Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> In a hypothetical crypto dominated world, most people would still use centralized services to store their money. But they'd have the ability to opt out if and when they choose

The problem with this vision is those people using centralized services see no benefit. They are better off sticking with the status quo.

Cryptocurrencies make sense for people who wish, for philosophically reasons, to control their own money. That vision doesn't require a "crypto dominated world." It does, however, require shrinking the vision from "re-imaginging the financial system" to "solving a need for a small group of devoted people." That's okay, and if that's how crypto were marketed it would (a) be more honest but (b) come with a lower value.




It's not true that they see no benefit. They will see benefit in:

1) cheaper financial services 2) broader financial services 3) real-time financial services 4) access to financial services regardless of location (or nation) 5) decentralized applications fully integrated with financial services

The average Joe doesn't need to control their own private keys in order to gain these benefits.

But think of it this way. What would be more difficult, for an organization or company, today?

A) start your own bank B) start your own key management service

A) make an application that accepts payments as low as $0.01 B) make an application that accepts payments as low as .001 ETH

A) create a new protocol layer on top of the banking system B) create a new protocol layer on top of Ethereum

---

Today, we rely on perhaps at most a few dozen companies (PayPal, Stripe, VISA, MC, etc) to build interfaces with our banking system.

There is no "app store" for banking system financial services. It's hard, hard work to build anything on top of that archaic system.

Blockchain makes currency an internet-native construct. Which has profound implications that we are just beginning to see the very earliest examples of.


1. This was clearly true in the beggings now to so much. Scalability is hard issue which centralized solutions doesn't have.

Existing solutions also evolve and has become cheaper, faster and more accessible. Sure there are exceptions like political dissidents but that's relatively small group. If you would like to solve this issues on large scales like Venezuela than solutions would be mostly political rather than technical.


"1) cheaper financial services"

If a million people want to deal with each other without any trusted party to intermediate, then they have to keep a million ledgers and agree on a protocol for reconciliation. Once you've conceded over a million-fold factor of inefficiency, being cheaper doesn't seem plausibly within reach. I don't see the details as mattering much; it's the big picture that doesn't make sense.


> The problem with this vision is those people using centralized services see no benefit. They are better off sticking with the status quo.

Narrowly, yes, that's true. But I think there's a broader context to consider than that. Our current financial system is architected around these financial centers of gravity. Blockchains represent an alternative to that structure. Yes, there will still be intermediary institutions, but they will not have the same fundamental centrality that the current ones do. I think this is an important change, and one that is likely to lead to other changes that will be more directly appreciated by consumers and the broader economy than the philosophical self-sovereign money issues.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: