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And still not a single example of a good real world use case. I would love to be proven wrong, but all answers to this question I have seen so far devolve into

And still not a single example of a good real world use case. I would love to be proven wrong, but all answers to this question I have seen so far devolve into a bunch of self-referential babble that leaves you no wiser at the end of it. And I'm saying this as a fan of cryptocurrencies and someone who wants to see them succeed.

number6 5y ago
A good usecase: Shares as NFT. This would make Fraud like Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum impossible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_stripping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_stripping
yyyk 5y ago
>And still not a single example of a good real world use case. Ransomware, tax laundering and a relatively safe method for organized crime money transfers are excellent use cases (just not 'good' ones).
Tepix 5y ago
What do you think about Initial Litigation Offerings? Link: https://medium.com/avalancheavax/initial-litigation-offerings-to-bring-10b-asset-class-to-avalanche-blockchain-retail-investors-2aff880fa641 https://medium.com/avalancheavax/initial-litigation-offering...
- dmitriid 5y ago
  Bullcrap. Why? Any written contract can be reviewed and understood by a person. These contracts can be enforced by the use of the existing institutions. Where as something something tokens offering: - Contracts are written in an esotheric programming language that pretends to reflect a real-world contract - These contracts are unenforceable - And they still depend on some entity somewhere to enter correct info into the system. All that can be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    I think this sort of gets at something that makes me uneasy about the "there are no use cases" criticism. People seem to want to see use cases tackled that were impossible before this technology came onto the scene. But that doesn't seem like the right standard to me. We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech" with respect to faxing vs. emailing, and yet email is still better. I don't know if this ILO thing is useful at all, but it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful. If you could have eliminated those same inefficiencies using a database and a normal company running services on top of it, that's interesting, and the question is whether there is some competitive advantage to implementing it this way instead of that way. Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be, but it is not obvious enough that there is an advantage to make me certain. But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech" No. No, I couldn't. The value of email was immediately evident and apparent. One of the major reasons fax survived for as long as it had is the lack of good/accepted digital signatures. > and yet email is still better. You said it yourself: email is better. Is "run-esotheric-programming-language-on-worlds-most-innefecient-computer" better? While keeping literally every other part of the process either the same (litigation, proceding, money etc. are handled through the same old channels) or worse (everyone has to get onto this particular coin) > it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful. Does it? Where's the proof it does? And "by eliminating some inefficiencies, how many new inefficiencies does it introduce"? > Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be No. Enough people are enamoured with the idea of getting rich quick that we are witnessing a never ending (for now) rat race to develop with and come up with justifications for the tech. > But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take. I literally provided reasons why this is bullshit. There's nothing knee-jerk about my reaction. However, crypto-peddlers have the same knee-jerk reaction to any criticism: "crypto will magically solve all the issues because crypto" and "crypto is the next email/world-wide-web/fairy-pixel-dust/cure-for-cancer, you just have to believe it".
EMM_386 5y ago
> And still not a single example of a good real world use case. I think the real world use case is to try to make money from zeroes and ones on a blockchain. And I'm not being flippant. The problem with "code as law" is that it isn't established law and your investments can be vaporized in an instant with no recourse.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anchpop 5y ago
It would be nice if people could just talk about technical blockchain stuff without the most upvotes comment every time being a wholly unrelated tangent about how cryptocurrencies are useless. I agree they’re useless, I just also find the tech interesting and find the copypaste comments in every thread pretty tiresome. Currently 2/3 top-level comments have nothing to do with TFA
- rapsey 5y ago
  > I just also find the tech interesting and find the copypaste comments in every thread pretty tiresome. Most people do not find useless tech to be interesting.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Then why do esoteric conlangs reach front page? I hope most people on HN find tech interesting regardless of practicality
    - mminer237 5y ago
      Because they are funny and tongue-in-cheek. If people were always seriously advocating that programming in PowerPoint was the future, they would probably be less popular.
      - exdsq 5y ago
        I hope the future definition of ‘hacker’ is not making slightly more performant line-of-business applications. New languages that run over decentralized systems are cool regardless of utility, and I hope can be appreciated as such rather than having bear vs bull comments
        gizmo385 5y ago
        People aren't talking about crypto currencies in the same way they talk about esoteric languages - those are consistently framed as practically useless for-fun side projects. Crypto, on the other hand, is instead framed as a large scale revolution of our existing systems and pushed as something that should be used be people worldwide while having significant problems they many believe are very damaging on a societal level.
shoto_io 5y ago
So borrowing and lending is no real world use case? EDIT: This is genuine question. I want to understand if this is considered a real world use case or not.
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  >> So borrowing and lending is no real world use case? People have been borrowing and lending for centuries before blockchain.
  - shoto_io 5y ago
    I don't get it. People have been sending messages before the internet as well?
    - pennaMan 5y ago
      And surely people enjoyed a meal before mastering use of fire, so what good is technology anyway?
      - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
        There are more efficient, less environmentally-damaging technologies that should be used instead. "On the current trajectory, Bitcoin miners will surpass coal miners as a major contributor to greenhouse emissions." source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoin-mining-is-dirtier-than-coal-Here-16663155.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoi...
        pennaMan 5y ago
        Yes, for energy production. GPUs do not have a CO2 byproduct.
    - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
      Yes, and with a far smaller carbon footprint than blockchain-based messaging.
ur-whale 5y ago
> And still not a single example of a good real world use case "real world use case" is in the eye of the beholder. My grandmother never wanted a telephone (landline) and never understood the "real world use case" however much people told her they couldn't live without it. She was not stupid in any ways I can think of. She just lived in a way that made the device uninteresting. In any case, you should take a look at the gaming space. Lots of movement around unique items, characters, or more generally control of virtual property and managing them through a blockchain so as to allow use across gaming platforms. But that's not a "real world use case" after all, it's just gaming (a tiny, $90B industry).
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  > Lots of movement around unique items, characters, or more generally control of virtual property and managing them through a blockchain so as to allow use across gaming platforms. Come again? Platforms as in different games? Then one would need the cooperation of the games publishers to make the items shareable. Platforms as in different devices? No different. Why does this need blockchain? A cenral authority works just fine. Is it to prevent scammers? Hah, I've read 1 too many "smart contract exploits" to know scammers will just concentrate on that.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  $90B isn’t that big though? That is, I don’t think ‘$90B industry’ should mean ‘big important thing’ for example I picked some others at random and for the steel industry I get $100–200B though that might be limited to certain types of steel in the US (and I’m not really sure what these numbers are measuring anyway), and for cloud computing I get a ‘market size’ of $200–250B. I don’t really know if those numbers are particularly comparable or representative of non-gaming industries. But anyway, wouldn’t unique items or virtual property just be an extension of the kind of loot box (and marketplace) mechanics that people seem to complain about a lot online?
rp1 5y ago
I think this is not a good take. An NFT is a use case. You might find them asinine, as I do, but that’s still a use case. It’s surprising that people think “programmatic money and token system” doesn’t have a use case. Clearly it does, and judging this nascent technology for not fundamentally changing the world yet is shortsighted. Imagine when the first vacuum tube transistor was invented. Maybe you could invent an 8-bit adder, but addition of small numbers was already possible. It took many decades to fully realize that you could, e.g., network computers and make the internet.
seibelj 5y ago
Here's an automated options selling strategy using stablecoins only https://www.ribbon.finance/ https://www.ribbon.finance/ They do it for ETH and BTC, but no reason it couldn't work for any asset. There are so many interesting and useful projects to list, I just posted one that was top of mind. But arguing on HN with crypto-haters is an exhausting game full of down votes.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Here's an automated options selling strategy using stablecoins > They do it for ETH and BTC, On queue: > devolve into self-referential bubble
- shebek 5y ago
  How is this interesting or useful?
chrisco255 5y ago
Lending (Aave), borrowing (Compound), saving (Yearn), multisigs(Gnosis Safe), on-chain governance (DAOHaus), which makes it easier to coordinate capital across distance and jurisdictions, gaming (Axie/Illuvium), art (Foundation, OpenSea), tokenized and resalable access for software (using NFTs as access tokens), real life events (Bored Ape Yacht Club), etc, options (Dopex), perpetuals (Dydx), exchange and trading (Uniswap), entertainment (Stoner Cats), collectibles (CryptoPunks), programmable stable coins (USDC, USDT, LUSD, DAI, etc), lossless lotteries (PoolTogether), open markets (Uniswap, Sushi), gaming platforms (Sandbox, Decentraland), insurance (Nexus Mutual), charity (Pawthereum), distributed lobbying (Lobby Lobsters), retroactive funding, zero knowledge proofs (Starkware, zkSync), censorship resistance, store of value, hedge against inflation, public goods fundig (Gitcoin), decentralized naming service via smart contracts (ENS)...
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  On queue > self-referential babble
  - dsco 5y ago
    How is this helping the conversation Brian?
    - shebek 5y ago
      He is right. None of this has any obvious utility.
      - dsco 5y ago
        You never provided counter arguments. How can I trust you if you’re just an anonymous person online stating something without backing it up? At least the crypto guy had some examples. How about you state why those applications in questions have no utility?
        magila 5y ago
overview 5y ago
Not sure if this comment is talking about cryptocurrencies in general, or specifically smart contracts. Assuming it’s the latter, check out Nano. Extremely fast transaction times (<0.5s) and zero fees. One use-case is for businesses to use it as a form of payment, thereby eliminating fees otherwise incurred with Visa, Mastercard etc. If your comment was in regards to smart contracts, I think Escrow is a good use-case.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  The latter is smart contracts.
- latortuga 5y ago
  Apologies if this is obvious and I'm honestly not trying to be flippant but can you pay taxes with Nano? What incentive do I have as a business owner to accept a volatile currency that may get all my revenue hacked without recourse?
  - mustyoshi 5y ago
    Most businesses accept crypto through a payment processor. It shouldn't be much different than accepting credit cards or apple/google pay. I believe Bitpay and Square are some of the largest. Edit: what I mean is the customer can pay in whatever, and you get the USD equivalent.
    - preseinger 5y ago
      Almost zero businesses accept crypto as payment. And if and when that changes significantly the relevant government will put a stop to it quickly. Currencies are not some abstract thing which can be invented and utilized ad hoc. They are the exclusive right of sovereign states as they are the mechanism by which those states express economic power on the world stage.
dustingetz 5y ago
defi is not far from replacing your^W my consumer bank - stablecoin - high apr savings account by lending to defi leverage pool - crypto.com visa card for real world offramp https://crypto.com/us/cards https://crypto.com/us/cards I'm a founder and my cost of living is $40k/yr post-tax cashflow mediated by wells fargo checking + credit card. I think it just became possible to get wells fargo out of my life!
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > defi is not far from replacing your consumer bank Where "not far" you mean "as far as it is from Mercury to Pluto", then yes, not that far. Easy question to gauge distance: how does defi handle refunds and enforcement?
  - dustingetz 5y ago
    I don't have a refund or scam problem, what is enforcement? I think this approach would work for me right now! The only remaining issue is if I can get a mortgage – but I already have one. Everything else (like cars) I can purchase outright
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    It differs from project to project. If you and your users want refunds or a specific type of enforcement there's nothing stopping you from writing the relevant logic in your smart contracts.
    - sanderjd 5y ago
      Yep. I really think more usage of escrow type solutions will be an important next step for this to go mainstream.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  > not far from replacing your consumer bank Compared to most users here, I live in the middle of nowhere. Most stores don't even accept credit cars or do so begrudgingly because cash payments allow them to pocket tax money. Even if this whole crypto-nonsense doesn't crash and burn in the end (which I consider highly unlikely, but what the hell do I know?), it will be ready to replace my bank in… let's say 50-60 years. Let's get extremely reliable internet connection to every shithole on the planet first, and then we'll see.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> And I'm saying this as a fan of cryptocurrencies and someone who wants to see them succeed. I used to be a fan of cryptocurrencies but I stopped when I realized how bad the consequences are at scale. All of them involve consuming real-world resources, so basically hurt our planet. How come nobody is smart enough to invent a cryptocoin that has resource consumption several orders of magnitude lower than the current ones?
- nyhc99 5y ago
  Is that supposed to be a reasonable question? Why isn't anyone smart enough to invent a battery with several orders of magnitude better storage capacity than the current ones?
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    This is not a good analogy since fiat currencies already offer that. It turned computing-resources-backed currencies aren't the best alternative after all.
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  > How come nobody is smart enough to invent a cryptocoin that has resource consumption several orders of magnitude lower than the current ones? You should read about Proof of Stake which does reduce resource consumption by several orders of magnitude compared to large PoW chains. Proof of Stake blockchains aren’t the environmental concern that Proof of Work blockchains are.
bob332 5y ago
So no use case but you want them to succeed. What a Nonsense comment
mgraczyk 5y ago
I'm definitely not a fan of the current state of DeFi and crypto in general (NFTs are stupid), but it's just ignorant to claim that there are no "real world" use cases. To believe that, you'd also have to believe that savings accounts are not a "real world" use case. In reality, the market for money is extremely important for everyday life. Being able to trade off money now for more money later, and being able to do it in a variety of ways, is an essential ingredient modern exponential GDP growth and high quality of life to materialize. IMO current DeFi products do this in a way that is already better than the traditional banking sector, and it gets better all the time. I suspect that in 20 years a majority of US people will use some kind of DeFi product instead of a savings account.
- vletal 5y ago
  You tried to contradict the claim that the is no impactful application of smart contacts yet you failed to give a single example.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    I've been using Compound instead of a savings account for ~2 years. I don't want to suggest any specific other platforms, but if you search "defi savings account" you can see that there are many.
- tyre 5y ago
  Could you outline why they’re better than traditional banking right now? Gas fees can be hundreds of dollars to interact with a DAO (even simple contracts like Uniswap to get the right tokens is expensive.) There are not banks hacked where people lose all of their money. People lose passwords all the time. With banks, you can get access to your account back. With DAOs, if you lose your private key…RIP. Coin prices are absurdly volatile. This is awful for currencies. The cryptokids point out all the time that 5% inflation means USD is a bad currency. Bitcoin dropped 20% in 24 hours. Imagine you need your savings right now. First you’d have to pay hundreds of dollars to access those funds and then you’d have 20% less than you expected. That’s garbage. Those are things to start off with. Can you make a serious case that DAOs are better _right now_? And if so, which _specific_ projects are better?
pennaMan 5y ago
Seems like you missed that little "decentralized proof of ownership revolutionizing the creative world" thing. It only sparked a multi billion dollar industry but I can see how that could be easy to ignore.
spmurrayzzz 5y ago
I generally agree that the self-referential noise tends to take over. But I also don't find it difficult to find at least _some_ use cases that make sense. Assuming you're talking about the smart contracts functionality here - what about something like decentralized escrow? Multisig wallets and hash time-locked contracts are a pretty direct analogue to how we handle escrow in the real world, but the counterparty risk is just move to the VM/chain/network. Its not perfect, and many details need to get ironed out, but that particular use case has always struck me as pretty obvious.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Assuming you're talking about the smart contracts functionality here Compare: human-readable contracts enforced by legal systems vs. complex programs written in an esoteric programming language running on world's most inefficient computer. I fail to see how you view this as an "obvious case that makes sense"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
whitepaint 5y ago
https://pooltogether.com/ https://pooltogether.com/ https://compound.finance/ https://compound.finance/
zitterbewegung 5y ago
There isn’t even a compelling reason to use this language at all. Most developers are familiar with solidity and the most secure contracts and languages are the ones that have already gone under peer review and have either responded to exploits or bugs have been fixed. Adopting a new language like this increases your attack surface by a order of magnitude .
snomad 5y ago
A great use case would be data collected in the process of complying with general govt regulations. Why this is better than central DB: Allows govt to outsource IT Public interest in the data will result in 3rd party clients being developed It makes that govt data more accesible for all parties - no gatekeeping Use case examples All modern houses have a ton of compliance docs - window installers, insulation installers, HVAC, etc. Recording that data on the public blockchain provides a universal storage mechanism and API to that data. There is no reason for that data to be private / behind gatekeepers and a whole range of stakeholders - home builders, academics, environmentalist - want access. Tracking highway per mile marker. Similar to the home building example - the govt collects a whole bunch of data (accidents, pollution run off and constituents, expenses). Many entities could use that data and relying on all govts worldwide to provide it seems cumbersome to unlikely.
- la6471 5y ago
  It’s just about making the APIs public isn’t it? Data producers today follow AuthN protocols to update a database. An API makes it public or private(apikey). Where and how cryptocurrency/blockchain is useful in this use case . I just don’t understand.
G3rn0ti 5y ago
> And still not a single example of a good real world use case. Have you ever heard of lending protocols? You can park dollar in a smart contracts and earn a couple of percent interest per year. AAVE and Compound are quite popular examples. DAI is a decentralized stable coin trying to track the dollar value that’s been running for years. It is also implemented as a smart contract. Then there are decentralized exchanges where you can swap different tokens on the Ethereum block chains. You can also park tokens in such money pools and also earn interest. The biggest problem with Ethereum right now are the very high transaction fees that render these otherwise quite successful examples useless for people holding only small amounts of tokens. But this can be blamed on the ongoing crypto bubble.
- snarf21 5y ago
  Right, but you answered your own question. Sure you can lend other people crypto so they can gamble with it. It is all a pump and dump scheme. People aren't borrowing crypto on DeFi to buy a car or house. Crypto isn't practical money. I also don't think that layer 2 or other off-chain will be able to solve it. This is just "money" that is controlled by someone, just not a specific government. As soon as the government makes it illegal, almost all of it will go to zero.
  - G3rn0ti 5y ago
    Well you find DeFi laughable. Ok. You know what was called laughable in the nineties? Ordering Pizza over the Internet. It didn’t go over night but today almost everybody is ordering pizza over the internet. Maybe Defi will take over finance in 20 years from now. Maybe it won’t. But I would be careful to dismiss any young and promising technology w/o throughly understanding it.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. This must surely be the most-repeated one of all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sfjailbird 5y ago
  I was hoping to be proven wrong, as I stated. But I admit my tone was a bit incendiary, even while stating that I am actually positive towards crypto. (My dismissal was of the smart contracts of the OP, not crypto in general, which many commenters seem to assume.)

number6 5y ago

A good usecase: Shares as NFT. This would make Fraud like Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum impossible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_stripping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend_stripping

yyyk 5y ago

>And still not a single example of a good real world use case. Ransomware, tax laundering and a relatively safe method for organized crime money transfers are excellent use cases (just not 'good' ones).

Tepix 5y ago

What do you think about Initial Litigation Offerings? Link: https://medium.com/avalancheavax/initial-litigation-offerings-to-bring-10b-asset-class-to-avalanche-blockchain-retail-investors-2aff880fa641 https://medium.com/avalancheavax/initial-litigation-offering...

dmitriid 5y ago
Bullcrap. Why? Any written contract can be reviewed and understood by a person. These contracts can be enforced by the use of the existing institutions. Where as something something tokens offering: - Contracts are written in an esotheric programming language that pretends to reflect a real-world contract - These contracts are unenforceable - And they still depend on some entity somewhere to enter correct info into the system. All that can be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  I think this sort of gets at something that makes me uneasy about the "there are no use cases" criticism. People seem to want to see use cases tackled that were impossible before this technology came onto the scene. But that doesn't seem like the right standard to me. We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech" with respect to faxing vs. emailing, and yet email is still better. I don't know if this ILO thing is useful at all, but it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful. If you could have eliminated those same inefficiencies using a database and a normal company running services on top of it, that's interesting, and the question is whether there is some competitive advantage to implementing it this way instead of that way. Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be, but it is not obvious enough that there is an advantage to make me certain. But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech" No. No, I couldn't. The value of email was immediately evident and apparent. One of the major reasons fax survived for as long as it had is the lack of good/accepted digital signatures. > and yet email is still better. You said it yourself: email is better. Is "run-esotheric-programming-language-on-worlds-most-innefecient-computer" better? While keeping literally every other part of the process either the same (litigation, proceding, money etc. are handled through the same old channels) or worse (everyone has to get onto this particular coin) > it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful. Does it? Where's the proof it does? And "by eliminating some inefficiencies, how many new inefficiencies does it introduce"? > Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be No. Enough people are enamoured with the idea of getting rich quick that we are witnessing a never ending (for now) rat race to develop with and come up with justifications for the tech. > But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take. I literally provided reasons why this is bullshit. There's nothing knee-jerk about my reaction. However, crypto-peddlers have the same knee-jerk reaction to any criticism: "crypto will magically solve all the issues because crypto" and "crypto is the next email/world-wide-web/fairy-pixel-dust/cure-for-cancer, you just have to believe it".

EMM_386 5y ago

> And still not a single example of a good real world use case. I think the real world use case is to try to make money from zeroes and ones on a blockchain. And I'm not being flippant. The problem with "code as law" is that it isn't established law and your investments can be vaporized in an instant with no recourse.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

anchpop 5y ago

It would be nice if people could just talk about technical blockchain stuff without the most upvotes comment every time being a wholly unrelated tangent about how cryptocurrencies are useless. I agree they’re useless, I just also find the tech interesting and find the copypaste comments in every thread pretty tiresome. Currently 2/3 top-level comments have nothing to do with TFA

rapsey 5y ago
> I just also find the tech interesting and find the copypaste comments in every thread pretty tiresome. Most people do not find useless tech to be interesting.
- exdsq 5y ago
  Then why do esoteric conlangs reach front page? I hope most people on HN find tech interesting regardless of practicality
  - mminer237 5y ago
    Because they are funny and tongue-in-cheek. If people were always seriously advocating that programming in PowerPoint was the future, they would probably be less popular.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      I hope the future definition of ‘hacker’ is not making slightly more performant line-of-business applications. New languages that run over decentralized systems are cool regardless of utility, and I hope can be appreciated as such rather than having bear vs bull comments
      - gizmo385 5y ago
        People aren't talking about crypto currencies in the same way they talk about esoteric languages - those are consistently framed as practically useless for-fun side projects. Crypto, on the other hand, is instead framed as a large scale revolution of our existing systems and pushed as something that should be used be people worldwide while having significant problems they many believe are very damaging on a societal level.

shoto_io 5y ago

So borrowing and lending is no real world use case? EDIT: This is genuine question. I want to understand if this is considered a real world use case or not.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> So borrowing and lending is no real world use case? People have been borrowing and lending for centuries before blockchain.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  I don't get it. People have been sending messages before the internet as well?
  - pennaMan 5y ago
    And surely people enjoyed a meal before mastering use of fire, so what good is technology anyway?
    - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
      There are more efficient, less environmentally-damaging technologies that should be used instead. "On the current trajectory, Bitcoin miners will surpass coal miners as a major contributor to greenhouse emissions." source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoin-mining-is-dirtier-than-coal-Here-16663155.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bitcoi...
      - pennaMan 5y ago
        Yes, for energy production. GPUs do not have a CO2 byproduct.
  - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
    Yes, and with a far smaller carbon footprint than blockchain-based messaging.

ur-whale 5y ago

> And still not a single example of a good real world use case "real world use case" is in the eye of the beholder. My grandmother never wanted a telephone (landline) and never understood the "real world use case" however much people told her they couldn't live without it. She was not stupid in any ways I can think of. She just lived in a way that made the device uninteresting. In any case, you should take a look at the gaming space. Lots of movement around unique items, characters, or more generally control of virtual property and managing them through a blockchain so as to allow use across gaming platforms. But that's not a "real world use case" after all, it's just gaming (a tiny, $90B industry).

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
> Lots of movement around unique items, characters, or more generally control of virtual property and managing them through a blockchain so as to allow use across gaming platforms. Come again? Platforms as in different games? Then one would need the cooperation of the games publishers to make the items shareable. Platforms as in different devices? No different. Why does this need blockchain? A cenral authority works just fine. Is it to prevent scammers? Hah, I've read 1 too many "smart contract exploits" to know scammers will just concentrate on that.
dan-robertson 5y ago
$90B isn’t that big though? That is, I don’t think ‘$90B industry’ should mean ‘big important thing’ for example I picked some others at random and for the steel industry I get $100–200B though that might be limited to certain types of steel in the US (and I’m not really sure what these numbers are measuring anyway), and for cloud computing I get a ‘market size’ of $200–250B. I don’t really know if those numbers are particularly comparable or representative of non-gaming industries. But anyway, wouldn’t unique items or virtual property just be an extension of the kind of loot box (and marketplace) mechanics that people seem to complain about a lot online?

rp1 5y ago

I think this is not a good take. An NFT is a use case. You might find them asinine, as I do, but that’s still a use case. It’s surprising that people think “programmatic money and token system” doesn’t have a use case. Clearly it does, and judging this nascent technology for not fundamentally changing the world yet is shortsighted. Imagine when the first vacuum tube transistor was invented. Maybe you could invent an 8-bit adder, but addition of small numbers was already possible. It took many decades to fully realize that you could, e.g., network computers and make the internet.

seibelj 5y ago

Here's an automated options selling strategy using stablecoins only https://www.ribbon.finance/ https://www.ribbon.finance/ They do it for ETH and BTC, but no reason it couldn't work for any asset. There are so many interesting and useful projects to list, I just posted one that was top of mind. But arguing on HN with crypto-haters is an exhausting game full of down votes.

dmitriid 5y ago
> Here's an automated options selling strategy using stablecoins > They do it for ETH and BTC, On queue: > devolve into self-referential bubble
shebek 5y ago
How is this interesting or useful?

chrisco255 5y ago

Lending (Aave), borrowing (Compound), saving (Yearn), multisigs(Gnosis Safe), on-chain governance (DAOHaus), which makes it easier to coordinate capital across distance and jurisdictions, gaming (Axie/Illuvium), art (Foundation, OpenSea), tokenized and resalable access for software (using NFTs as access tokens), real life events (Bored Ape Yacht Club), etc, options (Dopex), perpetuals (Dydx), exchange and trading (Uniswap), entertainment (Stoner Cats), collectibles (CryptoPunks), programmable stable coins (USDC, USDT, LUSD, DAI, etc), lossless lotteries (PoolTogether), open markets (Uniswap, Sushi), gaming platforms (Sandbox, Decentraland), insurance (Nexus Mutual), charity (Pawthereum), distributed lobbying (Lobby Lobsters), retroactive funding, zero knowledge proofs (Starkware, zkSync), censorship resistance, store of value, hedge against inflation, public goods fundig (Gitcoin), decentralized naming service via smart contracts (ENS)...

BrianOnHN 5y ago
On queue > self-referential babble
- dsco 5y ago
  How is this helping the conversation Brian?
  - shebek 5y ago
    He is right. None of this has any obvious utility.
    - dsco 5y ago
      You never provided counter arguments. How can I trust you if you’re just an anonymous person online stating something without backing it up? At least the crypto guy had some examples. How about you state why those applications in questions have no utility?
      - magila 5y ago

overview 5y ago

Not sure if this comment is talking about cryptocurrencies in general, or specifically smart contracts. Assuming it’s the latter, check out Nano. Extremely fast transaction times (<0.5s) and zero fees. One use-case is for businesses to use it as a form of payment, thereby eliminating fees otherwise incurred with Visa, Mastercard etc. If your comment was in regards to smart contracts, I think Escrow is a good use-case.

whimsicalism 5y ago
The latter is smart contracts.
latortuga 5y ago
Apologies if this is obvious and I'm honestly not trying to be flippant but can you pay taxes with Nano? What incentive do I have as a business owner to accept a volatile currency that may get all my revenue hacked without recourse?
- mustyoshi 5y ago
  Most businesses accept crypto through a payment processor. It shouldn't be much different than accepting credit cards or apple/google pay. I believe Bitpay and Square are some of the largest. Edit: what I mean is the customer can pay in whatever, and you get the USD equivalent.
  - preseinger 5y ago
    Almost zero businesses accept crypto as payment. And if and when that changes significantly the relevant government will put a stop to it quickly. Currencies are not some abstract thing which can be invented and utilized ad hoc. They are the exclusive right of sovereign states as they are the mechanism by which those states express economic power on the world stage.

dustingetz 5y ago

defi is not far from replacing your^W my consumer bank - stablecoin - high apr savings account by lending to defi leverage pool - crypto.com visa card for real world offramp https://crypto.com/us/cards https://crypto.com/us/cards I'm a founder and my cost of living is $40k/yr post-tax cashflow mediated by wells fargo checking + credit card. I think it just became possible to get wells fargo out of my life!

dmitriid 5y ago
> defi is not far from replacing your consumer bank Where "not far" you mean "as far as it is from Mercury to Pluto", then yes, not that far. Easy question to gauge distance: how does defi handle refunds and enforcement?
- dustingetz 5y ago
  I don't have a refund or scam problem, what is enforcement? I think this approach would work for me right now! The only remaining issue is if I can get a mortgage – but I already have one. Everything else (like cars) I can purchase outright
- Tenoke 5y ago
  It differs from project to project. If you and your users want refunds or a specific type of enforcement there's nothing stopping you from writing the relevant logic in your smart contracts.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Yep. I really think more usage of escrow type solutions will be an important next step for this to go mainstream.
5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
> not far from replacing your consumer bank Compared to most users here, I live in the middle of nowhere. Most stores don't even accept credit cars or do so begrudgingly because cash payments allow them to pocket tax money. Even if this whole crypto-nonsense doesn't crash and burn in the end (which I consider highly unlikely, but what the hell do I know?), it will be ready to replace my bank in… let's say 50-60 years. Let's get extremely reliable internet connection to every shithole on the planet first, and then we'll see.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

> And I'm saying this as a fan of cryptocurrencies and someone who wants to see them succeed. I used to be a fan of cryptocurrencies but I stopped when I realized how bad the consequences are at scale. All of them involve consuming real-world resources, so basically hurt our planet. How come nobody is smart enough to invent a cryptocoin that has resource consumption several orders of magnitude lower than the current ones?

nyhc99 5y ago
Is that supposed to be a reasonable question? Why isn't anyone smart enough to invent a battery with several orders of magnitude better storage capacity than the current ones?
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  This is not a good analogy since fiat currencies already offer that. It turned computing-resources-backed currencies aren't the best alternative after all.
PretzelPirate 5y ago
> How come nobody is smart enough to invent a cryptocoin that has resource consumption several orders of magnitude lower than the current ones? You should read about Proof of Stake which does reduce resource consumption by several orders of magnitude compared to large PoW chains. Proof of Stake blockchains aren’t the environmental concern that Proof of Work blockchains are.

bob332 5y ago

So no use case but you want them to succeed. What a Nonsense comment

mgraczyk 5y ago

I'm definitely not a fan of the current state of DeFi and crypto in general (NFTs are stupid), but it's just ignorant to claim that there are no "real world" use cases. To believe that, you'd also have to believe that savings accounts are not a "real world" use case. In reality, the market for money is extremely important for everyday life. Being able to trade off money now for more money later, and being able to do it in a variety of ways, is an essential ingredient modern exponential GDP growth and high quality of life to materialize. IMO current DeFi products do this in a way that is already better than the traditional banking sector, and it gets better all the time. I suspect that in 20 years a majority of US people will use some kind of DeFi product instead of a savings account.

vletal 5y ago
You tried to contradict the claim that the is no impactful application of smart contacts yet you failed to give a single example.
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  I've been using Compound instead of a savings account for ~2 years. I don't want to suggest any specific other platforms, but if you search "defi savings account" you can see that there are many.
tyre 5y ago
Could you outline why they’re better than traditional banking right now? Gas fees can be hundreds of dollars to interact with a DAO (even simple contracts like Uniswap to get the right tokens is expensive.) There are not banks hacked where people lose all of their money. People lose passwords all the time. With banks, you can get access to your account back. With DAOs, if you lose your private key…RIP. Coin prices are absurdly volatile. This is awful for currencies. The cryptokids point out all the time that 5% inflation means USD is a bad currency. Bitcoin dropped 20% in 24 hours. Imagine you need your savings right now. First you’d have to pay hundreds of dollars to access those funds and then you’d have 20% less than you expected. That’s garbage. Those are things to start off with. Can you make a serious case that DAOs are better _right now_? And if so, which _specific_ projects are better?

pennaMan 5y ago

Seems like you missed that little "decentralized proof of ownership revolutionizing the creative world" thing. It only sparked a multi billion dollar industry but I can see how that could be easy to ignore.

spmurrayzzz 5y ago

I generally agree that the self-referential noise tends to take over. But I also don't find it difficult to find at least _some_ use cases that make sense. Assuming you're talking about the smart contracts functionality here - what about something like decentralized escrow? Multisig wallets and hash time-locked contracts are a pretty direct analogue to how we handle escrow in the real world, but the counterparty risk is just move to the VM/chain/network. Its not perfect, and many details need to get ironed out, but that particular use case has always struck me as pretty obvious.

dmitriid 5y ago
> Assuming you're talking about the smart contracts functionality here Compare: human-readable contracts enforced by legal systems vs. complex programs written in an esoteric programming language running on world's most inefficient computer. I fail to see how you view this as an "obvious case that makes sense"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

whitepaint 5y ago

https://pooltogether.com/ https://pooltogether.com/ https://compound.finance/ https://compound.finance/

zitterbewegung 5y ago

There isn’t even a compelling reason to use this language at all. Most developers are familiar with solidity and the most secure contracts and languages are the ones that have already gone under peer review and have either responded to exploits or bugs have been fixed. Adopting a new language like this increases your attack surface by a order of magnitude .

snomad 5y ago

A great use case would be data collected in the process of complying with general govt regulations. Why this is better than central DB: Allows govt to outsource IT Public interest in the data will result in 3rd party clients being developed It makes that govt data more accesible for all parties - no gatekeeping Use case examples All modern houses have a ton of compliance docs - window installers, insulation installers, HVAC, etc. Recording that data on the public blockchain provides a universal storage mechanism and API to that data. There is no reason for that data to be private / behind gatekeepers and a whole range of stakeholders - home builders, academics, environmentalist - want access. Tracking highway per mile marker. Similar to the home building example - the govt collects a whole bunch of data (accidents, pollution run off and constituents, expenses). Many entities could use that data and relying on all govts worldwide to provide it seems cumbersome to unlikely.

la6471 5y ago
It’s just about making the APIs public isn’t it? Data producers today follow AuthN protocols to update a database. An API makes it public or private(apikey). Where and how cryptocurrency/blockchain is useful in this use case . I just don’t understand.

G3rn0ti 5y ago

> And still not a single example of a good real world use case. Have you ever heard of lending protocols? You can park dollar in a smart contracts and earn a couple of percent interest per year. AAVE and Compound are quite popular examples. DAI is a decentralized stable coin trying to track the dollar value that’s been running for years. It is also implemented as a smart contract. Then there are decentralized exchanges where you can swap different tokens on the Ethereum block chains. You can also park tokens in such money pools and also earn interest. The biggest problem with Ethereum right now are the very high transaction fees that render these otherwise quite successful examples useless for people holding only small amounts of tokens. But this can be blamed on the ongoing crypto bubble.

snarf21 5y ago
Right, but you answered your own question. Sure you can lend other people crypto so they can gamble with it. It is all a pump and dump scheme. People aren't borrowing crypto on DeFi to buy a car or house. Crypto isn't practical money. I also don't think that layer 2 or other off-chain will be able to solve it. This is just "money" that is controlled by someone, just not a specific government. As soon as the government makes it illegal, almost all of it will go to zero.
- G3rn0ti 5y ago
  Well you find DeFi laughable. Ok. You know what was called laughable in the nineties? Ordering Pizza over the Internet. It didn’t go over night but today almost everybody is ordering pizza over the internet. Maybe Defi will take over finance in 20 years from now. Maybe it won’t. But I would be careful to dismiss any young and promising technology w/o throughly understanding it.

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. This must surely be the most-repeated one of all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sfjailbird 5y ago
I was hoping to be proven wrong, as I stated. But I admit my tone was a bit incendiary, even while stating that I am actually positive towards crypto. (My dismissal was of the smart contracts of the OP, not crypto in general, which many commenters seem to assume.)