[abustamam]

Oh, I dunno about lately (though I did stumble upon https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/big-ideas-things-excite... )

But when I was in the crypto space in 2018, there was a lot of interesting things happening in the smart contract world (like proofs of concepts of issuing NFTs as a digital "deed" to a physical asset like a house).

I don't think any of those novel ideas went anywhere, but it was a fun time to be experimenting.

[ulfw]

> like proofs of concepts of issuing NFTs as a digital "deed" to a physical asset like a house

which went absolutely nowhere

[abustamam]

Yeah, like most startups. I'd argue that a majority of AI startups now will go nowhere as well. That's just how new technology goes. Lots of shiny objects, lots of hype, and maybe 1%, if that, goes on to become a foundation of society.

Jury is still out on if crypto will become a foundation for society (if anything, it would be foundational for something boring and invisible like banking). I wouldn't bet on a startup doing that, but that's the only viable thing I can foresee crypto being useful for. But it doesn't mean that other applications can't be interesting and useless!