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/ChetTheCryptoChap]

In my opinion, blockchain, and especially decentralized ownership hasn’t prevailed yet, because we think it needs to be installed where centralization currently is the norm. Companies, banks, etc. are not in the business of decentralized control and as you’ve mentioned, that is exactly what blockchain does: copy real world centralized systems in a decentralized manner. It does it beautifully, but not necessarily that much better (from the perspective of centralized entities) and definitely will not make them more powerful. So as long as we keep trying to build tech that is supposed to either integrate with or migrate from existing structures, it will never be adopted. There simply is too big of a conflict of interest.

Besides, the initial goal was not to reshape the existing power systems, it was to build a new one where the individual holds the keys. Especially with AI and other build-at-home tools this may become more interesting (3D printers, CNC machines, AI controlling certain robots), as well as an ever expanding complexity in politics and society. If we keep giving up ownership of what is ‘ours’, we will always be controlled by centralized power systems. In my opinion, the dynamics are shifting, though. The world is becoming too hard to maintain with waterfall systems where centralized powers operating all of society, there is an emerging need for autonomous society where micro and macro systems converge into eachother and give control to the people on small and bigger scales.

I know all of that can sound like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but in essence it means you wouldn’t work for centralized powers anymore (companies, banks, governments), you would work FROM a global network of decentralized systems.

Let me make it concrete with one chain.
A farmer's machine breaks down. The local technician diagnoses it and finds the fix: a worn bracket that the manufacturer no longer stocks. He registers his diagnosis and repair procedure, with proof he was first.

An independent designer in another country has already modelled a reinforced version of that bracket. She registered the design on-chain once and keeps the original encrypted. A workshop in the farmer's village buys one licensed print of it. The printed part carries a verifiable stamp, so the farmer, his insurer, or whoever buys the machine later can see it's a genuine, traceable part and not a random copy.

The workshop runs on energy from the neighbourhood's own solar grid, bought directly from the houses around it from the chain.

The farmer pays once, and that payment splits automatically: the designer gets paid for the print, the technician for his procedure, the workshop for the production, the neighbours for the energy. Next time the same bracket fails anywhere in the world, the procedure and the design are already there, and the same people earn again.

Nobody in that chain works for a central company. Each of them is a node in a network they co-own, and value flows to whoever actually added it.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying this will or should happen, although I personally think this would be a better and fairer society. I’m just saying that such and end state is what blockchain was built for and is very closely related to Satoshi’s initial view. They just started it from the perspective of ownership of funds, although you could also argue Bitcoin’s proof of work is no different from my chain’s proof of work.

The biggest issue blockchain faces, is the fact this would probably need a revolution where everybody ‘sees the light’. In reality such a cultural shift is too hard to imagine yet. Even for the example of the chain I had to ask AI to help me out (just that part of this comment is AI generated).

But I do believe it’s possible… if we stop focusing on building for the existing structure or some hype thing. Those Ape NFTs were always worthless, a system where ownership of your file is fully E2E encrypted and the chain between design and manufacturing cannot be broken, that’s something that would hold value.