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I come from the other side of the argument: since there's so much money poured into cryptocurrencies, so many talents spending their days working on it, huge companies like Goldman Sachs saying that it's the future then what's taking so long?

I'm not even asking for a killer app at this point, just for a compelling argument of what the future of a blockchain-powered world will look like. I don't think I'm a "know-it-all" just for asking for a tangible explanation which doesn't revolve around a bunch of hand-waving or technically, socially and economically ridiculous statements such as "imagine Facebook but it's the blockchain".

Blockchain is not the magic device people make out to be, it's a cool hack but so far its practical use cases are rather limited. And if you think I'm a know-it-all for saying that I'm sure that you'll easily be able to shame me for the fraud that I am by pointing out the multiple problems that can be solved by the Blockchain more efficiently than with good old technology. So far all I have is "buying illegal stuff online" and "selling illegal stuff online". For everything else there's PostgreSQL.

People compare blockchain and cryptocurrencies to the internet or cell phones but I think it's completely disingenuous. While I'm sure you could find plenty of naysayers back then who failed to understand the scope of what the internet would become and how revolutionary it was at the very least easy to see what it brought to the table. You could communicate with anybody around the world, play games, maybe even buy stuff. You can argue about how important and valuable that is, but at least the potential is clear.

When you read these Blockchain pamphlets it feels like they're trying to convert them to their religion or political movement. It's about user experiences and decentralization and building blocks of trust. It's about the power of software and the encoding of human thought. And VR and AR for some reason.

I say that's just bullshit.




> what's taking so long

This technology is combining software, hardware, game theory, monetary incentives. It's going to take a long time, and it hasn't even been 10 years.

Picture years from now, and the big buzzword trifecta of blockchain, AI, and IoT are relatively matured.

Can you really not see the potential in combining autonomous organizations making decisions on the output of AI that learns from data sourced through billions of IoT devices around the world?




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