More likely - some legitimate use cases will emerge, as I am yet to see anything to date that would fit into that category, but there is still room for the solution that is crypto to find itself a problem to fix.
There is a strong selection bias for those that report on crypto for clicks or those that want to create a narrative that we can not live without some big central authority controlling our lives.
Tell me more? What problem does this solve that you can't do with centralized auth?
Centralized systems are amazing, until they aren't.
Decentralized systems are amazing, until they aren't
(Even if you wanted to have a decentralized account recovery like saying you can have 3 friends band together and help you recover your account if you lose access, what happens when those 3 friends decide that don't like you as much as they like the idea of banding together to take over your identity and all your money?...)
> Decentralized systems are amazing, until they aren't
No, they are not. They are expensive, they require responsibility. The UX is complicated. Most people shouldn't use it and will be better off delegating all this to someone else.
Thing is, it's not because something is good enough for most people that everyone should stick to it.
> what happens when those 3 friends decide that don't like you as much as they like the idea of banding together to take over your identity and all your money?
This argument is stupid. With decentralization, there is no reason for your identity to be something singular. There is even less reason for people to think that one wallet should hold "all your money".
If you don’t have any friends you trust (which is probably a pretty common thing), then you can choose any other people/entities you do trust. If you want to rely on the government or financial institutions, you can request that they be part of your social recovery wallet process.
This isn’t common yet, but you can also build your wallet so it’s very difficult to steal funds even if someone recovers your private key. Building challenge periods into your transactions is trivial and lets you know if an attacker has compromised your key. You can then transfer all of your assets out with your recovery key.
What exactly are the valid use cases that are not already better served with centralized systems THAT DOES NOT involve illegal activity?
So having your own blockchain domain and even using it as a method of login is illegal and centralised now? [0] ENS is a good existing example and concept 'so-far' of a valid use case, even when I disagree with it being implemented on Ethereum.
As for payments, cryptocurrencies that have blockchains like Bitcoin should be dismissed in the long term. Regulated stablecoins seem better for that purpose these days.
Of course you could say that Bitcoin is worthless and not proved as store of value, but that's not for me or you to decide, it's what's decided by the market.
And so the issue you have is not with Paypal, Visa etc unless you think that those payment companies should tolerate illegal parties transacting money. Because that is a very slippery slope especially given how much wealth in the world comes from the despair of the very poor and helpless.
There are, and should be real-world limits on the ability of the US government to stop things from happening by deeming them illegal.
In the case of Wikileaks, one such limitation is the relatively decentralized nature of the internet. The US government was able to pressure Amazon to refuse to host it, but was unsuccessful in pressuring OVH, so Wikileaks remains online. There is no Great Firewall of America, so it remains accessible within the US.
Another limitation is that while the US government can and did pressure Paypal to refuse service to Wikileaks, there's no equivalent for preventing transfers of cryptocurrencies.
It already exists: the legal system.
> there's no equivalent for preventing transfers of cryptocurrencies
Money laundering, child trafficking, drug profiteering, terrorism etc. they all come with costs.
And doing nothing to stop them is not good for anyone.
Everything else (and yes I’m even referring to ETH) is crap. It’s not truly decentralized, doesn’t have a REAL world use case (get real and be honest please), and don’t have anyone (or entity) “in charge” of it. Those are the major (among other) things that a real crypto is supposed to have by very definition.
Everything else is worthless (a “get rich scam”), and we all know it. And shame on those creating that crap, along with those gullible enough to buy them. Seriously, wake up. It’s just the hard cold truth, and we all know it.
Sorry to break it to most people, but apparently most don’t understand this “common sense” concept that is stupidly obvious in my opinion.
Even in the case of ETH (the undoubted #2 crypto), what would happen if Putin decided to go after Vitalik with all his might and the supper of the entire Russian government? You really think he’d stand a chance (and that’s assuming he’s a saint as well)? Again, wake up everyone. There’s a very good reason BTC has no “admins” or “chair board”, because nobody can corrupt it. Even the creator(s) of BTC were smart enough to not use their real names and lock themselves out of the system, and then disappear. They know what was coming. And now so should you. It’s really not complicated. There’s so many extremely powerful , rich, and ruthless people out there that stand to lose everything if this succeeds. You really Think they aren’t going to put up a fight?!? Get real. But that’s only if they know who to go after….
What happens if Putin decides to go after ASIC producers and some of the biggest mining operators?
Because even if the circles you move in are all very well aware that NFTs are a massive scam, very obviously many people haven't yet realized that—after all, it's still working.
https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/14701269278180679...
I think the scam goes all the way back to electricity and Edison!
Its a little bit disingenuous to blame etherium for NFT, its like blaming email for nigerian prince spam.
Except that the law and regulations are always behind once the early technology has been introduced, with early adopters getting themselves burned, sued or encountering significant losses - Hence the DAO hack of 2016. That is the reason why ICOs are now regulated.
Did you really think that the SEC would do nothing and sit there and let the 2017 carnage continue? NFTs are no different and that technology (like tokens) will be subject to regulations. The same with email and electricity but by other regulatory standards.
How does this has anything to do with how technology was implemented?
I am not defending NFTs nor fighting regulation. I am saying that you cannot blame ether's smart contracts for creation of NFT.
But you’re right about NFT’s not being ETH’s fault by the way, on that I agree with you. But it still happened. By the way, why (like in all reality if being brutally honest) did we need to have NFT’s to begin with? The answer is we didn’t. People saw a “get rich quick opportunity” (even though very wrong), and went after it. That does not make it right or give it a real world use case, sorry, it really doesn’t.
Yet, on the flip side, I pay my rent, most of my utility bills, and basically all purchases (Amazon, eBay, Uber/Uber Eats, Airbnb, American Airlines, and about ten others that compromise about 90% of all them) with Bitcoin (BTC). And that takes me about 5 minutes. Is that not real world? If not, please enlighten me, what is then?
Nuclear fission was the idea/tech, it was used to create A-bombs, and clean nuclear energy. Nuclear fission like smart contract is an idea, how its used it up to people.
Not sure why this article presents this as a great surprise or a new discovery. Sure, the majority of NFTs (Especially the JPEGs) are a pump-n-dump ponzi scam selling images to each other. When the NFT craze runs out of steam, 90% of all the image/audio/video types of NFTs will collapse. 10% of the other NFTs will survive with a valid use case.
I don't see how the whole 'web3' narrative should apply to every single cryptocurrency and project in existence, like how this article has done. Just look at this sentence and the quote:
> A person investing in crypto or a shared future on the blockchain is said to hate Earth and support the “hyperfinancialization of all human existence.”
How does that apply to every single cryptocurrency as the author of this tweet has just generalized? [0]
[0] https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1465682611171467269?s=20