Can we drop the whole "blockchain" shtick and just start calling this space "crypto"? Bitcoin combined a cryptographic protocol with an incentive structure to produce something incredible: digital cash that can be held and transacted without a central authority. The innovation was in the combination of protocol components, not the data structure that resulted ("the blockchain").
The problem that we're actually trying to solve with all of this is how to provide a root of trust. Blockchains are a way to do that, but I've yet to see a compelling use case beyond digital cash. Attempts to implement any transaction more complicated than cash settlement on a blockchain will inevitably run into the fundamental problem: transactions are contracts, and contracts will always require a legal framework and judicial system to mediate. You simply can't remove that requirement and all of the "inefficiency" that comes along with it.
I agree with this. Blockchains are pretty much a novel subset of cryptography, and I expect the most interesting protocols/applications that get called "crypto" in the next ten years are going to make heavy use of both blockchains and other new forms of cryptography (ZKPs, MPC....). There will continue to be a rift between "purist crypto" and "mainstream/enterprise crypto" but it's the purist vs enterprise divide that will matter, not blockchains vs cryptography.
> The problem that we're actually trying to solve with all of this is how to provide a root of trust. Blockchains are a way to do that, but I've yet to see a compelling use case beyond digital cash.
Handshake [1] provides a root of trust for DNS and DANE [2]. It's also heavily in use [3]!
You might be interested in checking out OpenLaw. They've just released LAO which is a decentralized Legal Autonomous Organization for investing in startups.
No, because "crypto" is only a subset of "blockchain."
Blockchain can be used for a lot more than just digital cash. It can be used for storing immutable logs of any data/content. That implies endless use-cases.
Yes, transactions can be viewed as contracts, but the mediation is already accounted for by that specific blockchain's consensus algorithm & proposal/dispute resolution system. Most of the good smart contract blockchains already have systems in place for all this.
You've got it backwards, "crypto" is cryptography which is where all of this comes from. "Blockchain" is just a clever combination of ECDSA, Merkle trees and partial hash inversion that has proven useful to implement decentralized digital cash. I think we would be better served by looking at existing real-world problems with fresh eyes to see if cryptography can provide unique solutions, rather than taking one particular protocol template and assuming it can be used for almost anything.
It ought to be, and it used to be, but unfortunately it's been hijacked by the cryptocurrency community to such an extent that it's become increasingly ambiguous.
The problem that we're actually trying to solve with all of this is how to provide a root of trust. Blockchains are a way to do that, but I've yet to see a compelling use case beyond digital cash. Attempts to implement any transaction more complicated than cash settlement on a blockchain will inevitably run into the fundamental problem: transactions are contracts, and contracts will always require a legal framework and judicial system to mediate. You simply can't remove that requirement and all of the "inefficiency" that comes along with it.