[ivoras]

This is a beautiful example of the biggest current problem with DAOs and all (and I do mean ALL) crypto projects which aim to interface with the real world (i.e. all projects not doing with purely abstract stuff like DeFi-like tokens, and closed systems like "metaverses"): THEY CAN'T.

They really cannot interface with the Real World, without leaking real-world problems into the "perfect" smart contract-driven crypto systems. They can't interface with the real-world financial systems (with stablecoins) and expect it to be always stable (see USDC), they can't interface with people doing real-world chores/tasks and have it reflected in blockchain brownie points aka tokens (like socially-useful DAOs like the one in the article), they can't interface with logistics where people and machines do actual work and fail unpredictable (like blockchain tracking of the supply chain), they can't authenticate artwork purely on blockchain (without paying actual people to guard the artwork), etc.

They just can't. All projects claiming they can are pure scams (of course, I'd be very happy to be proven wrong).

The nearest we can get to having perfect digital systems like cyptoanarhysts and cryptobros (sometimes there isn't any difference) advocate is to give up on the physical world and actually move everything into the metaverse where it doesn't depend on real world messyness, but then a) people will still find ways to mess things up and b) this Matrix-like system still needs electricity.

Just... embrace the messiness. You can't really escape it. Crypto is not special. Blockchains are useful tools, but so far, systems based on them they have not been proven to be strictily better than real-world messyness.

The best use cases for blockchains are those which don't really earn a lot of money for the operators, such as tracking publically visible official data - like university degrees, corporate tax returns and financial statements, fighting fake news, etc. - so they are avoided like the plague.

[markburns]

This has always baffled me about these projects. I think the only thing I heard of that sounded like it may be feasible was Golem [0], as that's about renting out real world hardware. And I've no idea if it is, but I can imagine it could be something where it's all programmatic, distributed, transactional and verifiable, but I can also imagine it being full of real world holes.

Or I guess namecoin [1] sounds like it could work with a critical mass for adoption. But it seems to be a real subset of real world problems that are solvable. Things that inherently make sense being protocols and distributed I guess, I'm not sure if there are other classes of problems that could work well as 'web3' things

[0] https://www.golem.network/ [1] https://www.namecoin.org

[turtleyacht]

Hey, wait a minute.. those sound like really useful use cases for public transparency. So we just need folks to tag and shuttle these things into a blockchain, and present some kind of API to allow (data) mining it?

[Nextgrid]

I don't understand why it should be a blockchain as opposed to some append-only log like the certificate transparency log?

[turtleyacht]

Yes, admittedly it may just reduce to something that can be done with existing tech. Maybe it may not be implementation or execution, but adoption.

[ivoras]

Yes, it's interesting.

This has been known and ocassionally touted for AGES. I've attempted to start a couple of such projects and have been following the progress of other projects with similar ideas.

There has been near ZERO interest for them, because there's no currently viable business case for such projects, except "let the government pay for it." Data mining isn't THAT useful if there's no data in there - who would force entities like companies, universities or the SEC to push the data into the blockchain?

I'd be very happy if could find funding for https://github.com/WOTvision/wot1 and I can see a business case for it as a potential platform for legal, paid distribution of news between creators/reporters and distributors like news portals. But even so, no takers.

[Jasper_]

How can you fight fake news with the blockchain?