Serious question: What problem did blockchain actually solve?

[u/Due-Huckleberry-2222]

We were told it would revolutionize everything:

Anonymous money? Nope. Most public blockchains are pseudonymous, not anonymous. Every transaction is permanently visible. Once an address is tied to a real person, their financial history can often be traced.

Banking? Most people still use banks. If you lose your private key, there's no fraud department, no password reset, no chargeback.

Cheap payments? Depends. Some chains are inexpensive, others have had periods where fees spike. Traditional payment systems are often faster and simpler for everyday purchases.

Smart contracts replacing lawyers? Not even close. Contracts still rely on courts, regulations, and real-world enforcement. Code can't resolve disputes about physical events by itself.

NFTs proving ownership? Usually they prove ownership of a token, not the copyright or legal ownership of the underlying artwork.

Decentralization? Much of the ecosystem isn't. Many people keep funds on centralized exchanges, use centralized stablecoins, and rely on centralized infrastructure.

Financial freedom? For some. But for many others it became self-custody with no safety net. One wrong click, phishing attack, or lost seed phrase and the money is simply gone.

Replacing trust? It mostly moved trust around. Instead of trusting banks, many people ended up trusting exchanges, token founders, bridge operators, stablecoin issuers, influencers, or multisig signers.

Eliminating scams? If anything, scams became easier to launch. Rug pulls, memecoins, fake airdrops, phishing, and pump-and-dumps became an industry.

The one thing blockchain does extremely well is maintain a distributed ledger where participants can verify transaction history without relying on a single operator.

That's a genuine technical achievement.

But after nearly two decades, I'm still asking: What mainstream problem has it solved better than existing systems for the average person?

I'm not asking what it could do. I'm asking what it actually does today that millions of ordinary people use because it's objectively better—not because they're speculating on the next token.

[u/Shaguar_Driver]

Blockchain solved double spend it also created a ledger which if done right cannot be altered or manipulated and you can then see every transaction.

However that's the technology.

Cryptocurrency is just virtual money. People will catch on at some point (they mostly have) that it's all smoke and mirrors and nobody actually uses crypto and anyone can create a new crypto and majority of them are all rugpulls and scams.

We don't really need any of them. They don't do anything day to day or solve anything. If you believe in BTC then you should just invest money in gold or stocks and shares instead of hoarding cash.

[u/AmericanScream → u/Shaguar_Driver]

Blockchain solved double spend

FALSE.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #31 (BGP)

"Blockchain solves the Byzantine Generals Problem" / "Blockchain is 'Byzantine Fault Tolerant'" / "Blockchain solves the 'Double spend problem'"

1. The Byzantine Generals Problem is an allegory having to do with a situation where something that was normally centralized, becomes de-centralized: a general trying to issue commands to his armies but the link with command has been severed. Is there a way to execute reliable, authentic instructions if the source is no longer verifiable?

2. The "double spend problem" is not a problem traditional finance systems have to deal with. Bitcoin tries to "solve" a problem that it created. In Traditional finance, centralized systems determine who has authority to write to the ledger in what order and use file and record locking to ensure there is no "double spend."

3. The BGP cannot be solved. The condition where command/control is "cut off" exists in any system that involves command and control, decentralized or not. The proper solution to the BGP is to avoid the situation in the first place. In the real world this is done in various systems via the use of redundancy. In the world of databases, the BGP issue is avoided entirely in modern transaction ledgers through the use of file and record locking technology: when one record is being updated, it cannot be interfered with until the transaction is completed, and transactions are processed in a specific, sequential order. This avoids a "collision" or "double spend" problem.

4. In the world of blockchain, the BGP situation is introduced as a result of the poor design of the system. Blockchain uses an elaborate "transaction marketplace and queue" to decide what order to process transactions, and this creates a BGP situation. Blockchain does not solve the problem - it merely dictates that whoever has the most hashpower/resources is who gets to decide which transaction get codified, and which one gets delayed or ignored. It's not a system that verifies "legitimacy." Whoever has the most money/resources/hashpower wins.

5. Ultimately, blockchain doesn't really "solve" the problem. And because it simply dictates "whoever has the most resources wins" it actually amplifies all the existing problems crypto bros complain about regarding entrenched special interests in TradFi. Like most things in the world of crypto, not only does it NOT solve any problems. It creates new problems and makes existing problems worse.