[darkFunction]

That's great! Hey look I would like to send you the rights to my crate of wine. You're the 1000th customer to my site. Or maybe you want to trade it for your in-game weapon. Or I just like you and it's a gift, anonymous internet user.

Of course I could just transfer directly to your Ethereum wallet. But why do that when I could explain you need to sign up to 'winespectator.com', I'll email them to arrange the ownership transfer, and if you're trading that weapon let's both sign up for a pre-agreed escrow service online and pay them a commission to arbitrage. How many forms do we need to fill in, and who is processing that data? I currently own my crate anonymously- only the person who eventually burns the token will need to provide details to the company for delivery.

As always, descriptions like this betray how little engine-peddlers know about horse breeding. Managing a stable has been a thing as long as there's been horses.

[dmitriid]

> Hey look I would like to send you the rights to my crate of wine.

You truly believe this can't be done without blockchain?

> You're the 1000th customer to my site.

You truly believe you can't track customers without blockchain?

> Or maybe you want to trade me for that in-game weapon.

You truly believe it's impossible to implement in-game trading without blockchain?

> Of course I could just transfer directly to your Ethereum wallet.

The only thing you could transfer is some meaningless numbers. What makes them meaningful is some central, trusted authority that will accept these numbers as proof of something. But then, since you depend on that authority to verify this... you don't need blockchain.

[darkFunction]

I think instead of reading what I wrote, you read "you need a blockchain to do this".

The anti-blockchain narrative on here is constantly attacking the strawman of "literally everything must be decentralised".

I'm arguing that a decentralised medium of exchange through which separate points of centralisation can interact is still a useful construct.

You're comfortable with your assets being codified in a thousand different databases in a thousand different representations but the concept of having a common database representing them as "meaningless numbers" is suddenly unacceptable.

[dmitriid]

So... Why did you write it? Of course you don't need blockchains to do this.

To reiterate: The only thing you could transfer is some meaningless numbers. What makes them meaningful is some central, trusted authority that will accept these numbers as proof of something. But then, since you depend on that authority to verify this... you don't need blockchain.

[burnished]

I don't quite agree with everything the person you are responding to is saying, but it's clear you aren't really reading what they have wrote.

[darkFunction]

The blockchain facilities standardised transfer across a decentralised medium. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make my point. You could code alternatives to all the use-cases mentioned, but when you have an existing platform on which to interact, why bother? You want the game developers to implement the winery's API?

[dmitriid]

> The blockchain facilities standardised transfer across a decentralised medium.

It hasn't. It standardised the transfer of otherwise meaningless numbers, that's true.

In order for your winde order to work, a centralised, trusted party has to verify and accept those numbers, and say that, yes, they represent something meaningful to them.

The same goes for every other example. "Want to trade something for an in-game weapon": This only works if that game a) provides means of trading in-game items, b) can verify that a number in the blockchain actually represents an in-game item etc.

Without countless external entities agreeing to and cooperating on the meaning of this data this "standardised transfer" is literally meaningless. And these agreements will go as well as they already do in reality. How does blockchain factor into this?

> if you're trading that weapon let's both sign up for a pre-agreed escrow service online and pay them a commission to arbitrage.

Now who's attacking straw men.

[jsmith45]

>> The blockchain facilities standardised transfer across a decentralised medium.

>It hasn't. It standardised the transfer of otherwise meaningless numbers, that's true.

Sure, but that alone can have value. The idea being that people have already built entire trading platforms around tokens, fungible or not. Somebody who wants to enable easy trading of some asset (or futures contract or whatever), hoping for improved liquidity, could see using the platforms built for crypto token trading as much easier than trying to build their own exchange. Especially if it is anticipated that physical settlement demands will not be especially common.

To be more concrete: It might be simpler to get your single-vineyard wine futures up and running on crypto than trying to get it listed as a new contract type in a traditional futures exchange.

Now sure, nothing about getting your weird futures contract into some form of widely used exchange requires blockchain technology. It is merely leveraging the existing infrastructure others have already built around crypto.

This is not too dissimilar from the various ways people have found to get say precious metals as listed items on stock exchanges, despite traditional commodity exchanges or brokered OTC trades also existing. Obviously nothing about speculating on (or maintaining market liquidity for) precious metals requires a stock exchange, since we have those other ways of trading. However people have found getting access to the stock trading market to be worthwhile.

Obviously settlement for physical goods is a centralized processes (or possibly a somewhat decentralized process relying on courts and contracts). This is equally true for any exchange, crypto-based or not. The actual order matching process somewhat separate from the settlement process in traditional exchanges too.

I certainly would not argue that similar platforms could be set up not reliant on crypto in any way, and those could be superior (although network effect problem tend to plague attempts to set such things up if any sort of scale is desired). Most crypto stuff is still extremely overhyped, and a lot of interest in crypto seems to stem from crazy speculation, or people trying to avoid their government in some manner. (The latter is not just things like drugs, arm sales, or money laundering. It also includes more innocent reasons like people in countries with failing economies being terrified that their government can just seize the contents of forex accounts, stock exchanges etc, making their attempts to hedge against local economic collapse potentially futile. But governments cannot readily seize crypto wallets the same way, at least not unless you leave your holdings at some exchange.)

[darkFunction]

You may continue to consider the numbers meaningless but the market for on-chain assets disagrees with you.

[biztos]

The interesting thing is not that you would need a blockchain to trade wine futures — obviously you don’t.

The interesting thing is that if you can sell the futures as (for example) NFTs then you put them into this Wild West of crypto enthusiasts where

1) All kinds of unpredictable things might happen to the token between sale and redemption! And

2) The culture of crypto enthusiasts might very well lead to much higher prices for your wine than people who actually know about wine think it’s worth, cf. Beeple.

Either or both of these things might motivate a winery to give it a shot, tokenize a few thousand future cases of their weakest plonk, and see what happens.

Just because your market works fine without the blockchain doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gained by trying.

On the other hand, it might be illegal because: alcohol.

[dmitriid]

> tokenize a few thousand future cases of their weakest plonk, and see what happens.

What's the wine equivalent of apes and punks? :)

[koonsolo]

You can do all those things without a blockchain. It's just more practical using a blockchain.

I used to survive without a cellphone. It wasn't hard. You just called your friends when you and they were at home.

[lottin]

> It's just more practical using a blockchain.

The popularity of centralised exchanges vis-a-vis blockchain wallets suggests the opposite is true.

[koonsolo]

Here lies the problem: you live in the present, I live in the future. And right now, I don't see any reason why that can't be fixed in the future.

[lottin]

You said blockchains are more practical, in the present tense. The evidence strongly suggests that's not true. And there are plenty of reasons to think they will continue to be impractical in the future.

[koonsolo]

There is also no central winery exchange system.

[dmitriid]

> It's just more practical using a blockchain.

In which shape, way, or form is it more practical with a blockchain?

[rgallagher27]

Are you saying it's not more practical for me to pay $100 for a bottle of wine that will be made sometime in the future plus $60 in transition fees!?