- Uncensorable money: og bitcoin and pretty much everything else
- Uncensorable money + privacy: monero, tornado.cash, etc.
- Decentralized exchanges/automated market makers: curve.fi, uniswap, etc.
- Prediction markets: polymarket etc.
EDIT: looks like omen and augur are dead
"Company is a fucking joke. I invested upon launch and there's still nothing usable after half a decade. Been seeing the same "roadmaps" for 5+ years. Company raises hundreds of millions and can't manage to launch a simple UX for prediction markets lmfao..."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Augur/comments/mvsyf8/comment/gyu4s...
But even if there is a trusted entity involved, a smart contract I can interact with directly using blockchain transactions is better than having to provide my picture, passport and SSN to some company that builds a database of all my trades. This problem is even worse if I move to a jurisdiction where you need to be accredited to play, or where prediction markets are illegal.
For many of these financial applications, crypto/blockchain isn't strictly necessary, but it can be very useful.
The difference is that you consider the traditional banking world legit and the crypto one scammy and fake, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have, but completely begs the particular question of whether any of this shit has real world utility.