Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

Blockchain technologies have somehow managed to land in the worst of both worlds—decentralized but not really, immutable but not really.

A great analysis of the system of smoke and mirrors that constitutes so-called web3:

Instead of being at the mercy of the “big tech” companies like Amazon and Google that monopolize the traditional way of doing things on the web, you are now at the mercy of a few other tech companies that are rapidly monopolizing the blockchain way of doing things.

Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

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The Laboratorium (2d ser.) (I Do Not Think That NFT Means What You Think It…)

The bottom line is that almost everything NFT advocates want to do on a blockchain can be done more easily and efficiently without one, and the legal infrastructure needed to make NFTs work defeats the point of using a blockchain in the first place.

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Blockchain and Trust - Schneier on Security

Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They’re only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don’t like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money.

Bruce Schneier on the blockchain:

What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network. And you need to trust them absolutely, because they’re often single points of failure.

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Bitcoin Is Ridiculous. Blockchain Is Dangerous: Paul Ford - Bloomberg

An astoundingly great piece of writing from Paul Ford, comparing the dot-com bubble and the current blockchain bubble. This resonates so hard:

I knew I was supposed to have an opinion on how the web and the capital markets interacted, but I just wanted to write stuff and put it online. Or to talk about web standards—those documents, crafted by committees at the World Wide Web consortium, that defined the contract between a web browser and a web server, outlining how HTML would work. These standards didn’t define just software, but also culture; this was the raw material of human interaction.

And, damn, if this isn’t the best description the post-bubble web:

Heat and light returned. And bit by bit, the software industry insinuated itself into every aspect of global enterprise. Mobile happened, social networks exploded, jobs returned, and coding schools popped up to convert humans into programmers and feed them to the champing maw of commerce. The abstractions I loved became industries.

Oof! That isn’t even the final gut punch. This is:

Here’s what I finally figured out, 25 years in: What Silicon Valley loves most isn’t the products, or the platforms underneath them, but markets.

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Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland

This quote from the brilliant Molly White is about web3/blockchain/cryptobollocks but it applies to evaluating technology in general (like, say, JavaScript frameworks):

I firmly believe that companies first need to identify and research the problem they are trying to solve, and then select the right technology to do it. Those technologies may not be the latest buzzword, and they may not cause venture capitalists to come crawling out of the woodwork, but choosing technologies with that approach tends to be a lot more successful in the long run — at least, assuming the primary goal is to actually solve a problem rather than attract VC money.

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Brian Eno on NFTs and Automaticism

Much of the energy behind crypto arises from the very strong need that some people feel to operate outside of a state, and therefore outside of any sort of democratic communal overview. The idea that Ayn Rand, that Nietzsche-for-Teenagers toxin, should have had her whacky ideas enshrined in a philosophy about money is what is terrifying to me.

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