Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

The main use-case of web3 is speculation and money laundering. We’ve been promised much more, but at this point blockchain technology is over a decade old. It didn’t take web1 nearly this long to flourish after the browser and HTTP were invented. Shouldn’t more have happened by now?

A blockchain is a worse database. It is slower, requires way more storage and compute, doesn’t have customer support, etc. And yet it has one dimension along which it is radically different. No single entity or small group of entities controls it – something people try to convey, albeit poorly, by saying it is “decentralized.”

...trying heroically on a podcast to explain why putting one’s house “on the blockchain” might be better than the current system. Eventually, after much grasping and a bit of “these things could all be NFTs,” McCormick ended up more or less where he began. “You’ve just re-created the entire mortgage infrastructure that already exists today,” a host... See more