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Comment by viklove | Hacker News Reader

Providing a few examples of places where smart contracts do not replace existing solutions does not mean smart contracts are "a hilariously bad idea." Someone more creative than you will come up with a good application for them. Your lack of imagination is not a good enough argument to call something useless...

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Maybe so, but “someone will come up with a good application for them” sure makes them sound like a solution in search of a problem.

What is wrong with that? There are lots of new technologies that don't solve some specific problem. They were just created in the name of science or curiosity or even just for fun. Real world , "useful" applications may not come for decades.

Nothing is wrong with that, but if it's true, then that doesn't do much to refute the notion that there aren't any good uses for smart contracts.

If the best argument in favor of them is "well, they're not really good for much right now, but someday somebody might figure out a good use for them," then it's hard to see why people are so excited.

(Though, maybe it's not so hard to see why people are excited if the folks who are excited are all crypto fans who want to build hype to drive the prices up....)

Two quick examples of the use of Bitcoin smart contracts:

1. https://suredbits.com/discreet-log-contracts-part-1-what-is-...

2. https://atomic.finance

I didn't say I'm the authority of what is useless in the entire world though. I added my perspective and agreed - hence the "just some perspective".

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