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Kinda reminds me of crypto. There are certainly very interesting things happening in the crypto space. But the most visible parts of the crypto universe are the

• thereticent 8mo ago
  Genuinely curious, not being combative...what very interesting things have happened in the crypto space lately?
  • abustamam 8mo ago
    Oh, I dunno about lately (though I did stumble upon https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/big-ideas-things-excited-about-crypto-2026/ https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/big-ideas-things-excite... ) But when I was in the crypto space in 2018, there was a lot of interesting things happening in the smart contract world (like proofs of concepts of issuing NFTs as a digital "deed" to a physical asset like a house). I don't think any of those novel ideas went anywhere, but it was a fun time to be experimenting.
    • ulfw 8mo ago
      > like proofs of concepts of issuing NFTs as a digital "deed" to a physical asset like a house which went absolutely nowhere
      • abustamam 8mo ago
        Yeah, like most startups. I'd argue that a majority of AI startups now will go nowhere as well. That's just how new technology goes. Lots of shiny objects, lots of hype, and maybe 1%, if that, goes on to become a foundation of society. Jury is still out on if crypto will become a foundation for society (if anything, it would be foundational for something boring and invisible like banking). I wouldn't bet on a startup doing that, but that's the only viable thing I can foresee crypto being useful for. But it doesn't mean that other applications can't be interesting and useless!
  • pocksuppet 8mo ago
    Teaching tens of thousands of programmers how the financial system actually works was interesting, heh.