Polymarket is a real use case.
Why do you need a blockchain for that? Gambling and Insurance existed both long before blockchains.
Polymarket is centralized, but one benefit of it is that you can sign up and fund your account anonymously (though you do require an email). Users are not restricted by state or national laws.
On a true decentralized gambling app, email would not be needed, just wallet. It would also be difficult to regulate (the team behind it could be anonymous).
And I'm not saying this is great or anything, but it shows how you can build something with a blockchain that you could not otherwise.
It’s only as anonymous as the paper trail behind the funding coins, right?
Yea, but you can break the paper trail behind the funding coins if you want to. Would use something like Tornado or Monero.
The most successful actual applications thus far, as far as I can tell, have been silk road and paying ransoms.
I know people that send money home and they don’t use cryptocoins. These remittances communities are savvy and price sensitive, if there was a superior product it would be spreading like wildfire.