Over the years I feel brainwashed by the thoughts of others with no willpower to affirm my own beliefs.

Simply, to me blockchain/crypto is this idea of P2P communication where the intermediate technology that “handshakes” our connection isn’t essentially governed by a centralized entity. But, “handshaking” in this world costs and gas is often times used as the processing/energy to enact this exchange.

Now, for what can be exchanged, it can be quantities of an item. Or information stored within an item. Kind of like Pass by value vs. Pass by reference, in a weird way? Or cryptocurrencies vs. smart contracts?

Now, my own belief is, comparing this system with torrenting, seeding and other technologies that existed long ago. What makes “blockchain/crypto” so valuable that cannot be solved with the technology invented prior to it. To me, it seems like there is extra charge and latency and thus just more negative values overall, when the final overall goal should be this idea of exchanging information. We still need ISPs, we still need physical wires to complete the “end-to-end” connection with a peer. So isn’t everything still fundamentally centralized?

What is it actually improving? And is my way of thinking accurate? Why can’t there be a normal P2P project handling exchange of information and/or modern fiat in the same way (Something like Paypal, but transactions have no middleman)?

  • muhanga@programming.devEnglish
    22·
    1 year ago

    Why can’t there be a normal P2P project handling exchange of information and/or modern fiat in the same way (Something like Paypal, but transactions have no middleman)?

    Firstly because money is a physical, cultural and social construct so it can’t be changed on purely informational basis. Someone still need to share burden of proof and they want to be compensated for the labor. So until we get a StarTrek replicators (mean we remove need to spend money on basic need and survuval of whole human race) this is a state we are in.

    In short blockchain and crypto don’t solve any real world problem. It solves problem that it itself creates.

    I can sell you amazing knife and it will fix the world hunger, but only if you can buy bread and sharpen the knife. This is crypto sell point in the nutshell.

    Blockchain is little different as it solves the problem of provable chain of evidence, but it is not economically viable due costs needed to run it for organisations that require it. Any problem that blockchain can solve require that all information for this will be stored on blockchain. And physical object information is not stored on blockchain, so data input errors/malpractice is still the problem and this reduce blockchain effectiveness to the basically zero.

    Dan Olson aka foldablehuman have an amazing series of video essays regarding all the crypto blockchain and web3 scam running around. I highly recommend them. It just a sea of information regarding current state of things with crypto/blockchain business.

    • muhanga@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      First, thank you for sharing your perspective.

      one useful innovation by providing an alternative system for digital transactions over the web

      From my perspective this is exactly proves my point. Blockchain and crypto are solving their own problems.

      As for Wakfu. From what I was able to “research” from open sources on this topic, they were blacklisted because they didn’t want to fix their payment processing system. Their payment processing was not working correctly, users complained to the PayPal and credit card payment processing companies and this got them blacklisted. And they did added crypto yes, but I don’t see how much this actually saved them, as I can find an open financial reports for that.

      What I can see is that they are fixed their payment system, somehow (as forums are still contains user woes for payments not processed). If you have more sources on this problem/solution with Wakfu, please share I would very much like to know more.

    • glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      providing an alternative system for digital transactions over the web

      If I’m scammed, if I don’t receive what I ordered, if my card is stolen, the bank will reimburse me without asking any question. Blockchains cannot do this, and that’s why I don’t think it’s an alternative.