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I was just now seeing the first video of https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/ https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/ . Whole video is about how blockchain i

I was just now seeing the first video of https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/ https://a16z.com/crypto-startup-school/ . Whole video is about how blockchain is awesome because Computer, Internet and Mobile were awesome. Followed by some answers about how we don't know of any use case right now. Is there any non currency use case of blockchain?

Sargos 5y ago
DeFi (Beyond a currency, a whole trustless financial system where no one can cheat) NFTs (Not just art but concert tickets like GET protocol, gaming like Axie Infinity, collectibles like Crypto Punks, etc) DAOs (Internet scale corporations/governments) Identity systems (ENS, BrightID, Proof of Humanity, etc which allow for supranational products that build on top of reputation and uniqueness. The Sign-In With Ethereum standard is bringing self-custody OAuth authentication to Web 2.0 applications) Enterprise interoperability (Baseline) There's a ton of stuff going on and it's almost impossible for any one person to keep up with everything. It's easy to write everything off as a scam but there's hundreds of thousands of really smart and high integrity developers working in this space and it's worth keeping an eye on.
tushonka 5y ago
Yes, when you need certainty that data hasn't been tempered with. Logistics, being able to trace back where a certain item came from. How about trading cards, be certain that the trading card you are possessing is the only one and it is genuine. (NFTs)
readthenotes1 5y ago
Why specify non-currency? Doesn't Bitcoin provide a more convenient/less expensive way to send money between countries (or both). Those are pretty powerful uses. (I don't know money laundering and drug dealing are still more convenient in Bitcoin)
- sellyme 5y ago
  > Doesn't Bitcoin provide a more convenient/less expensive way to send money between countries The current bitcoin transaction fee is more than 100x what my bank charges, so no, not really.
  - HashBasher 5y ago
    A bitcoin transaction and a bank transaction are very different things. A bitcoin transaction is settled as soon as the block is mined. Without any third parties or trust involved, and no way to reverse the transaction. While a bank transaction could settle in days and always with some trusted third party. Try making a transaction over the lightning network (layer 2 tech of bitcoin), it’s instantly settled and almost for free. The whole country of El Salvador is making transactions within the country using this technology and they’re getting remittance from outside the country far cheaper than banks.
    - sellyme 5y ago
      > no way to reverse the transaction It boggles my mind that people genuinely believe this is a good thing, especially in an ecosystem so rife with scammers. I get that it's rather integral to the primary use cases of bitcoin, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend it's a good thing when marketing the currency to the average joe as a PayPal replacement.
      - HashBasher 5y ago
        How’s it bad? You have to accept responsibility when making transactions. This is tremendously beneficial for businesses and end users when making peer to peer transactions.
        sellyme 5y ago
        > How's it bad? Because there's absolutely no protection against fraud. This is somewhat of a problem when there's such a gigantic amount of fraud going on. > You have to accept responsibility when making transactions Yes, and so does the other party. What irreversible transactions do is give the receiving party the ability to shirk all responsibilities, because it's significantly more difficult (if not impossible) to hold them to account.
glenvdb 5y ago
No, that's all bullshit. The purpose of blockchain is decentralised consensus for the Bitcoin protocol. It has fulfilled that function very well for the last ~12 years. There MAY be other legitimate use cases, but the majority of them right now are varying degrees of money grabbing scams or cargo-cults.
willhinsa 5y ago
Urbit for starters (which technically you could say isn't NOT about money, since entities are de facto tradeable. But the main purpose for identity being on the Blockchain is reliability and decentralization, with the inherent benefit of them being in effect utilitarian NFT's). I use it every day, and it's one of the technologies I'm most excited about seeing evolve in the future. I'm not trying to evangelize or proselytize Urbit--just being frank. There's also interesting things going on in the NFT space towards MMORPGs based around an economy of in game items being themselves NFT's. It's not all stuff and nonsense and jpeg millionaires lol :) Some of it is, surely, but as time goes on more and more technologies will use it to greater effect with more utility beyond merely, "prices go up".

Sargos 5y ago

DeFi (Beyond a currency, a whole trustless financial system where no one can cheat) NFTs (Not just art but concert tickets like GET protocol, gaming like Axie Infinity, collectibles like Crypto Punks, etc) DAOs (Internet scale corporations/governments) Identity systems (ENS, BrightID, Proof of Humanity, etc which allow for supranational products that build on top of reputation and uniqueness. The Sign-In With Ethereum standard is bringing self-custody OAuth authentication to Web 2.0 applications) Enterprise interoperability (Baseline) There's a ton of stuff going on and it's almost impossible for any one person to keep up with everything. It's easy to write everything off as a scam but there's hundreds of thousands of really smart and high integrity developers working in this space and it's worth keeping an eye on.

tushonka 5y ago

Yes, when you need certainty that data hasn't been tempered with. Logistics, being able to trace back where a certain item came from. How about trading cards, be certain that the trading card you are possessing is the only one and it is genuine. (NFTs)

readthenotes1 5y ago

Why specify non-currency? Doesn't Bitcoin provide a more convenient/less expensive way to send money between countries (or both). Those are pretty powerful uses. (I don't know money laundering and drug dealing are still more convenient in Bitcoin)

sellyme 5y ago
> Doesn't Bitcoin provide a more convenient/less expensive way to send money between countries The current bitcoin transaction fee is more than 100x what my bank charges, so no, not really.
- HashBasher 5y ago
  A bitcoin transaction and a bank transaction are very different things. A bitcoin transaction is settled as soon as the block is mined. Without any third parties or trust involved, and no way to reverse the transaction. While a bank transaction could settle in days and always with some trusted third party. Try making a transaction over the lightning network (layer 2 tech of bitcoin), it’s instantly settled and almost for free. The whole country of El Salvador is making transactions within the country using this technology and they’re getting remittance from outside the country far cheaper than banks.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > no way to reverse the transaction It boggles my mind that people genuinely believe this is a good thing, especially in an ecosystem so rife with scammers. I get that it's rather integral to the primary use cases of bitcoin, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend it's a good thing when marketing the currency to the average joe as a PayPal replacement.
    - HashBasher 5y ago
      How’s it bad? You have to accept responsibility when making transactions. This is tremendously beneficial for businesses and end users when making peer to peer transactions.
      - sellyme 5y ago
        > How's it bad? Because there's absolutely no protection against fraud. This is somewhat of a problem when there's such a gigantic amount of fraud going on. > You have to accept responsibility when making transactions Yes, and so does the other party. What irreversible transactions do is give the receiving party the ability to shirk all responsibilities, because it's significantly more difficult (if not impossible) to hold them to account.

glenvdb 5y ago

No, that's all bullshit. The purpose of blockchain is decentralised consensus for the Bitcoin protocol. It has fulfilled that function very well for the last ~12 years. There MAY be other legitimate use cases, but the majority of them right now are varying degrees of money grabbing scams or cargo-cults.

willhinsa 5y ago

Urbit for starters (which technically you could say isn't NOT about money, since entities are de facto tradeable. But the main purpose for identity being on the Blockchain is reliability and decentralization, with the inherent benefit of them being in effect utilitarian NFT's). I use it every day, and it's one of the technologies I'm most excited about seeing evolve in the future. I'm not trying to evangelize or proselytize Urbit--just being frank. There's also interesting things going on in the NFT space towards MMORPGs based around an economy of in game items being themselves NFT's. It's not all stuff and nonsense and jpeg millionaires lol :) Some of it is, surely, but as time goes on more and more technologies will use it to greater effect with more utility beyond merely, "prices go up".