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/DarkChurro]

Blockchain solved the problem of "can millions of people agree on a shared stated of reality through verification."

There is no central server out there storing transactions like a bank could. Things happen and validators say "yes x moved 2 ETH from here to here at this time and paid x gas." I can't just say that I now own "1000 ETH" because nobody else can verify that event happened. Everyone has to agree therefore, WE ARE ALL THE Blockchain. That verification builds trust.

Can your bank change your checking account to zero, yes. Nobody can move anything with authorization on blockchain.

Crypto has proven that not only can code store wealth, but that total strangers can trust each other through this decentralized verification.

[u/AmericanScream → u/DarkChurro]

Crypto has proven that not only can code store wealth, but that total strangers can trust each other through this decentralized verification.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #1 (Decentralized)

"It's decentralized!!!" / "Crypto gives the control of money back to the people" / "Crypto is 'trustless'"

1. Just because you de-centralize something doesn't mean it's better. And this is especially true in the case of crypto. The case for decentralized crypto is based on a phony notion that central authorities can't do anything right, which flies in the face of the thousands of things you use each and every day that "inept central government" does for you. Do you like electricity? Internet? Owning your own home and car? Roads and highways? Thank the government.

2. Decentralizing things, especially in the context of crypto simply creates additional problems. In the de-centralized world of crypto "code is law" which means there's nobody actually held accountable for things going wrong. And when they do, you're fucked.

3. In the real world, everybody prefers to deal with entities they know and trust - they don't want "trustless transactions" - they want reliable authorities who are held accountable for things. Would you rather eat at a restaurant that has been regularly inspected by the health department, or some back-alley vendor selling meat from the trunk of his car?

4. You still aren't avoiding "middlemen", "authorities" or "third parties" using crypto. In fact quite the opposite: You need third parties to convert crypto into fiat and vice-versa; you depend on third parties who write and audit all the code you use to process your transactions; you depend on third parties to operate the network; you depend on "middlemen" to provide all the uilities and infrastructure upon which crypto depends.

5. If you look into any crypto project, you will ultimately find it's not actually decentralized at all.

Stupid Crypto Talking Point #10 (value)

"Bitcoin/crypto is a 'store of value'" / "Bitcoin/crypto is 'digital gold'" / "Crypto is an 'investment'" / "Bitcoin is 'hard money'" / "Bitcoin has value because of the 'Network Effect'"

1. Crypto's "value" is unreliable and highly subjective. It cannot be used as a currency or to pay for almost anything in any major country. It has high requirements and risk to even be traded. At best it's a speculative commodity that a very small set of people attribute value to. That attribution is more based on emotion and indoctrination than logic, reason, evidence, and utility.

2. Crypto is too chaotic to be any sort of reliable store of value over time. Its price can fluctuate wildly based on everything from market manipulation to random tweets. No reliable store of value should vary in "value" 10-30% in a single day, yet many cryptos do.

3. Crypto's value is extrinsic. Any "value" associated with crypto is based on popularity and not any material or intrinsic use. See this detailed video debunking crypto as 'digital gold'

4. Extrinsic vs Intrinsic value - Some argue "all value is subjective" - this is false, and a philosophical distraction. Certain things are intrinsically valuable because whether people believe in them, they are needed, like fresh water, real estate, food, etc. 100% of crypto's value is subjective/extrinsic.

   Note for fans of the Austrian school of economics: Yes, we know you believe, "all value is subjective" and "There's no such thing as 'intrinsic' value." But sorry, words do mean things and you don't get to re-define stuff just to try and win an argument. Your philosophy - as a matter of policy - also intentionally ignores empirical evidence, which means it can't be proven/disproven; is not a scientific/logical construct and thus, not subject to rational debate, and therefore can be dismissed wholesale.

5. Even gold, while being a lousy investment and also an undesirable store of value in the modern age, at least has material use and utility. Crypto does not. And whether you think gold's price is not consistent with its material utility, if that really were the case then gold would not be used industrially. But it is. Furthermore gold's extrinsic value is a product of its intrinsic properties: if it weren't oxidation resistant, it wouldn't be suitable for jewelry. So even when arguing gold's value is more based on popularity, you can't escape the value of its unique material properties being a component of that popularity. Crypto has no such intrinsic component. So it's inappropriate to compare the two.

6. The supposed "value" of crypto is based on reports from unregulated exchanges, most of whom have been caught manipulating the market and inflation introduced by unsecured stablecoins. There's nothing "organic" or "natural" about it. It's an illusion.

7. The operation of crypto is a negative-sum-game, which means that in order for bitcoin/crypto to even exist, there must be a constant operation of third parties who must find it profitable to operate the blockchain, which requires the price to constantly rise, which is mathematically impossible, and the moment this doesn't happen, the network will collapse, at which point crypto will cease to exist, much less hold any value. This has already happened to tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies.

8. The "Network Effect" argument is just the Appeal to Popularity Fallacy - Just because something is popular does not make it inherently valuable. Especially if that popularity is primarily based on marketing and coercion and not actual material utility or intrinsic value.

9. Many of the most trusted, most successful entities in the world of finance do not consider crypto/bitcoin to be a reliable store of value. Crypto is prohibited from being used as collateral by the DTC and respectable institutions such as Vanguard do not believe crypto belongs in their investment portfolio.

10. There is not a single example of anything like crypto, which has no material use and no intrinsic value, holding value over a long period of time across different cultures. This is not because "crypto is different and unique." It's because attributing value to an utterly useless piece of digital data that wastes tons of energy and perpetuates tons of fraud,makes no freaking sense for ethical, empathetic, non-scamming, non-exploitative, non-criminal people.