One of the reasons is that any infrastructure built on blockchain is reusable for free by everybody (minus transaction free). Uniswap and Aave have been chugging along for years and are starting to acquire reputation beyond retail. Privacy is moving along as well where you can tokenize, say, bonds and hide the in/out flows with ZK proofs.
You can track RWA issuance here https://app.rwa.xyz/
> Uniswap and Aave have been chugging along for years
How hot? I haven't heard of it or them, but that's hardly strong evidence. What do you see?
> One of the reasons is that any infrastructure built on blockchain is reusable for free by everybody
Does that have an impact?
I doubt consumers care about free. They certainly care about high levels of integrity (my money is safe) and availability (I can access my money), as well as profit (interest / gain). I've never heard a consumer say, 'I use Bank Z because their financial operations run on FOSS.'
Mega-banks would seem to dislike FOSS. They want barriers to entry; they will find it inefficient, frustrating, and very limiting - with a significant and direct impact on their bottom lines - to deal with a bunch of amateurs. That's why you're not allowed on the trading floors, electronic or physical, and Goldman Sachs directors won't take your calls (until you establish yourself).
I suspect free matters to undercapitalized startups, amateur financial services, and hackers interested in innovation in this area.
But again, there's a lot I don't know ...
This (plus the fact that blockchain smart contracts are generally limited in size) has the effect of commoditizing much of any given design, instead of keeping it solely in the hands of whoever made it. Things don't remain proprietary; people build their own versions of each contract that are "compatible" per whatever ABI the ecosystem was relying on, and then the ecosystem generalizes its integrations to include those de-facto-ABI compatible systems as well.
And this makes the path from the development of a new experimental + proprietary + closed-world system that requires direct interaction through its own first-party frontend, through to what investment bankers would call "financialization" of the abstraction that system defines as a general-purpose category of financial instrument, very short on blockchains.
This means that in the modern day, there's often far more promise in how financialized a given system is likely to get, when that system starts off as a set of blockchain smart contracts, than when that system starts off as a proprietary brick-and-mortar financial vendor's firm-internal non-market-tradable security.
Meanwhile, the brick-and-mortar fi-tech firm to get their security financialized, they have to convince brick-and-mortar exchanges to carry it for trading; and then other vendors have to come along and copy that success (usually with all the same exchange-side friction + backroom dealings required); and then someone further has to come along and define an abstraction into existence for those live instruments to be reframed in terms of; and everyone has to faff about redoing how their systems work so that those instruments actually fit the abstraction, since the abstraction will be what financial regulations for the financialized security will be written in terms of, and so their own original versions of the security may end up legally non-compliant. And that whole process takes ages — especially if the fi-tech companies push back on the abstraction standard, insisting that their version should be permitted as a MAY option or grandfathered in somehow.
It is a pretty confined upside if anything
I looked into it years ago when I wanted to tokenize small firefighting planes and helicopters hoping that being the person in charge of the entity doing the tokenization I could be staying at the premises of the private companies that lease the planes and helicopters and hold the contracts to do the actual firefighting.
My hope was that being identified as the 'owner of the planes' eventually the crew would allow me to fly the missions as a +1 even though I don't have the licenses.
But never crossed my mind that this could be make me a millionaire
Blockchain and tokenization would seem to help with transactions with investors who are far away who don't know the farmers personally. Again, how do they collect?
And if you're local and know the farmer, why do you need blockchain? A spreadsheet, a piece of paper, or just a handshake would do.
e.g. if you go to suburban Japan and you walk by someone on the street who asks you for help and needs to call someone, you may lend them your phone. If the same thing were to happen in SF, you shouldn't. And so, perhaps, if you were a good guy you go ask a Japanese tourist haha! Okay, well the analogy is a little stretched but hopefully you get something out of it.
I must confess I'm enamored with the concept of blockchains, but find their value questionable for the most part.
I even worked for a blockchain startup (non-crypto) but left on less than good terms and a fair amount of PTSD. They were nuts!
Is that backwards? If you own the token for a cow, and it dies, what happens?
> To turn cattle into trusted financial guarantees or collateral without requiring inspectors to visit the property, Cowmed equips cows with an AI-powered Smarty Collar. These collars constantly monitor health, behavior, and location. The raw data is then converted into an encrypted digital identity tied directly to the B3 credit agreement. [Emphasis mine]
I've yet to see a scheme that makes this trustless somehow. If you don't have that you don't have anything.
Fine... if you don't need the cow too.
1. Bob grows oranges, and wants shoes
2. Ted hunts for meat, and wants oranges
3. Sam makes shoes, and wants meat
The only way this can work is to have a 3-way transaction. But with a money system, the money is traded without needing a 3-way transaction. It's much more efficient.
Your policy doesn’t even work in CA, new housing is absurdly expensive to build and the profits aren't even high.
Now, would you want to live in a country with conditions so absurd that "hikikomori" and micro apartments [1] are a thing?
> “A lot of younger people these days don’t have many possessions, unlike older generations – they have a few items of clothing and not that much money, so these apartments are ideal for them,” said Nakama, whose 1,500 micro-apartments have an occupancy rate of 98%.
Yeah fuck that shit. That's just exploitation, and no wonder the few young people that Japan has end up with all sort of mental health issues, no partners and a birthrate near zero. Nothing to own because there's nowhere to store something you own, not enough space to even invite another person over, much less have sex.
Cram me into such an "apartment", I'd go and search for a gun to off myself.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/20/you-could-cook...
I don’t know if what you stated is enough evidence to prove much of anything either. Just because building housing is cheap and quick in Japan does not mean it needs to be small.
If it meant I could cut my rental or mortgage bill in half, absolutely. People have different preferences, not everyone needs or wants the same amount of space.
>than the market willing to pay
That’s the crux, a market speculation. Well, the market is also willing to pay more for death match gambling, that doesn’t mean it should be there.
Never been to Japan, they seem like smart people but they do have some issues, especially with elderly care. Maybe if they could sell their property they wouldn’t suffer loneliness so much.
The value of a house is determined by the Law of Supply and Demand. Endless attempts to legislate that away have all resulted in failure.
If there are 50 houses, and 100 buyers, the buyers willing to pay more will get the houses. No amount of authoritarianism is going to change that.
The US had such a system before 1914. Money was exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate. That system was destroyed in 1914 with the Federal Reserve Act, and the inevitable result was endless inflation and debasing of the currency.
The once common compliment "sound as a dollar" has vanished from the lexicon.
Personally I found this one quite interesting. https://www.lynalden.com/broken-money/