These are the same promises the emergence of the blockchain gave us. We’re now nearly a decade later, and the most useful application has been get-rich-quick schemes. Yet, all these listed applications are still not in use, and/or better than their non-blockchain counterparts.
How you can really know electronic voting is a bad idea - all the people who would be the ones to be hired and paid a ton to build and implement it, cryptographers and infosec experts, are the same people who loudly oppose it.
There are so many different problems;
Assuming you manage to build the perfect system, can you actually explain it to people? If you put a prospective voter in front of the real deal, a secure electronic voting machine, and put a fake replica next to it, will ANYBODY EVER succeed in telling them apart? Or will you be forced to continuously audit the hardware from production to shipment to use, and somehow still respect voters’ privacy as they use the machine?
And how can you be confident your implementation is secure? You can to prove the algorithms are correct, that the implementation is correct, that the implementation behaves as end users (voters) expect, and that even the hardware is flawless (both in terms of logic and protection against manipulation).
How do you ensure people only vote once, yet also protect their privacy, but ALSO prove to them their vote was really counted? Individual keypairs? How do you distribute and protect them? Physical ID cards? What if they get stolen (in significant enough numbers)? What if a significant fraction of the population won’t use the new system, do you still run old school voting and combine the results?
How do you give somebody a receipt they can understand without enabling coercion to try to force people to vote a certain way?
There is a lot of talk, for example, in the sustainability space where things like emissions allowances, carbon offsets, etc. are traded the old fashioned way where a digital ledger using NFTs would be both instantaneous and transparent/easily auditable.
But the most obvious example is security exchanges, e.g. stocks, bonds, etc. (which would be a massive threat to the existing financial institutions) because it could allow for instantaneous settlement and fully transparent markets.
HUGE HOWEVER, not all NFT systems would be equally useful for that kind of thing. What we saw with FTX, for example, was a blockchain exchange for tokenized securities where the blockchain aspects served no real useful purpose - it was a centralized, controlled, opaque use case. The distributed ledger model (which I think casual observers of blockchain assume all blockchain systems are) can correct for those failures. I personally think part of what made the FTX story so big was a combination of moves by major financial market players to get out in front of tokenization of securities by created the existing system again but with a blockchain coat of paint on top that then failed under its own scam at lightning speed which then gave the ammo to a whole “blockchain a scam, NFT an even bigger scam” narrative. They are just software utilities that can be used effectively or not just like any others.
Whenever I see someone identify a jpeg as an NFT, or put SBF’s face on a news story about it, I think about how successful the astroturfing of these narratives has been.
But the same could be said for almost anything, for instance a car’s engine is non-theoretical but could be otherwise done with a horse instead. I will still prefer the more advanced technology, but of course you do you
No, automobiles and mass transit were a massive innovation that drastically changed everyone’s way of life. Look at the current state of global logistics. You can essentially order any fruit from home and have it fresh at your doorstep at any time of year. You can’t do that without engines.
Are there any practical (non-theoretical) uses for NFTs that couldn’t be done
otherwiseeasier/better without them though?Edited to make it easier for NFTs to show their worth.
insert word jumble about unrealistic scenarios made up in my basement while stoned
https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/nft-use-cases/
It is just a tool, it’s what you do with it that gives its worth. Monkey pictures… Well that’s not worth anything
These are the same promises the emergence of the blockchain gave us. We’re now nearly a decade later, and the most useful application has been get-rich-quick schemes. Yet, all these listed applications are still not in use, and/or better than their non-blockchain counterparts.
Hell, if you know why electronic voting is not, and will never be a good idea, you definitely wouldn’t want them as an NFT.
How you can really know electronic voting is a bad idea - all the people who would be the ones to be hired and paid a ton to build and implement it, cryptographers and infosec experts, are the same people who loudly oppose it.
There are so many different problems;
Assuming you manage to build the perfect system, can you actually explain it to people? If you put a prospective voter in front of the real deal, a secure electronic voting machine, and put a fake replica next to it, will ANYBODY EVER succeed in telling them apart? Or will you be forced to continuously audit the hardware from production to shipment to use, and somehow still respect voters’ privacy as they use the machine?
And how can you be confident your implementation is secure? You can to prove the algorithms are correct, that the implementation is correct, that the implementation behaves as end users (voters) expect, and that even the hardware is flawless (both in terms of logic and protection against manipulation).
How do you ensure people only vote once, yet also protect their privacy, but ALSO prove to them their vote was really counted? Individual keypairs? How do you distribute and protect them? Physical ID cards? What if they get stolen (in significant enough numbers)? What if a significant fraction of the population won’t use the new system, do you still run old school voting and combine the results?
How do you give somebody a receipt they can understand without enabling coercion to try to force people to vote a certain way?
Yeah, that about sums it up.
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Basically anything that is currently traded on any digital or quasi-digital exchange but relies ultimately on a paper/manual backend.
Can you give a real life example of that being applied?
Monkey pictures!
There is a lot of talk, for example, in the sustainability space where things like emissions allowances, carbon offsets, etc. are traded the old fashioned way where a digital ledger using NFTs would be both instantaneous and transparent/easily auditable.
But the most obvious example is security exchanges, e.g. stocks, bonds, etc. (which would be a massive threat to the existing financial institutions) because it could allow for instantaneous settlement and fully transparent markets.
HUGE HOWEVER, not all NFT systems would be equally useful for that kind of thing. What we saw with FTX, for example, was a blockchain exchange for tokenized securities where the blockchain aspects served no real useful purpose - it was a centralized, controlled, opaque use case. The distributed ledger model (which I think casual observers of blockchain assume all blockchain systems are) can correct for those failures. I personally think part of what made the FTX story so big was a combination of moves by major financial market players to get out in front of tokenization of securities by created the existing system again but with a blockchain coat of paint on top that then failed under its own scam at lightning speed which then gave the ammo to a whole “blockchain a scam, NFT an even bigger scam” narrative. They are just software utilities that can be used effectively or not just like any others.
Whenever I see someone identify a jpeg as an NFT, or put SBF’s face on a news story about it, I think about how successful the astroturfing of these narratives has been.
But the same could be said for almost anything, for instance a car’s engine is non-theoretical but could be otherwise done with a horse instead. I will still prefer the more advanced technology, but of course you do you
You’re right. I’ve edited my question to make it easier for NFTs to qualify. After all, cars do the same as horses, but a whole lot better.
So what is a practical application of NFTs that, now that it’s implemented, makes someone’s life so much better?
So…“No”
No, automobiles and mass transit were a massive innovation that drastically changed everyone’s way of life. Look at the current state of global logistics. You can essentially order any fruit from home and have it fresh at your doorstep at any time of year. You can’t do that without engines.
This still works because cars ruined Western society in the guise of “advancement”, so that’s cool