Where are all the crypto use cases? | Evan Conrad

Three years ago, I felt crypto’s only proven use case was bitcoin as a store of value was the only clear, proven use case (it was clear that would endure and build retail and institutional value). Now, I see programmable money in Ethereum and Ethereum’s competitors as the next proven use case, with the massive influx into DeFi and NFTs a critical p... See more

there’s very specific things that crypto technology does well. But actually most other things, it doesn’t do so well and it introduces more trouble than it’s worth. And so we need to be really intentional about where we put the crypto as opposed to all the other stuff.

One major challenge is that the blockchain has, at present, approximately zero uses for the typical consumer. Theoretical uses abound, but no ordinary person is choosing a blockchain-based technology over its traditional counterpart. More than a decade after blockchains first caught tech geeks’ eye, not a single smartphone app that you use with fri... See more

Anyway, it’s a short list, right? Well, this is why crypto critics aren’t wrong when they talk about how “useless” crypto is. It doesn’t do very much right now, but these few things do show some hints at what might be coming later.

The Debate Over the past few weeks, Logan Bartlett’s red hot new podcast Cartoon Avatars has taken my corner of the internet by storm with a series in which Flatiron Health co-founder and Operator Partners GP Zach Weinberg debates crypto people about whether there are any real crypto use cases. The series kicked off when he wiped the floor with me ... See more

The first part isn’t entirely unfair; scams and ponzi schemes are everywhere, and it seems clear that we are in the middle of an ever-inflating bubble. It’s also the case that an entire set of legitimate use cases are in reality regulatory arbitrage; crypto advocates are far too quick to ascribe all of the issues with the current monetary system to... See more