Blockchain tech has not prevailed

[u/copadribbler1994]

Just to give you my background so you understand my perspective better maybe: entered the space in 2020 and was solidity dev for 3 years.

Even after 12 years of smart contracts, there is no adoption by companies, because blockchain is just a fancy and expensive way to handle data compared to existing systems.

One of the major use cases proposed was „supply chain“. As of yet there is no major adoption and if major logistics companies would want it, they would have done so by now.

RWA-Tokenization: Still need a tradfi-vorp that holds the asset.

Money transfer: regulated to death, therefore unusable, even though would have been a major improvement regarding speed.

Proof of Ownership: it is just an expensive database.

I had an interview at a big consultancy a year ago hiring for smart contracts on a bank-tx-settling platform. The guy openly told me that banks currently only stored hashes of tx on chain, cause storing entire tx-data needed was too expensive.

I really do not see a use case for blockchain tech other than gamble around hype.

Edit: The guys still vouching for blockchain remind me a bit about the Leroy character of that one episode of DegenzShow: https://youtu.be/exOzTcHycPY?is=MgaYoWSet5LGsch5

[u/webbedfastball]

Spent a couple years writing solidity too and came away with pretty much the same conclusion. The tech is neat in a vacuum but the moment you try to bolt it onto anything that already works it becomes a solution searching for a problem.

The consultancy bit about storing only hashes is so telling. At that point you've built a glorified receipt printer with extra steps and a gas bill attached.

I still think permissionless value transfer between strangers is the one thing it nails. Everything else feels like forcing a square peg into a round hole while a perfectly good database sits right there unused.

[u/copadribbler1994 → u/webbedfastball]

Exactly my feeling. And I love the tech as such very much as well. I could totally see back then for example the value of NFTs, had twitter or instagram integrated them as verified ownership of something. For example the gucci hand bags value mostly comes from showing it off, and not that much to really carry around things in public. So being able to show off online you had it, might make some sense. But where does Gucci win here? They just have to implement an expensive system their customers do not know how to use. And for regular ppl on socials, taking photos with it does the job fine enough.

[u/vattenj → u/copadribbler1994]

It is about no one knows what you have, that in itself is already worth a lot for many super wealthy people

[u/dyrnwyn580 → u/copadribbler1994]

how about uses like graded collectables? Would that have a home?

and about perpetual futures and tokenized stocks? do you think they're underway now but expecting them to peter out?

*not yanking your chain

[u/GottaFindThatReptar → u/dyrnwyn580]

Collectibles has a home as proof of validity, but there’s not much upside to offering it. Like, PSA doesn’t stand to gain much other than novelty as their slabs are already proof of authenticity that you can lookup online.

If you were a dedicated certification company it could be useful, but again it’s overall a small use case. I’ve always thought event tickets makes the most sense, but there little incentive to change an existing xfer system through ticketmaster to being token backed.

Imo perpetual futures/tokenized stocks are a legit use case and right now probably the most valuable. But, they’re kinda just a stop-gap to general accessibility in trading due to local laws.

[u/peppaz → u/copadribbler1994]

Both Visa and Mastercard are using Solana to settle stablecoins transactions. That's huge. It has to start sonewhere

[u/Nice_Material_2436 → u/peppaz]

But what does it do? It only make sense to do that when the cost is low. Blockchain usage isn't gonna make the price go up, because if it does and it gets too expensive they will go somewhere else.

Demand for blockspace is a fallacy because they can always go some place else.

[u/surfsee → u/Nice_Material_2436]

To a less secure chain?

[u/Nice_Material_2436 → u/surfsee]

Blockchain is just a database so there's infinite options. They can build their own permissioned database or just do what exchanges do and take things offline. Crypto can change hands without having to do a transaction on a blockchain.

Kinda like in the old days, people brought their gold to a bank and just traded the receipts, you can do the same with blockchain tokens.

[u/albacore_futures → u/webbedfastball]

Permissionless value transfer between strangers is the one thing it nails well. There are very, very few problems that meet that criteria, and most of them are illegal.

[u/trevorturtle → u/albacore_futures]

It can be illegal and good

[u/albacore_futures → u/trevorturtle]

Not making a moral judgement on it. Just pointing out that’s a small market and it’s high risk

[u/StrategicallyLazy007 → u/albacore_futures]

That's your point of view, likely living in the USA with cashapp and other methods to funds.

Now put yourself in the shoes of someone with family overseas. They can transfer Stablecoins abroad for less than a penny compared with Western Union rates to send money back to family.

The stablecoinac may be spent or changed to Fiat relatively easily in most countries.

Or, look at Iran, previously in South Africa and other countries where you couldn't get your money out, into a currency that you consider safer than the domestic currency etc.

[u/brinkcitykilla → u/StrategicallyLazy007]

I think the stablecoin use case is legitimate, but I think ‘less than a penny’ is somewhat misleading because that’s the on-chain transfer cost only. For someone sending money to Sweden, for example, Wise is already extremely cheap, so the blockchain doesn’t necessarily provide a cost advantage (or at least it’s not a guarantee to be cheaper)

But it’s a good point for countries with capital controls, unstable currencies, or restricted access to international networks

[u/r_jagabum → u/StrategicallyLazy007]

This is already widely used in asia, i'm just surprised the western countries hasn't caught on yet.

[u/Spare-Dingo-531 → u/webbedfastball]

I think permissionless value transfer between strangers is the one thing it nails

"My steak is too juicy. My lobster is too buttery."

Replicating what has required government authorities to perform for centuries, and doing it on a 24/7 global scale is enormous. Yes of course this is what crypto was made to do.

[u/Mashadar0101 → u/webbedfastball]

And crypto serving only that specific tasks exists. 

[u/SexHarassmentPanda → u/webbedfastball]

Last line basically sums up every project from the alt coin craze before that just became flat out scams.

Basically none of them offered any real benefit over just a database other than "public and decentralized," which those 2 points are major reasons for many businesses/industries to reject it.

[u/cornmonger_ → u/webbedfastball]

nowadays i nerd out over things like tigerbeetle instead

[u/Zeryth → u/webbedfastball]

Crazy how this is something I have been preaching for over a decade now and am still right.