are the projects you’ve seen that are doing compelling, novel, valuable work? I’m genuinely curious.

pavlov 5y ago
I’ve been asking this question for years too. Every time the answer is a batch of projects that make grandiose claims of solving very generic problems (e.g. “this is a global knowledge graph that ensures authors are always properly compensated”)… But the actual deployed use cases, if any, turn out to be just some kind of crypto derivatives in drag. In other words, there’s no real world economy bringing money into the system — it’s all just layers upon layers of trading shells where real money ultimately comes from speculators. There is a word for this kind of scheme.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tudorw 5y ago
For me, a globally distributed database running on open source software is interesting and novel in itself, just because no one can find anything useful to do with it yet doesn't invalidate the novelty, wasn't electrical effects similar, it was discovered prior to people having a use for it.
- tudorw 5y ago
  I'm not willing to comment publicly that this or that project is legit, rife with fraud is quite the understatement and I don't have the resources to vet anything, nonetheless, if you use google and follow people rather than projects, there are some really exciting developments on the edges.
  - ghufran_syed 5y ago
    How do you judge if something is an "exciting development" if you "don't have the resources to vet anything"? Wouldn't making such a judgement imply that you thought it could be useful? Or is "usefulness" not required for such crypto "exciting developments"? I think that may be the point the GP is making...
    - tudorw 5y ago
      I can tell you if a rollercoaster looks exciting without knowing if it's safe, I am being overly cautious perhaps.
- freen 5y ago
  Oh, yes, fully agree on the novelty. Fountain Codes are also super cool, were totally novel, and had and continue to have limited utility. While all useful ideas were once novel, the inverse is rarely true. And that’s problematic when your novel idea has the carbon footprint of several countries.
babelchips 5y ago
For compelling use cases of DLTs take a look at Hedera Hashgraph at https://hedera.com https://hedera.com Admittedly Hedera Hashgraph is not strictly a blockchain but is more energy efficient (millions of times less energy use than Bitcoin for example due to not needing to do proof of work and by virtual voting), orders of magnitude faster than traditional blockchains (BTC, ETH etc), and highly secure (true finality within seconds). Example use cases (EDIT: with links) * Tokens for carbon credits - https://hedera.com/users/dovu https://hedera.com/users/dovu * The Coupon Bureau - US Coupon Bureau using tokenised coupons to prevent $billions in coupon fraud - https://hedera.com/users/coupon-bureau https://hedera.com/users/coupon-bureau * Australian EFTPos POS payments - https://hedera.com/blog/eftpos-pioneers-new-ecommerce-micropayments-solution-using-hedera-hashgraph https://hedera.com/blog/eftpos-pioneers-new-ecommerce-microp... * NHS vaccine temperature tracking - https://hedera.com/blog/everyware-and-hedera-hashgraph-enabling-cold-chain-monitoring-of-covid-19-vaccine-for-nhs-facilities https://hedera.com/blog/everyware-and-hedera-hashgraph-enabl... * Ad-tracking fraud prevention - https://hedera.com/users/adsdax https://hedera.com/users/adsdax The list goes on… Interestingly no one talks about these use cases and massive potential of DLTs on Hacker news when ever crypto discussions come up. But modern DLTs are there slowly doing their thing. I think there’s a definite disconnect with poor perceptions of cryptocurrencies and DLTs in general. Mostly based on how things were several years ago compared to where things actually stand now. Plenty of unfounded FUD focusing on shitcoins and not a lot of focus on what’s going on with more professional approaches. For example there are various criticisms of Hedera Hasgraph online stating that it is closed-source, not decentralised, slow for smart contracts and not open source. All incorrect. The code is either open source or open review. More decentralised than most cryptos (transparent governance from multiple organisations on different continents and in different industries). Heading towards full permissionless nodes once the network is stable. Slow smart contracts do exist for backwards compatibility but far faster smart contracts (scheduled etc) can be created at the native layer.
- popol12 5y ago
  Nice piece of shill, mate
  - 5y ago
doomroot 5y ago
Bitcoin
- freen 5y ago
  Absolutely useful, if your definition of utility is the separation of fools from their money.
arberx 5y ago
Decentralized and censorship resistant name routing service? https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/ That's a killer app imo.
- freen 5y ago
  Censorship resistance isn’t worth billions, and how much actual utility does decentralization buy you relative to the inherent performance costs of a decentralized system? I don’t buy it.
  - arberx 5y ago
    Cool, I don't care if you buy it. The question asked: "What are the projects you’ve seen that are doing compelling, novel, valuable work?" ENS fits that category. Peer to peer lending is cool too.
    - dekervin 5y ago
      There seems to be around 277 millions dollars in addresses attached to Ethereum Name service[1]. So apparently the data says some people, somewhere, do care. [1] http://datapeek.org/?explorer_view=quest&quest_id=quest_20210724_190646_673148 http://datapeek.org/?explorer_view=quest&quest_id=quest_2021...
      - freen 5y ago
        Yes, and individual tulip bulbs were at one point valued at 10x the annual salary of a skilled artisan, so around $1mm each. Fools and their money.
        dekervin 5y ago
        It's a weird argument to make in this sub-thread. You started it by asking for "projects you’ve seen that are doing compelling[...]work". You got an answer. You questionned its economic value. You got an answer. At this point, there are tons of other valid arguments you could have made ( it's too small, it's only one,etc ). But you chose "reductio ad tulipum". It doesn't speak well of the strength of your case. Either that or you simply are not open to reconsidering your position, under any circumstance.
thebean11 5y ago
Trustless collateral-backed loans and decentralized prediction markets are two of the coolest projects to me.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Monero offers complete privacy and anonymity. It's everything bitcoin was meant to be. It can actually be used as currency right now. Ethereum is essentially a distributed virtual machine anyone can pay to execute code on. This is world-changing technology. Smart contracts are currently limited by the fact they do not have access to real world data: the Ethereum virtual machine can only use financial data present in the blockchain itself as input. There are projects attempting to address this but none have delivered yet.
mimixco 5y ago
This is certainly a good argument and I use it myself (for nuclear fusion, space stuff, etc.), but, in fairness, it did take a long time (100 years?) before regular paper money was widely accepted. So, there's that.

by freen 5y ago

pavlov 5y ago

I’ve been asking this question for years too. Every time the answer is a batch of projects that make grandiose claims of solving very generic problems (e.g. “this is a global knowledge graph that ensures authors are always properly compensated”)… But the actual deployed use cases, if any, turn out to be just some kind of crypto derivatives in drag. In other words, there’s no real world economy bringing money into the system — it’s all just layers upon layers of trading shells where real money ultimately comes from speculators. There is a word for this kind of scheme.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tudorw 5y ago

For me, a globally distributed database running on open source software is interesting and novel in itself, just because no one can find anything useful to do with it yet doesn't invalidate the novelty, wasn't electrical effects similar, it was discovered prior to people having a use for it.

tudorw 5y ago
I'm not willing to comment publicly that this or that project is legit, rife with fraud is quite the understatement and I don't have the resources to vet anything, nonetheless, if you use google and follow people rather than projects, there are some really exciting developments on the edges.
- ghufran_syed 5y ago
  How do you judge if something is an "exciting development" if you "don't have the resources to vet anything"? Wouldn't making such a judgement imply that you thought it could be useful? Or is "usefulness" not required for such crypto "exciting developments"? I think that may be the point the GP is making...
  - tudorw 5y ago
    I can tell you if a rollercoaster looks exciting without knowing if it's safe, I am being overly cautious perhaps.
freen 5y ago
Oh, yes, fully agree on the novelty. Fountain Codes are also super cool, were totally novel, and had and continue to have limited utility. While all useful ideas were once novel, the inverse is rarely true. And that’s problematic when your novel idea has the carbon footprint of several countries.

babelchips 5y ago

For compelling use cases of DLTs take a look at Hedera Hashgraph at https://hedera.com https://hedera.com Admittedly Hedera Hashgraph is not strictly a blockchain but is more energy efficient (millions of times less energy use than Bitcoin for example due to not needing to do proof of work and by virtual voting), orders of magnitude faster than traditional blockchains (BTC, ETH etc), and highly secure (true finality within seconds). Example use cases (EDIT: with links) * Tokens for carbon credits - https://hedera.com/users/dovu https://hedera.com/users/dovu * The Coupon Bureau - US Coupon Bureau using tokenised coupons to prevent $billions in coupon fraud - https://hedera.com/users/coupon-bureau https://hedera.com/users/coupon-bureau * Australian EFTPos POS payments - https://hedera.com/blog/eftpos-pioneers-new-ecommerce-micropayments-solution-using-hedera-hashgraph https://hedera.com/blog/eftpos-pioneers-new-ecommerce-microp... * NHS vaccine temperature tracking - https://hedera.com/blog/everyware-and-hedera-hashgraph-enabling-cold-chain-monitoring-of-covid-19-vaccine-for-nhs-facilities https://hedera.com/blog/everyware-and-hedera-hashgraph-enabl... * Ad-tracking fraud prevention - https://hedera.com/users/adsdax https://hedera.com/users/adsdax The list goes on… Interestingly no one talks about these use cases and massive potential of DLTs on Hacker news when ever crypto discussions come up. But modern DLTs are there slowly doing their thing. I think there’s a definite disconnect with poor perceptions of cryptocurrencies and DLTs in general. Mostly based on how things were several years ago compared to where things actually stand now. Plenty of unfounded FUD focusing on shitcoins and not a lot of focus on what’s going on with more professional approaches. For example there are various criticisms of Hedera Hasgraph online stating that it is closed-source, not decentralised, slow for smart contracts and not open source. All incorrect. The code is either open source or open review. More decentralised than most cryptos (transparent governance from multiple organisations on different continents and in different industries). Heading towards full permissionless nodes once the network is stable. Slow smart contracts do exist for backwards compatibility but far faster smart contracts (scheduled etc) can be created at the native layer.

popol12 5y ago
Nice piece of shill, mate
- 5y ago

doomroot 5y ago

Bitcoin

freen 5y ago
Absolutely useful, if your definition of utility is the separation of fools from their money.

arberx 5y ago

Decentralized and censorship resistant name routing service? https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/ That's a killer app imo.

freen 5y ago
Censorship resistance isn’t worth billions, and how much actual utility does decentralization buy you relative to the inherent performance costs of a decentralized system? I don’t buy it.
- arberx 5y ago
  Cool, I don't care if you buy it. The question asked: "What are the projects you’ve seen that are doing compelling, novel, valuable work?" ENS fits that category. Peer to peer lending is cool too.
  - dekervin 5y ago
    There seems to be around 277 millions dollars in addresses attached to Ethereum Name service[1]. So apparently the data says some people, somewhere, do care. [1] http://datapeek.org/?explorer_view=quest&quest_id=quest_20210724_190646_673148 http://datapeek.org/?explorer_view=quest&quest_id=quest_2021...
    - freen 5y ago
      Yes, and individual tulip bulbs were at one point valued at 10x the annual salary of a skilled artisan, so around $1mm each. Fools and their money.
      - dekervin 5y ago
        It's a weird argument to make in this sub-thread. You started it by asking for "projects you’ve seen that are doing compelling[...]work". You got an answer. You questionned its economic value. You got an answer. At this point, there are tons of other valid arguments you could have made ( it's too small, it's only one,etc ). But you chose "reductio ad tulipum". It doesn't speak well of the strength of your case. Either that or you simply are not open to reconsidering your position, under any circumstance.

thebean11 5y ago

Trustless collateral-backed loans and decentralized prediction markets are two of the coolest projects to me.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Monero offers complete privacy and anonymity. It's everything bitcoin was meant to be. It can actually be used as currency right now. Ethereum is essentially a distributed virtual machine anyone can pay to execute code on. This is world-changing technology. Smart contracts are currently limited by the fact they do not have access to real world data: the Ethereum virtual machine can only use financial data present in the blockchain itself as input. There are projects attempting to address this but none have delivered yet.

mimixco 5y ago

This is certainly a good argument and I use it myself (for nuclear fusion, space stuff, etc.), but, in fairness, it did take a long time (100 years?) before regular paper money was widely accepted. So, there's that.