[rodiger]

There's a weird insistence (especially here on HN) that if blockchain isn't doing something that can't be done in another way then it is useless.

In reality just doing normal, established processes in a distributed way often is the value-add. See decentralized finance[0]. All these tools and primitives exist in traditional finance, but when it's decentralized all market participants can get a cut of the rewards instead of just the big banks.

A more recent AWS-like example is Internet Computer[1]. A more open way to on-board data centers and build distributed apps. Could it be done in a centralized way? Yes, of course. Is it more fair and open if it's decentralized? Also yes.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.08778

[1] https://dfinity.org/data-centers

[rajin444]

The only interesting aspect of blockchain is decentralized trust - trust being the key part. If you don't need decentralized trust you don't need blockchain. And outside of a global currency, there isn't much that needs that.

DeFi is just unregulated speculation / ponzi schemes. People came up with new systems (supposedly faster than bitcoin) to send currency back and forth. People are flocking to it hoping to get rich quick, but it doesn't actually deliver anything novel outside of not being regulated.

Internet Computer would be cool if it was actually decentralized. But it's not:

> The Internet Computer hosts its own governance system, called the "Network Nervous System" (NNS). In order for a data center to provide compute capacity to the Internet Computer network, it must acquire a DcID (Data Center ID) by making an application to the governance system

And unfortunately making a decentralized version of what Internet Computer wants to do is _very_ hard (maybe impossible).

So many of the newer "blockchain" tech is considered useless is because, like Internet Computer, they cheat and introduce centralization because of the technical limitations of being decentralized. BNB/BSC is a huge example of this (one of the major new "defi" networks).

[rodiger]

I can be a market maker for an exchange with just $100... not sure how that isn't anything new. I can get a flash loan for $10,000,000 with zero credit to profit off of arbitrage opportunities. Yes, this is all focused on money but nothing to do with speculation or ponzi schemes.

DeFi is sort of billed as an "internet of money," so it makes sense that it's focused on financial systems. Unfortunately many do just dump their life savings and hope to get rich quick. A similar thing happened during the dot com boom in the traditional markets. I imagine a lot of this will settle over time (and there will still be scams and pump and dumps, just as there are in penny stocks / the wider internet in general).

As for Internet Computer, the application to the governance system is decentralized and votes are made by token holders on-chain. It's decentralized in that the votes are open and auditable.

BSC sucks, agree with you there but they're far from the norm. I'm really just shocked that there's so little interest in the tech behind all the protocols here given the wider hacker ethos.

[Spooky23]

The pump and dump hype around cryptocurrency turns a lot of people off.

[rodiger]

Yeah it does. It's a shame and hopefully the risks are made clearer over time.

[remeq]

I agree with you that the only interesting aspect of blockchain is decentralized trust. But decentralized trust is a big thing. It is actually such a massive thing and people will sooner or later realize that. The magnitude of this thing is actually on a level of invention of democracy in social systems. It will change everything. And the application of decentralized trust (read - institution-less systems) goes far beyond decentralized finance.

If we look at the tendency of every single centralized system or organization to end up being either sub-optimal or evil or screwing individual we really have to ask whether there isn't a better way. Consider evolution of centralized political powers, dictatorships etc., consider evolution of big tech companies like google or facebook, consider evolution of big products.

If blockchain provides decentralized trust this can be used for almost evertyhing. And it doesn't really mean that you will run your trustless version of AWS directly on blockchain. For many applications the blockchain is there for trust and system of economy incentives for the actors in the systems (as these two things go hand by hand). The blockchain is not there to do the "business logic"

[whateveracct]

dfinity is pretty centralized. they cut corners and basically hand-pick their mining data centers. they only qualify as "decentralized" because they work with multiple unrelated data centers. i am pretty sure multiple hard problems that they need to solve to reach true decentralization have been punted because they hand pick their miners.

also, more than decentralization, they mostly sell their dev-friendly programming model (Motoko, wasm) but a centralized version hosted by AWS would be cheaper faster better. Lunch waiting to be eaten.

most people making cloud software don't need the decentralization. Dfinity papers over this by having their president go pontificate to make it seem like the fate of the world depends on it.

[rodiger]

They don't hand-pick miners at the end of the day- it's an on-chain vote (by token-holders and I'm sure they own a large sum so point taken).

Maybe not the best example- I'm not too familiar with the structure and they definitely over-hype everything about the project. Still the parallel is there of making a centralized thing more accessible / open to more market participants.

[Spooky23]

Exactly. Think about the downsides of online connectivity with things like say pipelines or IoT. The answer to every problem in the last 30 years has been to plug an Ethernet cable to it, and the consequences of that are coming home to roost!

The ability to have a trusted source of data to validate instructions or other content alone is very useful. Blockchain is no more “stupid” than PGP or PKI.