That's why it's the investment space that needs disruption - which is why crypto is met with so much pushback on HN. A year ago, crypto-related stories made front page much less often, if at all.
Because people here try to understand the technology and its usage before riding the hype train. Most people investing in Ether for example have no idea what it even means. But when you ask them they would spit answers like "it's going to revolutionize finance..". When you ask them how, they have no answer. When you ask them for specific applications that they know of outside of the stupid NFT, they send you to Google. Yesterday someone on Youtube gave an example about a fridge that will order you eggs and milk when they run out, and everything will be done on the blockchain.
Not a crypto hater. I even invest for fun and because you cannot deny the opportunity to make money rn. But don't expect people to ride the train blindly. I do think that crypto isn't going anywhere. But the current valuation of these coins is just absurd rn.
IMO these things are basically driven by speculation as well. From what I can tell, they mainly provide liquidity for financial institutions. Financial institutions are interested in crypto so that they can make money trading it. IMO there is very little actual utility here.
I think it's a fair question, but these are not great examples, IMO.
COD skins and Roblox bucks can only be produced and sold by one company, so I don't see why you would need a decentralized protocol for them. CS:GO doesn't use DeFi, and apparently the market was active enough to be used almost entirely for money laundering.
For other financial markets, I can definitely see more of a case to be made, but it remains to be seen whether that will actually take off. From what I've seen, the crypto markets right now are primarily dealing in crypto, as I said.
The difference with COD skins being in-game vs on a blockchain is not only can you associate a universal identity to them (your wallet address), but anyone can see and trade for them anywhere. Maybe not the best example, but if you generalize to artwork/digital content it really makes sense.
I suspect financial institutions are interested in crypto because they don't want a new financial system with a more democratic organizational model to make them obsolete.
Maybe there are some forward thinking people there who want crypto to be the driving factor behind refactoring from COBOL, who knows.
2017 was very different. Crypto type stories frequented the front page with technical marvels. Then a few things happened... 1) we evaluated 2) this scamconomy arose 3) the bubble burst.
I was excited then, when it was new to me, but then I learnt the truth about blockchain
Not a crypto hater. I even invest for fun and because you cannot deny the opportunity to make money rn. But don't expect people to ride the train blindly. I do think that crypto isn't going anywhere. But the current valuation of these coins is just absurd rn.