[676234e117]

Interesting analogy. Is this exploit a Hindenburg or a steam train wreck?

It is probably both. The model of allowing governance updates from a contract owner on a bridge or rollup is not sustainable and will have to change to mitigate these kinds of risks. Whether that means crypto networks as a whole will inevitably be replaced by a central banking system is harder to agree with.

[colechristensen]

Crypto for banking is... mildly interesting. Not very many people have this mindset, more should.

It's being sold as revolutionary, literally, being able to overthrow $x in power or to the more susceptible as a way for everyone to get rich.

So people who believe in it think it's some grand revolution of freedom, and people against it just see it as scammers exploiting the foolish.

What it actually is going to be is boring. Regulated like the rest of finance, centralized like the rest of finance, but with a few new features which will end up not revolutionary but "oh I guess that's nice". It will also come with weaknesses that older centralized institutions don't have that will seem ridiculous at times.

It should be about as exciting as a new programming language for bankers. Like sure if you're a banking programmer you might think it's cool, but not the kind of thing that'll get superbowl ads or the topic of your uncle joe's podcast.

Snarky comparisons to the Hindenburg aside, I really think things like this disaster in the long line of disasters that won't end is just another blow to the excitement of crypto which won't disappear completely or dominate but become a mundane method for the exchange of value which to the end user is only slightly different than the old ways.

[676234e117]

If you look beyond the most vocal proponents you will see a range of opinions.

I do think it will, over the next 10-20 years, completely revolutionize how we think about digital assets and digital currency. For the average user it might not be any different than paying with Apple Pay. But there will be other novel applications and companies that emerge from this space much like what occurred in the years after the dot com boom.

[colechristensen]

I really doubt crypto will have anything like the impact of the rise of the Internet in the 90s.

There hasn't yet been a killer application besides money laundering and speculation bubbles. It's been long enough and there has been nothing but toy applications outside of people specifically trying to evade laws in various jurisdictions.

The actual applications are just going to be boring.

Holding on to crypto personally for actually paying for things is awful, and worse than cash. Not only can someone take it from me with violence, they can also take it from me because of inevitable software bugs. If there's a centralized account with an institution, it isn't at all different than an account with a bank with dollars. And it becomes easier to see my entire spending history for anybody that sells me something unless I actively launder my money.

[676234e117]

It may never meet the impact of the web but held to that standard, maybe no technology ever will.

The killer application is Ethereum and the ideas it has spawned, including new global financial instruments like stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, NFTs.. and cryptography like zk-STARKs and MPC.

With PoS and privacy enabled rollups this technology can certainly disrupt and compete with today’s popular payment processors in the next few years.

But yes, the most successful consumer applications will probably be boring, like PayPal or Apple or Stripe adding blockchain based mechanisms under the hood.

[Yizahi]

- stablecoins - this one is thousands years old, because it's essentially IOUs. Nothing new or special, excepts of course Giancarlo's token printer :) .

- DEX - sure, new thing. We all see how it works out. This is what, 5th DEX exploit just this year? And I'm talking only about big exploits.

- NFT - literally useless junk build on lies and insane lies. I dare you to name even one area which NFT can improve.

- cryptography - maybe, I don't know. Though I suspect that those developments can be simply self serving for token industry and not really transferable to other industries.

- BigCorp adding blockchain - why though? What would they get by introducing a private, inefficient, slow and not user friendly (users = employees of those corps) data storage? Private BC completely defeats all its small promises about decentralisation or privacy etc.

[676234e117]

- ERC20 stablecoins are not a paper IOU but ok.

- all these protocols are beta software, less than a few years old. Uniswap as one of the oldest is probably also the most secure.

- NFT: ability to hold custody over a digital record without relying on a single private company's servers to uphold that. But I expect you will move the goalposts...

- Cryptography: take a minute to look at developments in ZKP, MPC, new signature schemes. Many uses outside of pure blockchain[1].

- BigCorp: because they can extract value from it. If 5% of Shopify or PayPal users want to use crypto payments, the company can support that method and charge rent on it. Or they can ignore crypto, and let another company absorb the potential revenue. But because they like profit, this is why we see Shopify, Stripe, and PayPal all integrating crypto currency.

[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-zero-knowledge-proof...

[coconuthacker42]

what i dont get is that how can the people who want blockchain adoption not see that their decentralised currency is no good if its in-gates are controlled by a few very centralised companies?

[676234e117]

In the current electronic fiat system, a few companies control both the gates and the network. Crypto at the moment decentralizes the control of the network, which is already a step forward.

Crypto can also be used to decentralize control of the gates, such as allowing goods services and taxes to be paid in USDC and DAI, so that there is less need to use a CEX. But there are regulatory and technical barriers that prevent this from happening right now. The people who want blockchain adoption ideally would like to see those barriers to be overcome.

[shreyshnaccount]

except what stops apple and google from building basically the same features and also having full control over them? and you bet that people would rather use apple <whatever> than shady crypto scam <whatever> if they really want to. the takeaway is that crypto is going to change practically nothing and produces nothing of value anyway.

[676234e117]

Facebook already tried this, it was called Libra.

[shreyshnaccount]

except facebook doesn't already have something like gpay or apple pay that's widely used to integrate it with...

[676234e117]

Nothing stops tech companies from building crypto wallets or services that hold custody over users funds, a lot of them are already doing that. Building a new blockchain where they fully control the network and its features is harder.