Maybe a bit like enterprise software, just add another abstraction layer...
This kind of fuckup could not happen with regular banking and if you somehow did mess up you can almost always have your money recovered. There is no way to just black hole it never to be seen again.
If it bothers you, you could probably also go through some service that insures your transactions and gives you a degree of reversibility.
The classic is for a trade, and the receiver has to confirm they received the stuff before the money is released.
Afaik "traditional" companies like ebay also struggle with that kind of thing.
That part we kind of figured out, maybe it's ok, albeit super slow and power intensive, but let's put that aside for a while.
But is there a solid mathematical and cryptographical basis for everything else layered on top? I don't get that impression, it just looks like they're just plugging gaping holes because there's a gold rush to be continued!
If they're just rebuilding a crappier version of the global financial system, there's no point in the rest of us following them.
Just to say, it really doesn't make sense to judge "crypto" by the state of Ethereum. There are different philosophies, different approaches, different people.
Maybe they'll find solutions. Cool, let them put those solutions in practice in 2040 when all the bugs have been worked out.
It was never a solution in search of a problem.
In 1999 the tech wasn't there but everyone could see where it was going, like all investments, it was a matter of timing.
Crypto is still at the fundamental research phase and we don't even have consensus that it does more good than bad, yet.
And yes, I know about the supposed use for people in countries with unstable regimes but I'm not convinced at the moment. Plus that use case, being that of people generally having low disposable incomes (barring China) absolutely doesn't justify the market value of crypto at the moment.
That's your best argument against regular currencies? That they're being manipulated, too? :-)
Of course you can burn your crypto and send it so some random contract. You can also take traditional money, go to the woods and burn it.
Could.
So far you've been using the present tense, "the [dumb] contract replaces the solicitor", or such.
Obviously it doesn't. Or could you tell me in which countries in the world you won't, at present, have to pay the government to register real estate ownership changes in its ledger just because you paid the seller in a crypto-"currency"?
It's not obvious at all that it could be replaced by crypto.
So all this complexity to get around regulations but you are going to run into the reasons this regulation came about at some scale.