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If you've already made up your mind that crypto is a scam and gambling only, despite it being an enormous space, there's no point in asking. https://solana.com
by fleddr 5y ago
If you've already made up your mind that crypto is a scam and gambling only, despite it being an enormous space, there's no point in asking.
https://solana.com/ecosystem https://solana.com/ecosystem
The above shows the 400 or so things built on top of solano. I would expect for most projects to not be very useful to the masses and likely most will fail. Which isn't different at all to the typical startup scene.
I consider most of it garbage, and I would expect you to conclude the same. Which is fine. The only counter point I have is to not dismiss the entire space as a whole. Things are moving very fast, and some concepts are intellectually interesting, just poorly executed.
For example, NFTs are considered the most ridiculous thing ever now, but that doesn't mean they will be in this state forever. The next-gen NFT containing the actual art, copyright integration, and smart contract integration are a matter of time.
Imagine a photographer, currently sharing photos to stock services for pennies, with zero control over terms. Middle men milking them dry. With a fully integrated NFT chain, the photographer can claim and prove ownership and dictate terms. They can decide to sell 10 copies, and dictate that if they are resold, the photographer gets a 20% royalty. The photographer can make higher-end versions available, at higher resolution, wider color gamut and ask more for that version. This independent and advanced type of reselling is hardly possible traditionally. And importantly, 100% of the revenue goes to the creator.
NFTs can be entirely interactive, and can be anything. A photo, a song, a 3D model, a plot of land in a game.
Imagine being an amateur talented 3D model builder right now, and Hollywood directly buying your model. Which is something that won't happen right now because of B2B contracts and the complexities of dealing with small vendors. Soon it's just the click of a button, done. The possibilities of making a "digital living" will drastically expand.
Outside of objects having serious undisputed value (like 3D models), you may think nobody cares if you "own" the rights to a JPG. One can trivially copy it after all. This attitude, that all digital content is worthless and frankly has no owner, is curious. Even more so in a society almost fully digital.
Take Instagram, for example. Instagram takes everybody's photos for free and intermixes it with ads. Facebook gets 100% of the revenue and personal data, and you as the person actually creating the photo gets...fuck all. A 100% tax. In return you get "likes" or "exposure". Instagram may change terms at will, bury your photos in favor of video, or simply deplatform you.
I find this contradiction interesting. The Hackernews community rightfully challenges Big Tech on a daily basis yet refuses to spend a single thought cycle on the only concept that has the potential to break it down. Which is not regulation, it's the opposite: decentralization. Returning power and ownership to users.
- CPLX 5y agoI didn't say it was a scam, I said it was gambling. There are only two killer use cases for crypto: speculation and prohibited transactions. That's not snarky those are actually pretty great use cases that have massive demand and centuries of success behind them as a product category. A large part of crypto is scams, but it's clear not all of it is. You couldn't really argue that bitcoin, in general, is just a scam for example. But beyond that it's basically all gambling. People put money into crypto hoping to get more money out. Period. That's a really fucking desirable product it should be pointed out. It's so desired by people that you can build an entire city in a desert on the concept, it's common to all societies in all eras of history. People just absolutely fucking love to gamble. Every argument against this seems to be a variation on "Well sure, but one day they might..." and so on. Which is cool. You're absolutely right to say that. One day it might not just be gambling. But today, it is. That's why there's money in it.
- fleddr 5y agoI superficially agree that most activity is speculation, which in some cases you might as well name "saving", or "investing". I also agree that actual breakthroughs in utility (DeFi, NFT, Metaverse, Web3) haven't materialized yet. I only disagree on details. Like the use cases you missed, some of a humanitarian nature. For example, still a significant part of the world is unbanked, and has no access to the financial system at all. Crypto, permission-less and only requiring the internet and a smartphone provides a solution. For people living under highly inflationary regimes (Turkey, Libya, etc), crypto can be an unconfiscatable asset to protect their savings. Immigrants often send money back to their home country, and by means of international banking, lose a whopping 30% in transaction fees. Crypto can do it for near-zero fees. A hardcore cynic may call these just variations of "gambling" but to me these details matter. Further, like you said, the very point of any asset is persist value and ideally grow in value. That's even true for just basic currency. So this deep moral outrage that people are trying to earn money is misplaced, it's the damn point of any participant in an economy.
- Imnimo 5y ago>They can decide to sell 10 copies, and dictate that if they are resold, the photographer gets a 20% royalty. Suppose that I want to sell my copy, but do not want to pay the 20% royalty. What stops me from selling it for 1 cent on-chain, but buyer paying me real price off-chain? How can a creator realistically expect to receive their royalty cut?