I'll bite. What can I use Solana for?
Parallel economies exist. In the mainstream economy, your mainstream interests have every aspect of the market cornered. You only get in once they have taken all the worthwhile positions.
In the crypto economy, and yes, its a fully fledged economy and social network in 1, u can get in on the ground level and ride that hype up. You dont have to know that guy at that investment firm with that connection to that hot deal.
DeFi and the blockchain are allowing you to startup international companies in the blink of eye. Just the way traditional companies outsourced to the 3rd world, then import these goods and sell to a premium in local markets - as a crypto enterprenour u can now employ these same "call centre staff" (who were layed off in covid) to "play games for you" and you are able to pay them a HIGHER RATE then Apple or insert any any "tradtional stock" "traditional company". in phillipines for instance, you can get loans against SLP, u never need fiat. You can pay for goods at corners stores with SLP. micro-transactions in e-sports is legit and it will only get bigger.
People forget that captialists have BUILT a system and REINFORCED that system to ensure THE STATUS QUO. Crypto is about giving those people the FINGER. Those people kicked and screamed, but now they are ON BOARD. Bloomberg isnt as effective at causing a dip then say Elon though. Tether, like the real-estate markets all over the world, couldnt handle a big sell off. Covid showed that.
Sorry Bloomberg, your consoles days of cornering the market as gone! Your traders now need to keep there ear to the crypto ground, cause the crypto cultists are using there social networks to come for YOU. They can organise millions of bids in minutes. Your incumbents are not the only people who can pump and dump on retail investors. Tether is simply using tactics established by centralised finance. They poineered the China hustle years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Hustle
Lets stop pretending that the traditional stock market is built on fair and sound princples. Lets stop pretending that bankers get held to the same accountability as the ordaniary folks. These tradtionalists are incumberant in every aspect of the mainstream socio-poltical life. Like, the whole stock section of the nightly news is just as a way placate the general public and further there position and ideaology. One that preys on moms and pops and superannuation schemes.
So the utility of Solana is that you can, and I quote, "ride that hype up"? I think you've kind of proven the OP's point here.
But as for actual usage, it's a smart contracts blockchain that is fast, proof of stake, yet has drastically lower fees than Ethereum.
Anything can be built on top of it but this particular rush was caused by a second hype wave of NFTs. As more people want to join the NFT frenzy, it got really expensive to mint one on Ethereum, hence people rushed to this alternative.
For the record, I don't own any solana and never have, just explaining what it is. I wish I did own it a year ago though.
So, speculation. That's what all crypto is for.
If you buy enough GM stock eventually you can give all your friends and family members Corvettes for Christmas.
Stock actually represents an enforceable claim on wealth that exists in the real world. Crypto not so much.
A typical stock holder can never claim any underlying asset nor do they have voting rights, so you're really stretching.
The difference is simply in risk appetite. People are going to keep drinking Coca Cola at large scale so owning their stock is low risk. But also low return.
Crypto is high risk, extremely high return. There's a sizable chance to lose your money but a larger chance to get returns that are astronomical. I'm talking 5x - 10x in mere months.
Past performance is not indicative of future returns.
The reason the rest of us on the other side of this fence aren’t being as loud is not because we consider the jury to be out - it’s because we’re being responsible with our claims. It’s why no-one is countering you with a claim that it’s all going to zero - as no-one can guarantee that will happen either.
Joining the cryptocurrency pyramid in 2021 and expecting 500% returns is foolish. Could it happen? Sure it could. It doesn’t make it as likely as those inside the religion are implying.
The parent's comment's "For no reason at all except gambling" was implied and likely not confusing to the reader.
Also happens to pretty clearly answer the question of why people have extremely serious concerns about all this.
The above shows the 400 or so things built on top of solano. I would expect for most projects to not be very useful to the masses and likely most will fail. Which isn't different at all to the typical startup scene.
I consider most of it garbage, and I would expect you to conclude the same. Which is fine. The only counter point I have is to not dismiss the entire space as a whole. Things are moving very fast, and some concepts are intellectually interesting, just poorly executed.
For example, NFTs are considered the most ridiculous thing ever now, but that doesn't mean they will be in this state forever. The next-gen NFT containing the actual art, copyright integration, and smart contract integration are a matter of time.
Imagine a photographer, currently sharing photos to stock services for pennies, with zero control over terms. Middle men milking them dry. With a fully integrated NFT chain, the photographer can claim and prove ownership and dictate terms. They can decide to sell 10 copies, and dictate that if they are resold, the photographer gets a 20% royalty. The photographer can make higher-end versions available, at higher resolution, wider color gamut and ask more for that version. This independent and advanced type of reselling is hardly possible traditionally. And importantly, 100% of the revenue goes to the creator.
NFTs can be entirely interactive, and can be anything. A photo, a song, a 3D model, a plot of land in a game.
Imagine being an amateur talented 3D model builder right now, and Hollywood directly buying your model. Which is something that won't happen right now because of B2B contracts and the complexities of dealing with small vendors. Soon it's just the click of a button, done. The possibilities of making a "digital living" will drastically expand.
Outside of objects having serious undisputed value (like 3D models), you may think nobody cares if you "own" the rights to a JPG. One can trivially copy it after all. This attitude, that all digital content is worthless and frankly has no owner, is curious. Even more so in a society almost fully digital.
Take Instagram, for example. Instagram takes everybody's photos for free and intermixes it with ads. Facebook gets 100% of the revenue and personal data, and you as the person actually creating the photo gets...fuck all. A 100% tax. In return you get "likes" or "exposure". Instagram may change terms at will, bury your photos in favor of video, or simply deplatform you.
I find this contradiction interesting. The Hackernews community rightfully challenges Big Tech on a daily basis yet refuses to spend a single thought cycle on the only concept that has the potential to break it down. Which is not regulation, it's the opposite: decentralization. Returning power and ownership to users.
There are only two killer use cases for crypto: speculation and prohibited transactions.
That's not snarky those are actually pretty great use cases that have massive demand and centuries of success behind them as a product category.
A large part of crypto is scams, but it's clear not all of it is. You couldn't really argue that bitcoin, in general, is just a scam for example.
But beyond that it's basically all gambling. People put money into crypto hoping to get more money out. Period.
That's a really fucking desirable product it should be pointed out. It's so desired by people that you can build an entire city in a desert on the concept, it's common to all societies in all eras of history. People just absolutely fucking love to gamble.
Every argument against this seems to be a variation on "Well sure, but one day they might..." and so on.
Which is cool. You're absolutely right to say that. One day it might not just be gambling.
But today, it is. That's why there's money in it.
I only disagree on details. Like the use cases you missed, some of a humanitarian nature.
For example, still a significant part of the world is unbanked, and has no access to the financial system at all. Crypto, permission-less and only requiring the internet and a smartphone provides a solution.
For people living under highly inflationary regimes (Turkey, Libya, etc), crypto can be an unconfiscatable asset to protect their savings.
Immigrants often send money back to their home country, and by means of international banking, lose a whopping 30% in transaction fees. Crypto can do it for near-zero fees.
A hardcore cynic may call these just variations of "gambling" but to me these details matter. Further, like you said, the very point of any asset is persist value and ideally grow in value. That's even true for just basic currency. So this deep moral outrage that people are trying to earn money is misplaced, it's the damn point of any participant in an economy.
Suppose that I want to sell my copy, but do not want to pay the 20% royalty. What stops me from selling it for 1 cent on-chain, but buyer paying me real price off-chain? How can a creator realistically expect to receive their royalty cut?
Anything can be programmed in a smart contract, and they're transparent, so if the royalty rules are not acceptable to you, don't buy it.
I think this is more than just a loophole - it's a fundamental weakness of the smart contract system. The smart contract can audit things which are on the blockchain, but cannot govern external actions. This is fine when the only objects the contract cares about are digital tokens, but once you integrate things like real-world art and associated rights, it becomes very easy to circumvent.
Can you do that? Sure. But it's no different from pirating anything.
I think we're overstating this example. An NFT owner might also claim zero resell royalties and instead go for a higher first-sale price. Or set the royalty percentage lower. I think some balance will be found.
A far bigger issue with NFTs is a single person buying their own NFTs using different wallets. This artificially boost the price, some fool falls for this high perceived value, buys it, and is then forever stuck with it.
The other big issue is front running. Knowing ahead of time which projects will be dropped on major marketplaces. It's insider trading basically.
You're not listening. Crypto holders don't care about those concerns. They willingly gamble. You can ban and shut down all of crypto (in reality, you can't) and they'll move to meme stocks or betting on sports.
You can't stop it or regulate it. Because it's a culture. It's an entire generation that is fucked anyway. Even the modest ambition of a middle class life style is out of reach. So they have nothing to lose, and will bet it all.
They aren't dumb or ignorant. They are fully self-aware, and self-identify as plebs, degenerates and ape investors. They know what they're doing.
The "concern" is misplaced and fails to impress. From their point of view, "regulation" is the traditional system which is exactly the reason why they're in crypto. The traditional system failed them.
The real concern should be aimed at the economic conditions that young people face. For as long as skeptics don't get that, they will never understand crypto and its culture.
The problem is as a society this isn't a positive thing, and we should put some energy into stopping runaway gambling fads because they are highly destructive when it all comes crashing down.
And it always does.
But I'll leave it at that.
The other thing cryptocurrencies potentially offer is an alternative financial system to the status quo. There are lots of bugs to be worked out, but it's well on its way, and Solana and Ethereum (as only two examples of many) have the ability to act as the platform upon which these financial services can be built.
It's an odd contradiction, but I'm used to it.
A whole lot of talk about middle class lifestyles being out of reach in the same sentences as “WHEN LAMBO?”.
I’m sympathetic to the widespread lack of upward mobility these days. This is confusing it with something else.
Is it most new buyers? There’s really no way to know.
It's a distribution like anything else. A handful of billionaires, a larger group of millionaires, and then comes the sweetspot.
The sweetspot for crypto is middle class (from lower middle class to higher middle class) doing a 5-10x from whatever they put in. Not enough to retire, but meaningful wealth. This return is within reach for almost anybody with some study, patience, and proper risk management.
1. Lend USDC and earn higher interest rate than my bank using https://mango.markets.
2. Trustlessly swap crypto using app.saber.so/#/swap.
3. Occasionally buy NFTs from artists I want to support.