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I wish the actually interesting dApp projects got as much traction on HN as the boring stuff does. A POAP could just be a signed message by the event organizer

I wish the actually interesting dApp projects got as much traction on HN as the boring stuff does. A POAP could just be a signed message by the event organizer. It barely uses the capabilities of general purpose turing-complete(ish) blockchains.

theamk 5y ago
I am still not convinced "actually interesting dApp projects" exist. Everything I have seen is either useful for blockchains only, or would be better off implemented in federated/centralized way.
- cinquemb 5y ago
  One may never be convinced if they are ok with centralized/federated alternatives at their disposal, esp since "actually interesting dApp projects" is subjective, and that is perfectly ok in my mind. When I had a conversation with someone who traded lehman positions out of administration profitably years after its collapse and the issues that preceded that with JPMs centralized collateral management procedures and their interest in various decentralized analogues in DeFi that could replace it, its good that they are not looking to seek to convince you. When I had a conversation with someone who traded interest rate derivatives for a big bank for 13 years and their take on how DEX liquidity pools could be a serious contender for ways how people from tradfi can hedge various forms of risk on chain (esp when those markets break down in various places around the world for various reasons [not limited to regulatory reasons incentivizing breakdowns of a particular market]), its good that they are not looking to convince you. When I did some work for a nigerian fintech that was able to bypass a lot of crappy local/cross boarder payments infrastructure by leveraging crypto markets in order to help provide access to financing/liquidity and settlement infrastructure for local commodities traders and producers to the global market for their goods, its good that they are not looking to convince you. The great thing about DAGs/blockchains/DLTs is that people don't have to use them for things if they don't want (provided that they have access to centralized/federated alternatives, and actually trust that their incentives are aligned with their own). I don't have to give a shit about random POAPs or NFTs while being able to still use various chains at the same time as others who are only interested in various chains for doing stuff with POAPs or NFTs who dont give a shit about disintermediaton of various things that go overlooked, even by central bankers (especially if they have been relegated to footnotes in various publicly accessable reports that often go unread by the public at large), in tradfi.
  - aspenmayer 5y ago
    How to DeFi? What are the trends, top dApps and sites, Discord servers? How do you follow the meta? It’s hard to find the signal when crypto and DeFi by proxy are already so spammy and noisy. And I say that as someone genuinely curious about this stuff.
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      > How to DeFi? Well, there isn't any particular way, I just started looking at traditional startups on angel list that were making/doing things related to crypto, then quickly became interested in decentralized uncollateralized algorithmic stablecoins and started contributing with pull requests and community discussions. From there I just followed my own interests. > What are the trends, top dApps and sites, Discord servers? You'd cant go wrong familiarizing yourself with things like decentralized exchanges, decentralized lending (that run the gambit from over collateralized to uncollateralized) protocols, stable coins of various designs (decentralized or not) and concepts like staking, yield farming, liquidity pools, oracles, flash loans. With those terms, should be enough for you to DYOR and see if anything interests you to dig deeper (its ok if non of it does). > How do you follow the meta? I don't. I narrow in on the topics that most interest me from my experience working in tradfi and look for analogues in defi, I look for ways defi can make the barriers to do such things accessible to people that don't work on bank desks. >It’s hard to find the signal when crypto and DeFi by proxy are already so spammy and noisy. Yeah, i can understand that may be the case when one is mostly looking for "top" stuff and not topics/communities that may genuinely interest them (i.e. have a particular finance topic in mind) that people are trying to do in a decentralized way.
      - aspenmayer 5y ago
        > Yeah, i can understand that may be the case when one is mostly looking for "top" stuff and not topics/communities that may genuinely interest them (i.e. have a particular finance topic in mind) that people are trying to do in a decentralized way. These are not mutually exclusive. I just want to find high-quality projects that interest me, which may or may not be already popular/successful. It’s hard to navigate the spaces sometimes because it’s hard to know the status quo. I can’t even determine the lay of the land because of filter bubbles.
- thebean11 5y ago
  I think the insurance products being built are pretty interesting, for one.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
I have a POAP. It was for the Ethereum London upgrade. It was extremely difficult to claim (terrible UX), ran on a side chain because it would cost $70 to process on chain, and is currently worth $0.08. It’s super, super boring. I have zero further interest in this project. I guess you can admire my NFT.
- cdurth 5y ago
  I'm curious. Why did you mention what it's currently worth? Pretty neat utility concept. I'm currently working with this service to add interactivity with other NFTs. I did have a poor experience setting up test events, but I think this is on their middle layer and hopefully can get cleaned up. Also annoying that the token points back to their API for full metadata. This "company" might not be the winner, but the idea of POAP is promising both IRL & metaverse. I personally have more faith in utility NFT than "art".
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    > I'm curious. Why did you mention what it's currently worth? Because all blockchain tech is about creating new types of digital assets that can be bought and sold. The specifics vary, but the whole field is about financializing things. Why else would you design POAPs - a supposed proof of life experiences - in a way where they can be bought and sold?
    - yokem55 5y ago
      Sure, they could be sold simply because the technical implementation of the token allows it. In practice though, there really is no market for them any more then there is a market for boy scout badges.
      - foxylad 5y ago
        Completely off topic, but there ARE fanatical collectors of scout badges, at least here in NZ. They attend scout jamborees, and we had to warn kids that they are brutal negotiators.

theamk 5y ago

I am still not convinced "actually interesting dApp projects" exist. Everything I have seen is either useful for blockchains only, or would be better off implemented in federated/centralized way.

cinquemb 5y ago
One may never be convinced if they are ok with centralized/federated alternatives at their disposal, esp since "actually interesting dApp projects" is subjective, and that is perfectly ok in my mind. When I had a conversation with someone who traded lehman positions out of administration profitably years after its collapse and the issues that preceded that with JPMs centralized collateral management procedures and their interest in various decentralized analogues in DeFi that could replace it, its good that they are not looking to seek to convince you. When I had a conversation with someone who traded interest rate derivatives for a big bank for 13 years and their take on how DEX liquidity pools could be a serious contender for ways how people from tradfi can hedge various forms of risk on chain (esp when those markets break down in various places around the world for various reasons [not limited to regulatory reasons incentivizing breakdowns of a particular market]), its good that they are not looking to convince you. When I did some work for a nigerian fintech that was able to bypass a lot of crappy local/cross boarder payments infrastructure by leveraging crypto markets in order to help provide access to financing/liquidity and settlement infrastructure for local commodities traders and producers to the global market for their goods, its good that they are not looking to convince you. The great thing about DAGs/blockchains/DLTs is that people don't have to use them for things if they don't want (provided that they have access to centralized/federated alternatives, and actually trust that their incentives are aligned with their own). I don't have to give a shit about random POAPs or NFTs while being able to still use various chains at the same time as others who are only interested in various chains for doing stuff with POAPs or NFTs who dont give a shit about disintermediaton of various things that go overlooked, even by central bankers (especially if they have been relegated to footnotes in various publicly accessable reports that often go unread by the public at large), in tradfi.
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  How to DeFi? What are the trends, top dApps and sites, Discord servers? How do you follow the meta? It’s hard to find the signal when crypto and DeFi by proxy are already so spammy and noisy. And I say that as someone genuinely curious about this stuff.
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    > How to DeFi? Well, there isn't any particular way, I just started looking at traditional startups on angel list that were making/doing things related to crypto, then quickly became interested in decentralized uncollateralized algorithmic stablecoins and started contributing with pull requests and community discussions. From there I just followed my own interests. > What are the trends, top dApps and sites, Discord servers? You'd cant go wrong familiarizing yourself with things like decentralized exchanges, decentralized lending (that run the gambit from over collateralized to uncollateralized) protocols, stable coins of various designs (decentralized or not) and concepts like staking, yield farming, liquidity pools, oracles, flash loans. With those terms, should be enough for you to DYOR and see if anything interests you to dig deeper (its ok if non of it does). > How do you follow the meta? I don't. I narrow in on the topics that most interest me from my experience working in tradfi and look for analogues in defi, I look for ways defi can make the barriers to do such things accessible to people that don't work on bank desks. >It’s hard to find the signal when crypto and DeFi by proxy are already so spammy and noisy. Yeah, i can understand that may be the case when one is mostly looking for "top" stuff and not topics/communities that may genuinely interest them (i.e. have a particular finance topic in mind) that people are trying to do in a decentralized way.
    - aspenmayer 5y ago
      > Yeah, i can understand that may be the case when one is mostly looking for "top" stuff and not topics/communities that may genuinely interest them (i.e. have a particular finance topic in mind) that people are trying to do in a decentralized way. These are not mutually exclusive. I just want to find high-quality projects that interest me, which may or may not be already popular/successful. It’s hard to navigate the spaces sometimes because it’s hard to know the status quo. I can’t even determine the lay of the land because of filter bubbles.
thebean11 5y ago
I think the insurance products being built are pretty interesting, for one.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

I have a POAP. It was for the Ethereum London upgrade. It was extremely difficult to claim (terrible UX), ran on a side chain because it would cost $70 to process on chain, and is currently worth $0.08. It’s super, super boring. I have zero further interest in this project. I guess you can admire my NFT.

cdurth 5y ago
I'm curious. Why did you mention what it's currently worth? Pretty neat utility concept. I'm currently working with this service to add interactivity with other NFTs. I did have a poor experience setting up test events, but I think this is on their middle layer and hopefully can get cleaned up. Also annoying that the token points back to their API for full metadata. This "company" might not be the winner, but the idea of POAP is promising both IRL & metaverse. I personally have more faith in utility NFT than "art".
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > I'm curious. Why did you mention what it's currently worth? Because all blockchain tech is about creating new types of digital assets that can be bought and sold. The specifics vary, but the whole field is about financializing things. Why else would you design POAPs - a supposed proof of life experiences - in a way where they can be bought and sold?
  - yokem55 5y ago
    Sure, they could be sold simply because the technical implementation of the token allows it. In practice though, there really is no market for them any more then there is a market for boy scout badges.
    - foxylad 5y ago
      Completely off topic, but there ARE fanatical collectors of scout badges, at least here in NZ. They attend scout jamborees, and we had to warn kids that they are brutal negotiators.