> powering a trillion-dollar ecosystem that rivals Visa in terms of the money it moves
It doesn't move that money. It moves around specialty tokens that people speculate are worth that much money.
> the infrastructure for entrepreneurs to build all sorts of new products, from payment systems to prediction markets, digital swap meets to medical-research hubs.
Yeah, no. Those products are a) not new, and b) most of them don't require either ethereum in particular or blockchain in general. It's all speculative smoke and mirrors, chasing investor money.
> Crypto itself has a lot of dystopian potential if implemented wrong
Ah yes. "You're holding it wrong". This is the only outcome of crypto in particular and blockchains in general.
> Buterin hopes Ethereum will become the launchpad for all sorts of sociopolitical experimentation: fairer voting systems, urban planning, universal basic income, public-works projects.
No, it won't. Because the tech not only doesn't solve these problems, but makes these problems significantly worse [1]
> ultimately the goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it’s to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world
No. The ultimate goal of crypto is exactly to play million-dollar games. Just because it was used to send pretend tokens to desperate people who have no meaningful ways of using them, doesn't mean it's accomplished something meaningful in the world.
> The blockchain, he thought, could serve as an efficient method
Blockchain and efficient in one sentence.
> Buterin’s favorite projects on the blockchain. Take Proof of Humanity, which awards a universal basic income—currently about $40 per month—to anyone who signs up
I can't even.
And then they talk about how he "couldn't predict this", or "couldn't foresee that", or "watched with horror and dismay" when something easily predictable happened. All the while praising him for being "fluent in disciplines ranging from sociological theory to advanced calculus to land-tax history."
Clearly he's "fluent" as in "he can come off as knowledgable in a Twitter thread".
See the link below for how all this was clearly predicted.
Useless and inflammatory comment. You just made a list of phrases that triggered you as you read and regurgitated generalizations, baseless claims and low effort snark and, to end it on a high note, a link to a crypto smear article from 4 years ago.
> Buterin’s favorite projects on the blockchain. Take Proof of Humanity, which awards a universal basic income—currently about $40 per month—to anyone who signs up
> I can't even.
Proof of humanity is a really great project imo (especially in the face of things like worldcoins authoritarian approach). Its not perfect but it is working and doing what it says, theres around 15k people registered with many in south america earning more than their state pension. It also allows other organisations to bring 1p1v to their contracts. Theres some work to be done on privacy layers, but plans are in place. 1 move at a time.
>It moves around specialty tokens that people speculate are worth that much money.
If a particular item can be sold at a particular amount with predictable and transparent liquidity it is objectively worth that amount.
Ford doesn't speculate a Ford F-150 is worth $30k, they have customers lined up with cash in hand ready to buy and waiting lists (liquidity), therefore they are objectively worth $30k.
You wouldn't say 1 share of Amazon stock is speculatively worth $3,205. It's objectively worth that, because there's liquidity and an order book right now that will buy it for that price.
In the world of finance, speculation, or speculative trading, refers to the act of conducting a financial transaction that has substantial risk of losing value but also holds the expectation of a significant gain or other major value.
--- end quote ---
Crypto is the very definition of speculative trading.
And yes, stocks are as close to be to that as to be indistinguishable in my opinion
Your first point could be said about the NASDAQ or NYSE.
I'm not gonna respond to the rest because it's not worth the time and effort. Please go educate yourself on this topic before you hand-wave away this technology.
> Your first point could be said about the NASDAQ or NYSE.
Yes, it could. Stocks are pure speculation.
> Please go educate yourself on this topic before you hand-wave away this technology.
If only there was anything in the crypto space to, you know, actually refute any of these points. Alas, in the past decade none have materialized. For every well researched and argued article like the one I linked or the more recent like Moxie's there's inevitably a horde of "go educate yourslef join our discords" and literally zero equally researched and argued articles.
It doesn't move that money. It moves around specialty tokens that people speculate are worth that much money.
> the infrastructure for entrepreneurs to build all sorts of new products, from payment systems to prediction markets, digital swap meets to medical-research hubs.
Yeah, no. Those products are a) not new, and b) most of them don't require either ethereum in particular or blockchain in general. It's all speculative smoke and mirrors, chasing investor money.
> Crypto itself has a lot of dystopian potential if implemented wrong
Ah yes. "You're holding it wrong". This is the only outcome of crypto in particular and blockchains in general.
> Buterin hopes Ethereum will become the launchpad for all sorts of sociopolitical experimentation: fairer voting systems, urban planning, universal basic income, public-works projects.
No, it won't. Because the tech not only doesn't solve these problems, but makes these problems significantly worse [1]
> ultimately the goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it’s to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world
No. The ultimate goal of crypto is exactly to play million-dollar games. Just because it was used to send pretend tokens to desperate people who have no meaningful ways of using them, doesn't mean it's accomplished something meaningful in the world.
> The blockchain, he thought, could serve as an efficient method
Blockchain and efficient in one sentence.
> Buterin’s favorite projects on the blockchain. Take Proof of Humanity, which awards a universal basic income—currently about $40 per month—to anyone who signs up
I can't even.
And then they talk about how he "couldn't predict this", or "couldn't foresee that", or "watched with horror and dismay" when something easily predictable happened. All the while praising him for being "fluent in disciplines ranging from sociological theory to advanced calculus to land-tax history."
Clearly he's "fluent" as in "he can come off as knowledgable in a Twitter thread".
See the link below for how all this was clearly predicted.
[1] https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustle...