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Why does Uniswap need to replace all of our exchanges within a two year timespan in order to be seen as useful, novel, and interesting tech? When was the last t

Why does Uniswap need to replace all of our exchanges within a two year timespan in order to be seen as useful, novel, and interesting tech? When was the last time you applied this standard to the rest of our technology? HN can admit that Tor, Scuttlebutt, 3D printing, text-to-image GANs is interesting and useful tech, despite it not taking over average users daily lives. The basic premises of crypto are to be decentralized and permissionless systems that support peer-to-peer forms of exchange and ownership, and they largely succeed in their defined goals. The goal of these protocols is to provide new tools, not to replace every corner of fiat and financial systems.

theamk 4y ago
The key difference is negative externalities. If 3D printing and Scuttlebutt were associated with scams and crime, people in HN would Cann it useless too.
- whatisweb3 4y ago
  Notice that Tor was also in my list, and it powers the criminal dark web - driving a lot of negative externalities - but it is rarely called useless. HN crowd generally appreciates privacy, peer-to-peer systems, and end-to-end encryption, but does not apply the same standards when it comes to digital ownership and value exchange.
dmitriid 4y ago
> to be decentralized and permissionless systems that support peer-to-peer forms of exchange and ownership, and they largely succeed in their defined goals. They... they don't succeed. Like, at all. Except for a tiny bit in their own digital bubbles where everything is defined in crypto. And even there it's highly questionable.
- whatisweb3 4y ago
  Sure they do - these protocols define digital assets that can be owned in a non-custodial manner, and exchanged and escrowed via peer-to-peer mechanisms without fear of double-spend. These are the goals of the protocols, and both BTC and ETH have succeeded wildly at doing this specific task, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transfers for several years without any notable record of a double-spend or network downtime. This says nothing about their USD spot trading price, or the practicality of securing large amounts of wealth with a 24-word private key, or the expectation that these technologies should somehow replace all corners of the world's financial transactions.

theamk 4y ago

The key difference is negative externalities. If 3D printing and Scuttlebutt were associated with scams and crime, people in HN would Cann it useless too.

whatisweb3 4y ago
Notice that Tor was also in my list, and it powers the criminal dark web - driving a lot of negative externalities - but it is rarely called useless. HN crowd generally appreciates privacy, peer-to-peer systems, and end-to-end encryption, but does not apply the same standards when it comes to digital ownership and value exchange.

dmitriid 4y ago

> to be decentralized and permissionless systems that support peer-to-peer forms of exchange and ownership, and they largely succeed in their defined goals. They... they don't succeed. Like, at all. Except for a tiny bit in their own digital bubbles where everything is defined in crypto. And even there it's highly questionable.

whatisweb3 4y ago
Sure they do - these protocols define digital assets that can be owned in a non-custodial manner, and exchanged and escrowed via peer-to-peer mechanisms without fear of double-spend. These are the goals of the protocols, and both BTC and ETH have succeeded wildly at doing this specific task, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transfers for several years without any notable record of a double-spend or network downtime. This says nothing about their USD spot trading price, or the practicality of securing large amounts of wealth with a 24-word private key, or the expectation that these technologies should somehow replace all corners of the world's financial transactions.