| blockchain allows essentially instantaneous completion of transactions between unrelated parties with no clearing house. Today there are many transactions that take days to clear. For example if you buy stock, it appears instantaneous to you, but the scenes your brokerage, the other brokerage, and the clearing house have to make sure all the money is there, the stock is there, etc Clearinghouses make a lot of money just guaranteeing transactions. That is friction in the system. Wire transfers, ACH, cashiers checks, etc all have the same issues. Even things like title insurance, transfer of title, deeds of trust etc have those issues. Instead of NFT for a gorilla picture, think of NFT for your house that essentially represents your deed. Transferring your deed is a very complicated process. Think about how social media or app stores are essentially controlled by the choices of a few CEOs. Imagine a distributed social media will allow everyone to ignore you, but no party can censor you. You own your data instead of an entity like facebook. |
Wait, aren't blockchain transactions hilariously slow and depend on an internet connection?
> Clearinghouses make a lot of money just guaranteeing transactions. That is friction in the system.
Aren't popular blockchains using transaction fees to pay for validation?
> Wire transfers, ACH, cashiers checks, etc all have the same issues.
Seems to also apply to bitcoin.