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Comment by mirimir | Hacker News Reader

> Except that VR and "blockchain" were duds.

Based on limited experience, albeit going back about 30 years, VR won't become popular before visual and proprioceptive inputs can be synched. And I doubt that'll be practical before direct brain input works well.

About blockchain, it'll succeed once users don't know that it's there. I mean, how many understand how HTTPS certificates work?

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Funny you mention HTTPS certificates because there's a blockchain-based protocol that's trying to create a decentralized certificate authority. It basically aims to shift the root of trust from CAs to the blockchain https://handshake.org

I mean, I think the key difference is that HTTPS certs are actually useful.

Orchid creates multi-hop VPN connections using servers from multiple providers. It uses a private blockchain cryptocurrency to ~anonymously distribute value from users to VPN providers. That's useful because users don't need to trust any single VPN service.

Loki is an onion network. Currently the Session messaging app is the only service implemented, but I gather that there will be others. Loki uses a private blockchain cryptocurrency to hinder Sibyl attacks. That's useful because users will less likely get pwned by malicious nodes.

If those work out, there's no reason why most users would need to even know that blockchain cryptocurrencies were involved.

"direct brain input" Please no ..

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