Trust is oil that makes economic engines fast and abundant, while distrust is sand - even a few specks cause damage. Trust between actors is key here, not just trust that the system won’t malfunction. The next iteration has to make every participant as safe as can be (without raising the threshold for entry).

I would approach the next iteration as software with a very robust test suite - there is a rich portfolio of financial scams out there and your system needs to help deter, detect, prevent, etc, as much of that as possible automatically. All human systems devolve down to policing rule compliance with time.

Draw them in with ease of use that beats current financial tools (transaction fees for commercial transactions for example) and keep them in with trust (any bad actor has only one identity and loses it or is prohibited from using it for a time, - forcing them to use non-digital payment processing with much higher transaction costs.

1) To recover, a crypto will probably need to include specs about how the exchange should run.

Exchanges have failed 3-4 times, and it seems they’re part of a currency since people keep coming back to them. So there needs to be a system where I keep having control over my coins while they’re in an exchange: ability to withdraw from the exchange, ability to approve a transaction.

So, the only service you really need is something like Tether, not an exchange (as you can use decentralized exchanges). The service Tether operates--and I'm not claiming they aren't also some horrible scam, but I'm using them as the example because they are seemingly the minimal thing you need--is to act as the connection between fiat banks and decentralized chains, by supporting wire/ACH on one side and issuing a token on the other side (which they will later accept back for money). You don't need crazy complicated exchanges with their massive attack surface: you just need Tether. Now, is it possible to have a transparent Tether that you reasonably trust to be legitimate? I don't know. Maybe that's Circle--the people who do USDC, and which have been managing to compete with Tether for the most used stablecoin as of this year--as they do regular SEC filings and have fancy accounting reports? Alternatively, maybe if some large existing bank--such as Bank of America--were willing to issue a stablecoin, we'd all be willing to trust it to not be corrupt? But you really, honestly, don't need a full-blown centralized exchange for crypto to work: you just need a working stablecoin with enough easy-to-access liquidity that you can quickly buy in and out with a ton of money.

Like a normal exchange, audited and run by professionals not crypto bros. A walled depository, like a normal exchange. Running within a reputable regulatory framework. Nothing new here.

All of this is a solved problem in equity exchanges world. Escrows, SPIC etc. No need to reinvent a wheel that was invented after learning from so much of pain.

So regulators either come down heavily on these exchanges or they will let retailers continue to get conned.

Its a solved problem in crypto too. Shapeshift allowed for swapping of funds while always having control of the keys, but it was given hell by regulators. If it were allowed to grow maybe things like ftx wouldnt have gotten so big

A DEX

https://particl.news/introducing-particls-basicswap-dex/

About #1 I think you are wrong. History has shown us that all they need to forget it is a few days of green numbers again. The siren song of a few days of up only.

I think the bigger damage is done to the institutional investors. They might have been able to ignore historic collapses of exchanges as the sort of thing that happens when a promising new asset class is dominated by amateurs that originally wanting to trade playing cards, not sophisticated professionals like them. But SBF was supposed to be the adult in the room, an ex-Jane Street trader focused on providing liquidity who wanted the market to be better regulated...

"Web3" was never mainstream, despite the obvious manipulations to try to make it so.

It was headline on Singapore FinTech Festival in 2021. I hope the organisers have warm ears now.

All reasonable points, and potentially insurmountable challenges. Also whatever it is, needs to have incremental utility, otherwise there's no road from the present to the future for it.

Also to repeat a minor rant of mine, anyone designing a would be successor to Etherium should think very deeply about programming language theory and consult/engage with experts in that community. Much pain could be avoided by finding types and semantics appropriate to automated contracts.

You can build whatever language features you want, though it still should deploy into the EVM. Vyper is an existing alternative to Solidity.

I would like to see more alternatives, so stop ranting and start building.

https://www.quicknode.com/guides/smart-contract-development/...

Observing that you can implement any semantics atop a turing complete mechanism isn't interesting. You're also ignoring the very interesting possibility of using a total language.

I am perfectly fine expressing a criticism without trying to become the next ETH developer. That's a pointless and rude behavior. If you find my criticism uninteresting you are free to simply scroll on.

I pointed out that Vyper is an alternative to Solidity which already is available, and that any language can be created to run in the EVM. I would even like to see a subset of COBOL ported to the EVM with an eye toward simple security constructs. Am curious what specific shortcomings you found in Vyper.

1. Remember ICOs? Web3, NFTs, and DAOs are going to be this cycles ICOs. The word crypto isn’t going away, but everything else might.

2. Crypto’s (as an industry) energy consumption is negligible when looking at other similar sized industries. POW is still the best method of mining.

3. 100% agree.

> The current financial system took a LOT of guardrails to keep people from tanking the trust in it for their own self gain.

The current financial system took decades to be rigged properly. It rewards politicians and elites. There’s no denying that. The everyday man is left holding the bag 9 times out of 10. This was the very reason Bitcoin was created. Thinking the government is going to save you is an insane idea.

I have never understood what problems crypto/Blockchain/web3 is actually supposed to solve. I know it gained traction during the Libertarian/Austrian economics zeitgeist following the 2008 financial collapse. There was fear that the traditional fiat system was irreparably broken and couldn't be relied on. In reality regulators and central bankers did a pretty solid job (not perfect but they eventually got it right). DeFi was basically saying regulation is impossible to do without corruption so let's make transactions possible and regulation impossible. Not a great idea and now a fully failed experiment. Crypto as an asset class for profit was only ever an emergent property fueled by speculators. Crypto as actual currency is still valuable (mostly for criminals) so it may stay for a while but it's not going to make anyone rich ever again.

One important feature for me is that nobody can take my coins from my wallet. Putting coins into an exchange or JPMorgan is not what I mean.