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Comment by themerone | Hacker News Reader

I thought we are at the stage of DeFi where most people realized it has flaws that can only be fixed with centralization.

Most crypto users are already using online exchanges and wallets, so from their perspective it already is centralized.

True decentralized crypto only has niche applications outside a small number of enthusiasts.

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speaking more broadly than defi, there is an intrinsic tradeoff between decentralization and efficiency that is probably something like natural law or tautology. the promise of decentralized tech built on cryptography, to me at least, is that it offers a working alternative where there previously was none at all; almost everyone will probably end up using centralized and custodial systems due to their benefits, but the breakthrough is that you don't have to. you can always choose to trust in the presence of trustless system, but you can't choose trustlessness in its absence.

    only has niche applications outside a small number of enthusiasts

Like the internet in 1968.

The internet didn't exist then, and it's still an Apples and oranges. Billions of people have access to crypto technology now, and there are no gatekeepers preventing them form participating.

Arpanet was started 1969 and you had to be part of a small number of institutions to have access.

You me and everyone else on this thread are here getting value out of it. That’s more than the number of people who get value out of crypto.

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