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Comment by robjeiter | Hacker News Reader

Fully disagree. Tokenization enables better financial markets. Bitcoin is the useless asset since it's proven that productive assets (think stocks) are better store of values than unproductive ones (think gold). Ethereum in that sense is productive because you can stake it for a yield and collaterize it natively to borrow against it and you can tokenize anything on top of it.

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If tokenization requires a trusted party to issue the tokens (think stocks) then no blockchain is needed

Then that means stablecoins aren’t needed.

And yet, reality disagrees with your logic and stablecoins are on track to be used even more.

Tokenization on Ethereum will end up being way more important and useful than pet rock Bitcoin.

The most popular stablecoins aren't trustless, proving the parent's point.

Parent's point is weak - it's not possible right now for people around the world to hold fiat/stocks in their own centralized, custodial wallets due to stringent KYC/AML, and blockchains currently fill that need for stablecoins, and will fill that need for tokenized stocks, treasuries, etc.

And again, nobody needs blockchains to tokenize centrally issued securities.

There's an intermediary scenario to consider: when multiple trusted parties are involved. This is basic computer science, and software engineering: crash and byzantine fault-tolerant systems.

On a related note, blockchains often obscure the true consensus mechanism behind layers of complex jargon. Upon closer inspection, consensus is still built on trusted parties, just not the same ones typically found in the traditional economy. In Bitcoin, for example, you not only have the relatively few powerful miners but also the Bitcoin Core developers, who wield significant influence over which changes are incorporated into the Bitcoin node. For example, enabling the OP_CAT opcode again [1][2].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoTechnology/comments/19bik6z/u...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/19adyi0/should_op_...

There’s also ASIC manufacturing monopoly

Why would you need a blockchain for tokenization?

> Bitcoin is the useless asset since it's proven that productive assets (think stocks) are better store of values than unproductive ones (think gold).

This has hardly been proven. Gold has been recognized as source of value across several millennia and multiple cultures. I would bet that 1000 years from now gold will still have value, whereas stocks are only valuable in as much as the rights that they represent can be enforced by a court and implicitly the state backing it.

We are <one mile-sized asteroid made of gold> away from gold losing all its value. One such asteroid has been discovered already. It's called 16 Psyche, 140 miles in diameter and made largely of gold and other precious metals. To compare, all gold ever mined on Earth fits into a 22-meter cube.

We are one government/imperial collapse from US stocks losing all value. Historically which is more likely to happen?

Both are more likely to happen than Bitcoin being cracked.

How are you so certain about the composition of 16 Psyche?

NASA was confident enough to send a rocket towards it, it is scheduled to reach 16 Psyche in 2029.

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