macwright-com-6wqpgh.txt (3132B)
1 [1]Tom MacWright 2 3 [email protected] 4 5 [2]Tom MacWright 6 7 • [3]Writing 8 • [4]Reading 9 • [5]Photos 10 • [6]Projects 11 • [7]Drawings 12 • [8]Micro⇠ 13 • [9]About 14 15 Crypto's missing plateau of productivity 16 17 2024-09-15 18 19 I think that even the most overhyped technology usually delivers some benefit 20 to the world. And often succeeds quietly, long after the hype has died. Recent 21 examples include 3D printing, which has found massive success in prototyping, 22 medical applications - a friend had a filling 3D-printed right in his doctor’s 23 office - and niche consumer items. Etsy is awash with 3D printed lamps, some 24 [10]even that I own. Or drones, which are now used all the time in news 25 coverage, on job sites, and by people filming themselves hiking. 26 27 I suspect that even if Augmented Reality doesn’t take off, it’ll leave in its 28 wake big advances in miniaturized projectors, improved optics, and scene 29 understanding algorithms in computer vision and ML. The internet of things 30 didn’t really work and most people’s Alexa speakers are only used for setting 31 alarms, but the hype-wave did justify the deployment of much-needed 32 technologies like IPv6, Zigbee, and BLE. 33 34 So, the thought is: none of this applies to crypto. It didn’t work, and it also 35 didn’t fund the development of any lasting technological advance. There’s no 36 legacy. The crypto industry’s research didn’t create new foundations for 37 building decentralized databases. Next-generation cryptography kept rolling on, 38 and, as far as I know, none of it owes much to the cryptocurrency industry. 39 Nothing new has been discovered about economics: as Matt Levine says, [11]“One 40 thing that I say frequently around here is that crypto keeps learning the 41 lessons of traditional finance at high speed.” It’s hard to name anything of 42 value that came out of this hype wave. We incinerated all that investment, and 43 randomly redistributed some wealth, and… what else? 44 45 The best I can come up with is the popularization of [12]zero-knowledge proofs, 46 which play some role in Zerocash and Ethereum but are a fundamental advance in 47 security and have other applications. 48 49 Maybe there’s something I’m missing? But it reminds me of [13]the end of Burn 50 After Reading: “What did we learn? We learned not to do it again.” 51 52 53 References: 54 55 [1] https://macwright.com/ 56 [2] https://macwright.com/ 57 [3] https://macwright.com/writing/ 58 [4] https://macwright.com/reading/ 59 [5] https://macwright.com/photos/ 60 [6] https://macwright.com/projects/ 61 [7] https://macwright.com/drawings/ 62 [8] https://macwright.com/micro/ 63 [9] https://macwright.com/about/ 64 [10] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1001875399/aspen-table-lamp-mushroom-lamp-modern?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=3d+printed+lamp&ref=sr_gallery-1-7&bes=1&sts=1&ret=1&content_source=34ccc20e2da3df5906473c82c6fb7ae0e3bcf572%253A1001875399&organic_search_click=1 65 [11] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-08-15/stablecoins-can-have-bank-runs 66 [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-interactive_zero-knowledge_proof 67 [13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlA9hmrC8DU