zippoxer

If you say so, then here's a question for you.

Using only non-blockchain databases, can you build an exchange that is..

  1) Owned by no one, or owned by a community to which anyone can join.

  2) Unstoppable. Can't be shutdown even if you cold murder the entire team.

  3) Can't be regulated (will never do KYC/AML).

  4) Permission-less: anyone can trade and/or provide the liquidity.

  5) Open-source with indisputable proof that it *always* runs *exactly* and *only* the code it shows on GitHub.

1. Energy waste: solved by staking instead of mining. See proof of stake [1].

2. Centralized mining: staking in Ethereum 2.0 should be possible with a Raspberry Pi 4, therefore the viability of joining the network isn't closely tied to your geographic location as it is with mining (mining is only profitable with cheap electricity & hardware, which is why China is dominating Bitcoin mining right now).

3. Facilitates crime: well, that's still a problem, but it's also a problem with other things that give anonymity. Is Tor detrimental to society? Is cash detrimental to society? Should we force everyone to stop transacting with cash since most crimes are done with it, and like China to force them to transact digitally where it can all be tracked by the government, banks and corporations?

4. No intrinsic value: you should check out what's going on with DeFi (decentralized finance) right now in the Ethereum world. Over $2B is locked into smart contracts, people aren't just HODLing anymore, they're playing. Sure, it's not used to save the planet just yet, but I definitely believe it will develop to be enormously beneficial to society. Would love to elaborate if you want.

5. Stability: solved with stablecoins. Basically, you transact with a token that keeps it's value stable against a real world currency. DAI is a good example of a USD stablecoin. This defeats the "ponzi scheme" argument as well, since you can interact with many smart contracts with a stablecoin instead of a cryptocurrency. Your choice. If you acquired a cryptocurrency (which is somewhat like a stock) instead of a stablecoin and lost money, it's your fault.

I really like your article, well said. The issues you've raised are still real and need to be discussed. Nevertheless, I argue that those issues can, and are, being solved...

At least 4 of these issues had no solution 10 years ago, but just like innovations (proof of stake, stablecoins) fix them, further innovations will slowly fix other unsolved issues as well.

As a heavy VPN consumer, this is really helpful to me :)