Not an expert, but IMO, it’s because it was misused. Cryptocurrency is just one application of blockchain technology, but people equated blockchain to crypto, and crypto was turned into an investment scheme instead of an actual currency. Then came NFTs, which people turned into rugpull scams. And news of the volatility of cryptocurrency and all those NFT scams drove away any chance of regular people adopting anything blockchain-related.
Give me an example of a real world problem that was either unsolved before blockchain solved it, or blockchain solves it better than existing alternatives.
I’ll go ahead and save you “decentralized currency/finance between untrustworthy entities” (i.e. cryptocurrency) because it doesn’t actually (and can’t actually) solve that in the real world. Humans are too error-prone, and an immutable ledger presents too high a risk for business-ending mistakes for any business with any alternative options to adopt it for their primary revenue pathway.
I’ll give you a couple examples of use cases for Blockchain technology that no other technology solves.
As currency:
Payment system without content restrictions. You might say “But MasterCard said they’re not blocking it”, but they could, they could pressure Valve into removing other games, or something similar. Such a thing is impossible in Blockchain, there’s no single owner that can impose limits to what you can/can’t buy with it.
International transactions without restrictions. We talked about how payment processors can stop transactions, banks and governments can do the same and while they use this power less often it’s still generally a pain in the ass to move money from one country to another.
As smart contracts:
International car ownership deeds. In most countries car ownership has to be registered into the DMV equivalent, this means that moving a car from one country to another is problematic. A smart contract ledger would be an excellent solution to this, countries could use the ledger to transfer ownership and that transfer would be understood by any country that already uses the same ledger as a source of truth, without any of the countries having to trust in the systems built by the other countries.
Something similar for phones could also include known stolen IMEI numbers that can be blocked internationally without any regulatory organization needing to trust one another or rely in a centralized controlling agency.
Give me an example of a real world problem that was either unsolved before blockchain solved it, or blockchain solves it better than existing alternatives.
International online payment without a company telling you that your legal adult entertainment is morally wrong
Did blockchain solve it? Is blockchain actually pragmatically solving that problem better than existing alternatives? Or is the cost of adopting a blockchain payment system as the primary payment system, with all the risks inherent in it, higher than the benefits when compared to alternatives?
in australia, we have various credentials provided by the government to attest to a persons fitness to work with children (i’ll just refer to these in bulk from now on as WWCC: working with children checks). there are many of these - one per state for individuals, plus teacher’s accreditations per state, and a few more. they’re ongoing certifications, so can be revoked if anything happens
it’s a legal requirement for businesses who engage in activities involving kids to ensure anyone they employ - including volunteers - is appropriately vetted
needless to say, this gets quite complex for national organisations!
i was the engineering lead for a startup that organisations could add their workforce into the system, with the credentials, and the system checked periodically to check that everyone’s credentials are valid, about to expire, etc and notify people if something goes awry
of course, that doesn’t need blockchain BUT
in cases of child sexual abuse, things tend to only come out after 30+ years on average (according to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse). organisations need to be able to prove that they were doing everything they possibly could to protect the kids under their care. 30 years on that’s no small task! our company might not even exist in 30 years!
along with our automated checks, we also published an event to the eth blockchain: a hash of the card details as an index (ie if you know the card details, you can look up all instances of validation), and a hash that proves the check took place
what’s that hash? well, i won’t get too into the weeds but essentially we push a payload to IPFS which contains:
a link to a kind of “template” of an HTTP archive for a typical request to the validation service
a diff that allows you to reconstruct the HTTP archive of this instance of the request given the original template
various pieces of the HTTPS handshake with the validation service that allow you to essentially validate after the fact that the content of the HTTP archive was exactly what the validation service sent at the time - HTTPS is essentially signed information after all, so we have a chunk of HTML attesting to the validity of a card that’s been signed by the government! cryptographic proof - not just “take my word for it”
we also published a page on IPFS that allows people to enter card details and load all this information and produce all the technical details to prove what happened (we also had plans for some kind of hardware pack with pinned versions of things because browsers and technology change)
you might be able to do this by relying on the date header that the server sends, but to be really sure, writing the hashes to the blockchain proves that the event given happened at a very specific time and date
blockchain shouldn’t be big and flashy: it’s a very niche use-case, but for those niches there’s really nothing like it
Like I said, not an expert. Also, regardless if it’s a revolutionary solution to something or not, it doesn’t negate the point that it was made to be used for something, but it’s being indirectly used for something else instead.
If we take that example to be true there are still issues with it. Just look at any of a dozen stories of people who had millions in crypto currency stolen from them. The police and feds will just sort of go “us not being able to do anything about it was the point.”
Not an expert, but IMO, it’s because it was misused. Cryptocurrency is just one application of blockchain technology, but people equated blockchain to crypto, and crypto was turned into an investment scheme instead of an actual currency. Then came NFTs, which people turned into rugpull scams. And news of the volatility of cryptocurrency and all those NFT scams drove away any chance of regular people adopting anything blockchain-related.
Give me an example of a real world problem that was either unsolved before blockchain solved it, or blockchain solves it better than existing alternatives.
I’ll go ahead and save you “decentralized currency/finance between untrustworthy entities” (i.e. cryptocurrency) because it doesn’t actually (and can’t actually) solve that in the real world. Humans are too error-prone, and an immutable ledger presents too high a risk for business-ending mistakes for any business with any alternative options to adopt it for their primary revenue pathway.
I’ll give you a couple examples of use cases for Blockchain technology that no other technology solves.
As currency:
As smart contracts:
International online payment without a company telling you that your legal adult entertainment is morally wrong
Did blockchain solve it? Is blockchain actually pragmatically solving that problem better than existing alternatives? Or is the cost of adopting a blockchain payment system as the primary payment system, with all the risks inherent in it, higher than the benefits when compared to alternatives?
No alternatives existed or exist. You asked for a use case
Would be great if it did, but it doesn’t. I’m also not talking about using it as a primary payment system
i’ll give it a crack
in australia, we have various credentials provided by the government to attest to a persons fitness to work with children (i’ll just refer to these in bulk from now on as WWCC: working with children checks). there are many of these - one per state for individuals, plus teacher’s accreditations per state, and a few more. they’re ongoing certifications, so can be revoked if anything happens
it’s a legal requirement for businesses who engage in activities involving kids to ensure anyone they employ - including volunteers - is appropriately vetted
needless to say, this gets quite complex for national organisations!
i was the engineering lead for a startup that organisations could add their workforce into the system, with the credentials, and the system checked periodically to check that everyone’s credentials are valid, about to expire, etc and notify people if something goes awry
of course, that doesn’t need blockchain BUT
in cases of child sexual abuse, things tend to only come out after 30+ years on average (according to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse). organisations need to be able to prove that they were doing everything they possibly could to protect the kids under their care. 30 years on that’s no small task! our company might not even exist in 30 years!
along with our automated checks, we also published an event to the eth blockchain: a hash of the card details as an index (ie if you know the card details, you can look up all instances of validation), and a hash that proves the check took place
what’s that hash? well, i won’t get too into the weeds but essentially we push a payload to IPFS which contains:
we also published a page on IPFS that allows people to enter card details and load all this information and produce all the technical details to prove what happened (we also had plans for some kind of hardware pack with pinned versions of things because browsers and technology change)
you might be able to do this by relying on the date header that the server sends, but to be really sure, writing the hashes to the blockchain proves that the event given happened at a very specific time and date
blockchain shouldn’t be big and flashy: it’s a very niche use-case, but for those niches there’s really nothing like it
Like I said, not an expert. Also, regardless if it’s a revolutionary solution to something or not, it doesn’t negate the point that it was made to be used for something, but it’s being indirectly used for something else instead.
If we take that example to be true there are still issues with it. Just look at any of a dozen stories of people who had millions in crypto currency stolen from them. The police and feds will just sort of go “us not being able to do anything about it was the point.”