There's a lot of pessimism in the comments here, and I feel like I'm the only one interested in where this will go. I can identify with what some of you are saying, but it is still interesting regardless. Distributed tech has some of the most fascinating projects right now. Here's a few examples:
Distributed file storage: Sia [1] and Storj [2] are both using blockchain tech to form a dropbox-like atmosphere where you can rent space for as little as 2c/GB. Renters can rent out their extra storage, while miners can mine and sell their units or use them on file storage to pay rent for their data.
Decentralized Content Platform: Steem-it. Very interesting concept here about compensating content creators with the currency that the platform surrounds. It bears somewhat of a resemblance to Reddit. [3]
Private yet fungible cryptocurrency: Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency on the rise that has privacy baked in, with the ability to opt-in to making your transaction public. It uses Ring Confidential Transactions [4] to mix the transactions and reduce the chances of the participants being identified to an almost 0 chance. It is ASIC resistant [5], has solid governance and dev team, and can even be used on hardware wallets like Tresor with a bit of hacking [6].
Disclosure: There could be some bias, because I'm long on all of these except Storj, so I'm including sources that hopefully will allow you to make your own decision without me being preachy.
I like the concept of Sia but wouldn't the coin value be 1) loosely tied to Dropbox et al storage costs and 2) deflationary over time as storage costs are continually decreasing?
I'm pessimistic. Bitcoin's main use case is purchasing drugs, gambling, laundering and ransomware payments. Remittances and micropayment are a far distant second. Monero's main use case is even better money laundering than Bitcoin.
SIA and Storj's first users, if ever adopted, will be criminals, aka Pedophiles looking to store and share CP without fear of getting caught. I'm going to guess no one uploading anything legitimate is going to use Sia and Storj over AWS, Dropbox and Box.
Distributed file storage: Sia [1] and Storj [2] are both using blockchain tech to form a dropbox-like atmosphere where you can rent space for as little as 2c/GB. Renters can rent out their extra storage, while miners can mine and sell their units or use them on file storage to pay rent for their data.
Decentralized Content Platform: Steem-it. Very interesting concept here about compensating content creators with the currency that the platform surrounds. It bears somewhat of a resemblance to Reddit. [3]
Private yet fungible cryptocurrency: Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency on the rise that has privacy baked in, with the ability to opt-in to making your transaction public. It uses Ring Confidential Transactions [4] to mix the transactions and reduce the chances of the participants being identified to an almost 0 chance. It is ASIC resistant [5], has solid governance and dev team, and can even be used on hardware wallets like Tresor with a bit of hacking [6].
[1] - https://www.sia.tech/whitepaper.pdf
[2] - https://storj.io/storj.pdf
[3] - https://steemit.com/steemit/@panenka/what-is-steemit-and-how...
[4] - https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098.pdf
[5] - https://monero.stackexchange.com/a/138
[6] - https://forum.getmonero.org/4/academic-and-technical/2495/ex...
Disclosure: There could be some bias, because I'm long on all of these except Storj, so I'm including sources that hopefully will allow you to make your own decision without me being preachy.