Why Blockchain Technology will continue to fail to deliver
The blockchain and cryptocurrency craze is in sharp decline. Bitcoin has been the first crypto to see the light of day. Here we are 10 years later and sadly, the only real usecase for crypto and blockchain remains speculation.
We’re speculating on future usecases, partnerships and utility that still has to come. But it probably never will.
For the sake of simplicity, I will use Bitcoin as example. Clearly most coins have superior technology compared to Bitcoin. You are free to draw your conclusions from my analysis and reflect them on the coins of your liking. Please let me know in the comments below if there is any coin that defies my points.
Bitcoin will never be used as means of payment
Bitcoin transactions are slow. It is highly impractible to pay for anything in a retail store, when you have to wait up to 30 minutes for the transaction to be confirmed. Even if you pay for a coffee before drinking it, chances are you will have to remain in the café for as long as the transaction is unconfirmed. Centralised payment networks allow for much faster transactions.
Bitcoin transactions are expensive. Undoubtedly you are able to send millions of dollars abroad for a relatively small fee. Doing that happens rather seldomly in my case although. Paying $0.10 for every transaction, in the ideal case, is adding up to quite a lot throughout the day when going about our usual buying habits. Not only that every transaction costs money, whereas most means of payment come for free, most credit cards even offer some sort of cashback for doing purchases. Could Bitcoin ever compete against that?
I do not think so.
Bitcoin will never be used to bank the unbanked
There is simply no infrastructure to support this. For people to be able to not be reliant on banks, they need to be able to spend their Bitcoin without any friction in most places. This is not the case for any country in the first world.
Banking the unbanked only is an issue for the third world. The infrastructure to spend Bitcoin there is even worse, to the point of almost being non-existant. How would a person be able to buy or sell Bitcoin for local currency to go about their day to day life? For that to be feasible, a personal bank account is an absolute necessity. Trying to achieve independence from banks through Bitcoin, at this stage and the future to come, is absolute bogus.
Bitcoin will never aleviate issues of struggling nations.
Venezuela is the best example of that. The Bolivar is using value increadibly fast, the shelves in stores are empty, barter has become the most common means of exchange. Perfect conditions for Bitcoin to prosper in this environment one would think. But it is not. Bitcoin can not solve these problems. If one was to send financial aid in form of Bitcoin to Venezuela, how would the reciever go about using it?
He would want to sell it for local currency, as very few actually would trade goods against it, and hoard goods to hedge against the declining Bolivar.
If trading Bitcoin is forbidden in a nation, banks will simply refuse payments from Crypto associated sites like Coinbase. The only benefit is to eventually being able to circumvent international laws for transferring money, but Bitcoin will not be used as a local currency. When there is no bread anymore in the shelves, the infrastructure to support crypto will be long gone before.
What is Blockchain Technology good for then?
In my humble opinion there are only two true usecases.
Censorship resistance is one of them. Blockchains like STEEM and Ethereum offer to store data immutably. That´s something very few companies actually desire, moreso a thing for private persons or journalists. Companies usually want to retain a certain amount of flexibility, whereas Wikileaks certainly has an interest to store data immutably. This is a legitimate usecase, although the price speculation clearly went too far, to value this feature of Blockchains at the heights of December 2017. It comes at a cost that most businesses would not want to pay. Storing their data on a secured server, is cheaper and more efficient as paying nodes, scattered around the world, to publish content or store the data. Nevertheless, this is a feature of Blockchain that can hardly be contested.
What cryptocurrency could really excell at, is acting as a Store of value. So far Bitcoin has offered a great opportunity for that, depending on when people bought in. It can be argued that crypto can act as a valid hedge against fiat currency. But there are many issues with crypto fulfilling that role, Bitcoin actually has real problems in that regard.
There are lot’s of BTC adresses in existence that could single handeldy crash the market. Crash it by a magnitude that will make the recent decline look pale in comparison. There a people that are still way above of 10.000% profit that could dump their holding anytime. There are whales involved that the majority of the community deems harmful, which already threatened to dump their stake to further their agenda. Another issue is that Bitcoin pays a huge price for the security of its network. Miners inflate the pool of available coins daily, yet no major coin ever was threatenend by a 51% attack. Miners are likely to sell all mined coins slightly over their breakeven point, at the expense of all the people that actually provide value to Bitcoin, it´s holders.
New Coin, New Approach
There is a coin on the horizon that managed to grab my attention because it aligned so well with my view on the cryptoverse and has the potential to act as the best possible cryptographically secured store of value.
Introducing BitcoinHEX
BitcoinHex (HEX) is not selling any coins. It is not a Bitcoin fork, even though the name could suggest that. BitcoinHex (HEX) takes a snapshot of the Bitcoin Blockchain at a yet to be determined block. You will then be able to claim your BitcoinHEX (HEX) as ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.
You are not paying miners, Ethereum is tested and secure, and the true value providers are the beneficiaries of the inflation, it´s holders.
BitcoinHEX is offering a unique interest model, that rewards holders for the longer they lock up their HEX. This process is proned to increase the value of HEX. It favors those that commit the longest to staking their HEX, to the benefit of every holder there is.
While we are still waiting for more information to break about the project, have a look at the breakdown of the HEX distribution.
Even if you should not be amazed of the distribution method or the Tokenomics, it’s still free tokens for everyone holding Bitcoin.
Make sure to regularly visit www.ClaimBitcoinHex.com to stay in the loop when more information breaks.
Great post @supermeatboy! I also think we have to realize currently BTC doesn't do what it says it is going to do.
I was thinking about the current 'store of value' mantra being preached lately. There is a limited amount of BTC that will ever be created. When the rewards for mining diminish and the miners are relying on transaction fees to make mining profitable where will these transaction fees come from? A deflationary currency by its very nature discourages people from spending. If everyone just hold their bitcoin and never spends it, then there will be no transaction fees. No transaction fees means no mining profit. This is where I start to think that Bitcoin Cash has a better vision. A proof of work coin needs to be easy to spend.
The deflationary nature of BTC is what makes it a viable store of value.
PoS seems to manouver around that issue and I think it will become somewhat of a problem for Bitcoin when nobody wants to mine, resulting in a drop of hashrate which will make it easily attackable.
It will take a long time although for that to bear relevancy, as the last bitcoin is expected to be mined in 2140
ETH proved a use case of raising capital. Every year foreign companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the SEC, to be allowed to raise capital on the US market... ETH provided the same service, in a decentralized way in a couple years of existence. That is an INSANE use case.
The fact that so many companies did ICO's provided start-up capital to develop the ETH platform further.
I think that's being underestimated.
Most ICO´s are not allowed to sell their Tokens in the states, because it would circumvent their legislation.
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/sec-orders-cryptocurrency-companies-return-money-ico-investors-ground-breaking-settlement/
It is surely possible, but Ethereum is not really excelling as a fundraising platform.
because government, your argument is a detraction to your position.
Yeah, that true in the USA. But foreign markets could do it. Also, I'm not sure that won't change in the USA
I have a theory: an article, even with a nice meaningful title, is just an advertisement in 90% of cases..
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What I think is funny abot this is that this post is pretty much exactly the opposite sentiment that we had during the boom. People were saying that BTC was the future, etc etc, and then it crashed. So I'm hoping this is a sign that shit is going to go back up sometime soon. I was actually thinking of selling what I had left before seeing your post. Now I think I'll keep it a little longer.
Seeing that people actually still have hope for BTC to recover from here tells me that I need to add to my short position ;)
I think the bottom is not in yet. When the trend reverses i will be buying again.
Your guess is as good as mine of course, it's a wild market.
Well said @yallapapi, I like your statement and hope to watch the boom again, together!!!
Yeah man you still have some fiat?
You don't need to sell your crypto, right?
Cause you never know!
/FF
we are very close to bottom, as most people are just saying that crypto currencies and blockchain are dead :D
This is completely untrue and a false statement. The credit card payment might seem free to you but the merchant is being hit up for it. In the US that is anywhere from .75%-3% on average based upon how many transactions are done a month. That is a lot more than Bitcoins.
Also, there is a large fee for companies to send money, especially overseas. What do you think the transaction cost of a US or UK company paying a supplier in Vietnam is? Well over 5%.
I agree with the point that I do not think that BTC will ever be a payment system (although lightning does hold some interesting possibilities if it is pulled off), to state BTC has transactions costs while others are free is misleading.
@TaskMaster4450 I totally agree with You AND will further weaken the viewpoint of this misleading post.
On Oct. 16th of this year, $194 MILLION was sent via Bitcoin from one side of the planet to the other...
It took LESS than 30 minutes AND cost 10 CENTS...
https://www.google.com/search?q=On+Oct.+16th+of+this+year%2C+%24194+MILLION+was+sent+via+Bitcoin&rlz=1CAACAP_enUS814&oq=On+Oct.+16th+of+this+year%2C+%24194+MILLION+was+sent+via+Bitcoin&aqs=chrome..69i57.1482j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
With traditional banking (( THIEVES ))... it can take 4-5 days OR 4-5 WEEKS depending on many variables....
AND the average COST is $10,000 per million being sent.
THIS is WHY Bitcoin is HATED by the world's CENTRAL BANKERS, because they will become irrelevant IF the common people wake UP and their Awareness grows to Higher levels... 'and for many other reasons, which I won't go into in this reply.
Bitcoin is attacked daily... the common people need to understand they are being manipulated as MUCH or even MORE than ALL the cryptos combined, including Bitcoin. (( This does not mean all cryptos are viable, functional or have utility. ))
The sad fact is that this misleading Post has currently made over $121... I wrote a Post OVER a Year ago stating that Bitcoin was being manipulated by the Central Bankers and I made less than $5... hence I rarely Post... just mostly curate.
I'm a semi-retired Investment Banker who lost my JOB + CAREER because I spoke the truth ( was a Whistle-Blower )... which may have been a Good Thing because I took care of my Father, got rid of his Cancer and learned many things, on a much deeper level than I would have if I continued to MAKE so much money.
REAL Wealth is not always measured in paper currencies (( backed by Nothing with absolutely no Intrinsic value whatsoever))...
There are other forms of wealth that may be MORE important... like kindness, awareness, compassion, Good Health, Good Family/Friends, patience, Love, etc... Sorry 4 the extensive rant.
Cheers 2 Everyone reading this !!
To quote myself;"Undoubtedly you are able to send millions of dollars abroad for a relatively small fee."
Banks are thieves. Acknowledged. Yet transacting via a bank is usually free of charge, there are of course exceptions.
I talked about attacks with superior hashingpower, not about price manipulation.
It's likely that big players, maybe even central banks are supressing the price.
You are mostly talking about things that are not mentionend in the article.
Small e-commerce operators pay through the nose and a hidden fee is that most e-commerce operators have almost zero defense against a refund claim because their transactions are card not present. The refund is often a penalty plus the full amount of the transaction (incl. the fee) too.
PayPal doesn't work for many people; frozen funds, deplatformed - basically very very few rights and high fees.
The question I ask any FinTech is whether or not the current centralised ways of doing things add enough value to the economy relative to what they take out; I'm not convinced that's the case for much of the transactions that are going on.
Valid points, I agree. The problems of existing solutions do not make BTC look any brighter although.
From the consumer viewpoint being able to refund purchases is of course a huge plus.
These points don't make BTC look better but they do point to something else perhaps having a place.
Consumers can already get refunds for purchases. A business that wants to preserve its reputation had better be refunding purchases even if they were done in BTC. Is it really worth all the extra fees as a consumer just to have the ability to force a refund? Sometimes yes, often time now.
Think of it this way - if you don't trust a company enough to put things right (via refund if due) then why deal with them in the first place?
You are correct. I could have been more precise there, but the article already is pretty lenghty.
Basically I adressed the consumer perspective, where transactions are either free or even rewarded via cashback ( which of course also has drawbacks, but the majority either does not care or is accepting them). Merchants would probably not want to speculate on the price of crypto and hence convert it to fiat immediately, which comes with fees as well. Therefore i would not think it's as viable as accepting traditional means of payment.
To your second point, I acknowledged that, if I may quote myself: "Bitcoin transactions are expensive. Undoubtedly you are able to send millions of dollars abroad for a relatively small fee."
And LN might bring a change, but I really wouldn't hold my breath for it to take BTC to the mainstream.
Thanks for commenting, appreciated!
Bill Gates: "Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years."
I think this quote applies to bitcoin and I can see new bitcoin-based layer 2 tech like lightning network developed to the point where we can pay for coffees instantly.
It is too biased an article. Seeing things from the perspective how they are organised now.
U need to see how countries and alliances have been made and remade based on new technologies.
It is this potential of blockchain and crypto that has got maximum value. But it will be long fight between conventional setup and new order before u realise the value of this innovation
@prameshtyagi ...Well stated and correct.
Thanks for chipping in. I´m shorting BTC heavily at the moment, but the plan to buy up a lot at the bottom is definitely in place. In fact i expect it to bubble much harder in the next bullrun, which does not defy my arguments.
Thought-provoking piece of content, Meaty!
The reason why we haven’t introduced BTC as a payment method in our business (and I admit we were seriously thinking about it) is its volatility. It’s simply no manageable to offer a product for a certain price on Monday and adjust prices on Tuesday according to markets. Also if we had introduced BTC back in January when we thought about it, we’d have lost a lot of revenue since then.
I think one of the core problems - and you perfectly mentioned it - is that most blockchain projects aren’t backed by any value besides the tokens themselves. But if we thought about what money is actually supposed to be, then we’d quickly realize that the coin itself is actually of no value - it’s rather the mutual consensus within a certain community that agrees on using that specific medium as a vehicle to store and exchange monetary value. Still the true value lies somewhere else - in a product, a service, an asset, something that adds.
I by myself believe that the most successful technologies in the world - whether blockchain based or not - will always be those which provide a true value to real life scenarios. Those inventions that have a significant impact on our daily routine (offline!) both in business and private life, making it easier, faster more comforable, efficient, etc.
Again thanks for bringing this on the table. Resteemed for further discussion.
Accepting BTC does not even require you to hold them. There are services that allow to accept BTC, but to get paid in Fiat. I see no harm in accepting BTC, but the times when people would spend BTC just for the sake of it is probably over.
It sparked a frenzy when llama socks were sold for BTC. I´d assume it was rather because people were excited to spend their coins, not because they were in dire need of llama socks ;)
Especially on Christmas, socks become more important - so why not...:-)
That's pretty interesting, I had no idea about that constellation. Making a note. Thx
Trash talk from a person with seemingly no real understanding to what Bitcoin is actually doing.
Tired and outdated "coffee argument". The technology is already there to allow instantaneous Bitcoin transaction. LN is nascent, the same way Bitcoin was nascent 8 years ago.
Hyperbitcoinization hasn't even started. We're talking about a currency less than a decade old. Already making conclusion so soon?
And "Blockchain" will? You're using a knife as a jackhammer and then say it doesn't work. Refer point above, it's far far too early to even claim a conclusion.
Unfair distribution of wealth by virtue of early adoption is inevitable for any asset that is speculative in value. You cannot say a coin is both fair and a good investment. You've already got the fundamental point of Bitcoin wrong. I'm not even gonna look into the numbers of BitcoinHEX scheme you got there.
I don't care if Bitcoin fell to $10 freaking dollars. Speculation was never the point of Bitcoin.
Cue the Downvotes..