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Bitcoin is not trustless. It has as much value as the collective trust in it. Once that trust disappears, the value tanks.

Reality is that you can’t bootstrap trust.

Not to mention the fact that you can hold Bitcoin trustlessly, and you can transfer it to someone else trustlessly, but then you have to trust that they send to you in return what they promised.

See Goharshady, Amir Kafshdar: Irrationality, Extortion, or Trusted Third-Parties: Why It Is Impossible to Buy and Sell Physical Goods Securely on the Blockchain. arXiv:2110.09857, arXiv, 19 Oct. 2021. arXiv.org, http://arxiv.org/abs/2110.09857.

Thanks a lot for the link!

It’s not clear to me that most of those use cases will be served better by a blockchain rather than a regular centralized service… but also examples like the camera don’t really work, because someone could still use the camera to photograph a generated image (for example), or hack the camera itself.

On top of that, up until this point in time, Bitcoin has been the opposite of secure. The entire history of it is filled with people constantly losing money and being scammed with no real recourse.

> Bitcoin is the only immutable peer to peer system ever created

What about the other thousands of other public blockchains, many of which are extremely similar (DOGE, BCH, LTC, ...)?

> In a world headed toward web 3.0, generative AI content & virtual reality

... Metaverse anytime now.

> there is tremendous value in a trustless and immutable peer to peer system.

Personally, I think there is much more value in trusted systems.

> In fact, I think we NEED it

... because the world didn't work at all prior to 2009?

> and should as a society happily bear the power consumption

In contrast, I think if we were to eliminate Bitcoin and other crypto, we'd save 1% of electricity with very few negative side effects, but a significant reduction in crime, frauds, and scams.

> already we cannot trust that a digital picture is genuine.

Solutions to this problem might well involve digital signatures and hardware enclaves in cameras (installed by trusted centralized camera producers which could publish the public keys of each sold camera once), but I don't see how public blockchains would add any value. The signature of the picture embedded in the picture speaks for itself.

> My bet is that we are headed toward a future where blockchain is ubiquitous.

Gott forbid.

> When you order groceries, the origin of the produce and raw ingredients are all embedded in blockchain.

Apart from the fact that I don't see the benefit of that, the oracle problem makes this impossible, I fear.

Let me clarify that I dont think any of what I described is a given. I think its one of the more likely outcomes of our future. I think its prudent to own a small amount of Bitcoin (or basket of cryptocurrencies) in order to hedge against that future or someting close to it.

> What about the other thousands of other public blockchains, many of which are extremely similar (DOGE, BCH, LTC, ...)?

They are simply not as secure and could be attacked by well funded actors. Perhaps in time another blockchain will win out.

>... Metaverse anytime now.

Just curious. Do we disagree about where this (technological progress) is headed, or is it the timeline? I think its quite likely that we will spend more and more time in vitual or augmented reality. For good or ill.

> Personally, I think there is much more value in trusted systems.

I prefer the absence of a central authority. Perhaps im cynical.

> ... because the world didn't work at all prior to 2009?

We dont need crypto right now either. I simply think that the only good outcome of our digital future is a trustless one, and I think blockchain will play a central role there.

> Solutions to this problem might well involve digital signatures and hardware enclaves in cameras (installed by trusted centralized camera producers which could publish the public keys of each sold camera once), but I don't see how public blockchains would add any value. The signature of the picture embedded in the picture speaks for itself.

The value of blockchain is in the absence of a trusted centralized camera producer that can be pressured.

> Apart from the fact that I don't see the benefit of that, the oracle problem makes this impossible, I fear.

The oracle problem is solved in the same way the camera problem is solved. By digital signatures of real world interactions of the machines in the production chain.

I think the world will lean into trustless systems over trusted systems, lets see. That is not to say that I dont think the world would continue to function on trusted systems, I just think it makes dystopian outcomes more likely.