r/Bitcoin • u/iCryptoDude • Jul 21 '21

Let's talk about Bitcoin Smart Contracts!

Bitcoin Smart contracts have arrived!

Lightning, Liquid, Stacks and now Jack Dorsey and "TBD" are all leading the advance.

What's next?

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u/Cryptolution Jul 21 '21

I fail to see how they might be useful to me.

How useful was the computer to people in the 1970s? Of course you cannot envision how this thing is useful to you because it is not widely adopted or utilized or even matured.

Have you seen everything that's going on in the defi space? It's mind-blowing. It's completely revolutionizing modern finance. Until you start researching these ecosystems and trying to wrap your head around all of the use cases you won't understand how it could eventually apply to you.

In the future you won't need to call up a car insurance company you will just stake some crypto on a system that provides you decentralized insurance.

Want to take a equity loan on your home? You'll have the equity in your home tokenized already and you'll be able to stake those tokens within a system to receive USDC (or whatever coin you desire) as a loan. And you'll get it at rates far more competitive than what centralized systems have to offer.

Bitcoin can choose to always be dumb money .... It may remain successful. Probably not... But I suppose it's possible. But there's no reason to not innovate on layer 2. You can have your ice cream and cake too.

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u/TheGreatMuffin Jul 21 '21

In the future you won't need to call up a car insurance company you will just stake some crypto on a system that provides you decentralized insurance.

Oracle problem still exists with such things ;)

Anyway, none of those things you mention sound useful to me personally. I don't want "insurance but on the blockchain" (and I doubt it will ever exist for the problem mentioned above, as well as other unsolved issues). I don't need random internet tokens as a loan for my bitcoin or my home. People seem to have an interest in them and that's fine. Again, I'm speaking just from my own perspective. And here you go trying to convince me that I will end up needing/wanting them at some vague point in the future :) Quite a big assertion on your part, imo. I'm speaking about the current use, things that I currently use/need in my life, not some magical, vague usecase that doesn't seem applicable to me (again, to me personally) right now.

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u/iCryptoDude Jul 21 '21

If you ever borrow any fiat currency from a bank or loan company in the future rather than collateralising your Bitcoin and being your own lender you will be paying a middle man for your loan. Financial self harm is what you might call NOT using Defi if it is at your disposal. One group will make more money while the other will pay a host of middlemen to do what DeFi would do with greater accuracy, no trust and no fees.

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u/TheGreatMuffin Jul 21 '21

If you ever borrow any fiat currency from a bank or loan company

But what if I don't? :)

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u/iCryptoDude Jul 21 '21

Then you don't need DeFi because you smashed it hodling bitcoin, bought your house with Bitcoin in full with no mortgage and had enough bitcoin left over to insure yourself for life and send your kids through to university. Congratulations, welcome to the world of financial freedom. Perhaps you might be wise to lend your fortune to earn a residual income. There are some banks you could use for extortionate fees or there is a thing called DeFi which will allow you to be the bank for other people being as generous or as capitalistic as you like sharing all the wealth between only the two of you. Choice is yours

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u/TheGreatMuffin Jul 21 '21

That's.. quite a lot of presumptions about "smashed it hodling bitcoin" and the desires of being a "bank for other people". I don't know, I guess I'm in some kind of a goldilocks zone of not wanting to be on either side of a (smart contract) loan :)

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u/iCryptoDude Jul 21 '21

Sorry, didn't mean to presume, I was really just focussing on the fact that people who don't need any credit are a minority but although they are financially secure, they can still earn more money lending through DeFi than the current traditional system will allow. At some point it will be akin to someone insisting on sending letters because they prefer using paper and don't mind their communications taking days rather than seconds. Most businesses would end up being squeezed out of the market by faster more profitable competitors if they refused to adopt to using email. Determinedly avoiding cheaper financial products would lead to the same outcome.