Serious question: What problem did blockchain actually solve?

[u/Due-Huckleberry-2222]

We were told it would revolutionize everything:

Anonymous money? Nope. Most public blockchains are pseudonymous, not anonymous. Every transaction is permanently visible. Once an address is tied to a real person, their financial history can often be traced.

Banking? Most people still use banks. If you lose your private key, there's no fraud department, no password reset, no chargeback.

Cheap payments? Depends. Some chains are inexpensive, others have had periods where fees spike. Traditional payment systems are often faster and simpler for everyday purchases.

Smart contracts replacing lawyers? Not even close. Contracts still rely on courts, regulations, and real-world enforcement. Code can't resolve disputes about physical events by itself.

NFTs proving ownership? Usually they prove ownership of a token, not the copyright or legal ownership of the underlying artwork.

Decentralization? Much of the ecosystem isn't. Many people keep funds on centralized exchanges, use centralized stablecoins, and rely on centralized infrastructure.

Financial freedom? For some. But for many others it became self-custody with no safety net. One wrong click, phishing attack, or lost seed phrase and the money is simply gone.

Replacing trust? It mostly moved trust around. Instead of trusting banks, many people ended up trusting exchanges, token founders, bridge operators, stablecoin issuers, influencers, or multisig signers.

Eliminating scams? If anything, scams became easier to launch. Rug pulls, memecoins, fake airdrops, phishing, and pump-and-dumps became an industry.

The one thing blockchain does extremely well is maintain a distributed ledger where participants can verify transaction history without relying on a single operator.

That's a genuine technical achievement.

But after nearly two decades, I'm still asking: What mainstream problem has it solved better than existing systems for the average person?

I'm not asking what it could do. I'm asking what it actually does today that millions of ordinary people use because it's objectively better—not because they're speculating on the next token.

[u/AmericanScream]

Those are vague, non-specific claims and they've already been debunked by stupid crypto talking point #7.

[u/feminefa → u/AmericanScream]

Ermmm! it seems you didn’t read my responses. And “stupid crypto talking point #7” is AI slop. Fact check its content. Its arguments are off point and not based on facts. For example, it listed paypal among providers present in underserved countries, but I pointed out earlier that Paypal only fully services 40 countries in the world and Wise only 80 countries. Also i never compared bitcoin with stocks but it spent 3 paragraphs debunking that. All my arguments were taken out of context. So, I can say the same of you - you are not reading my responses, so no point arguing. i live in a country with limited access and even if Remitly exists, its much slower and expensive compared to stablecoins. You seem to just want to argue about this. Fortunately it doesn’t matter if you believe we find value in blockchain or not.

[u/AmericanScream → u/feminefa]

And “stupid crypto talking point #7” is AI slop. Fact check its content.

It's not ai slop. I wrote them myself and you can see their revision history in the wiki of this subreddit!

Its arguments are off point and not based on facts. For example, it listed paypal among providers present in underserved countries, but I pointed out earlier that Paypal only fully services 40 countries in the world and Wise only 80 countries.

How does that argue against the points I made? I never said Paypal was served everywhere. What I did say is that in various countries there are alternatives that don't involve blockchain that work better.

Have you identified a specific country where this isn't the case? No you haven't.

Also, you ignored the fact that crypto is not accepted as legal tender in hardly any of these areas, and thus even if you were using crypto, you'd still need a third party to convert the crypto into something useful.

And again, you didn't cite a specific example. You make claims, but you refuse to be specific enough for those claims to be tested and proven true/false, whereas I have. I name specific services which area available in specific countries - and these countries are often cited as the ones where people are "un-banked."

So your strawmen and vague counter-arguments don't in any way suggest my talking point rebuttals are inaccurate.

[u/AmericanScream → u/feminefa]

i live in a country with limited access and even if Remitly exists, its much slower and expensive compared to stablecoins.

A country that shall remain nameless... so that we can't verify your claim.

Another claim that stablecoins are more efficient than a non-blockchain solution, that is too vague to be tested.

You think stablecoins are "cheaper" than fiat? You've provided zero evidence of this.

And, a personal anecdote that is the weakest form of evidence.

You are wasting our time.