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BitCoin is 13 years old. The blockchain is not a new technology, and it is not extremely early days. We have over a decade of people trying to use blockchain an

BitCoin is 13 years old. The blockchain is not a new technology, and it is not extremely early days. We have over a decade of people trying to use blockchain and cryptocurrencies to solve real problems - and not just from startups, but also from large, international tech companies with research divisions. They have tried to use blockchain to solve real problems, and they have failed.

thisisbrians 5y ago
The transistor is 13 years old. The transistor is not a new technology...
- scott_s 5y ago
  The transistor was invented in 1947. By 1960, 13 years later, transistors had replaced vacuum tubes as the dominant technology for electronics.
  - thisisbrians 5y ago
    Yes, and then the internet took another 20+ years.
    - scott_s 5y ago
      You made an implicit argument: it took a similar amount of time (13 years) after the invention of the transistor for them to be used to solve real problems. That is clearly wrong. What argument are you trying to make now?
spopejoy 5y ago
Bitcoin is also a laughably primitive blockchain, and Ethereum is holding back potential applications with it's innumerable flaws. You're right that "it's not early" as crypto hasn't been able to progress as fast as other tech because it's being hampered by its own success, in the time-honored worse-is-better tradition. Blockchains are unusual tech in that it's strangely hard to upgrade them. In 2017-18 it was a common belief that some Bitcoin fork would "win" and become the "real Bitcoin", under the moniker "it's not the network, it's the ledger". Turns out it _is_ the network AND the ledger, unfortunately. However, I maintain that the technology is still _immature_ and in that sense "it's still early": there is still some extremely low-hanging fruit in scalability, safe computing and cryptography that Bitcoin/Eth can't touch. BTC and ETH can absolutely be dethroned with better tech just like other giants that seemed unstoppable at the time.

thisisbrians 5y ago

The transistor is 13 years old. The transistor is not a new technology...

scott_s 5y ago
The transistor was invented in 1947. By 1960, 13 years later, transistors had replaced vacuum tubes as the dominant technology for electronics.
- thisisbrians 5y ago
  Yes, and then the internet took another 20+ years.
  - scott_s 5y ago
    You made an implicit argument: it took a similar amount of time (13 years) after the invention of the transistor for them to be used to solve real problems. That is clearly wrong. What argument are you trying to make now?

spopejoy 5y ago

Bitcoin is also a laughably primitive blockchain, and Ethereum is holding back potential applications with it's innumerable flaws. You're right that "it's not early" as crypto hasn't been able to progress as fast as other tech because it's being hampered by its own success, in the time-honored worse-is-better tradition. Blockchains are unusual tech in that it's strangely hard to upgrade them. In 2017-18 it was a common belief that some Bitcoin fork would "win" and become the "real Bitcoin", under the moniker "it's not the network, it's the ledger". Turns out it _is_ the network AND the ledger, unfortunately. However, I maintain that the technology is still _immature_ and in that sense "it's still early": there is still some extremely low-hanging fruit in scalability, safe computing and cryptography that Bitcoin/Eth can't touch. BTC and ETH can absolutely be dethroned with better tech just like other giants that seemed unstoppable at the time.