Re:IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from bei...
by fastball on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @02:58PM
(#25933111)
For starters, I think you're underestimating how much of what we do in the modern world is entirely digital and therefore can be entirely captured in a blockchain. There are decentralized trustless platforms running on Ethereum right now. You can transact currency on a plethora of decentralized exchanges, without all the layers that doing so with an exchange of USD -> RMB requires today. There are pilot programs built around blockchain that allow people to sell excess energy production (e.g. with home solar) back to other people on the "grid" in an entirely decentralized way.
And with tokens that are tied to real-life things, the benefit is that once you've used real-world trust systems (e.g. real-life contracts / lawyers / courts / etc) to tie something to the blockchain, you can (going forward) hand everything over to the trustless and secure system. i.e. You tie your property to the blockchain once, and from then on you don't need to involve all those inefficient systems, you just transact the tied token directly on the blockchain.
Just because it hasn't been done successfully yet doesn't mean it's not viable. How long did the internet exist before [thing that is taken for granted on the internet now] was successful?
Finally, Ethereum launched in 2015, not sure where you're getting 13 years from.
It's been 13 years now and nobody's done it, because that's a terrible idea. The reason lawyers exist is that all contracts have ambiguity and require a human to review and consider. All contracts have circumstances that aren't captured. Just ask the DAO folks.
Middlemen exist for a reason. Efficiency, conflict and ambiguity resolution, and so on.
Blockchains are only useful for things that are entirely captured within the blockchain. As soon as you interface the blockchain with the outside world you have to trust something to enter and capture that data accurately - garbage in, garbage out. Once you're trusting someone, you don't need a blockchain, just fire up and RDS instance and save everyone the headache.