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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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It’s wild for me as a trans woman because I rarely had this issue before I transitioned and start to “pass”. It’s insane to experience both sides.
Afab with a 29-odd year career in IT.
Every.
Damned.
Second
Oh lord I can imagine...
Necessary prologue: I'm not a crypto-bro, I'm just interested in the technology and have done some contract work for the sector.
Anyway, I went on a date.
Guy argued with me for thirty minutes that blockchain technology was inherently stupid, did not know the difference between bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency. I have been paid cash money to write about all three.
When I told him, he said I was using a logical fallacy with my "appeal to authority."
I took some philosophy and criticial thinking in university as well. He didn't.
I mean that guy sounds stupid but to be fair we havent found any real practical uses of the blockchain, I mean its just not energy efficient and cryptocurrencies are as of now not really currencies since the only places that accept them tend to be very shady.
You really wanna get into this? I'm game if you are.
Ok fine, please explain to me in your view the practical purposes of the blockchain?
Sure, I'll speak to cryptocurrency and tokens that run on blockchain, since it's the technology that made the wide spread of crypto possible.
As an aside, I've been out of this sector for a few years now. I'm behind on recent developments. And, I was never a programmer or developer, I worked more on the writing and art side. In depth tech analysis will have to be directed to someone more knowledgeable than me.
I have a lot of criticism for blockchain and cryptocurrency as well, so don't take this as a vehement defence of the technology. I'm only answering the question with a few points.
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Decentralization of currency — reduces the monopoly on currency. Yes, a lack of regulation has done some serious damage, but that's an issue with clunky legislation not keeping up with technology. The point still stands that centralized control of currency, or anything, also centralizes power, which is susceptible to corruption. Blockchain isn't the best solution, but it is an option.
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International money transfers are easier on blockchain. One company I worked for paid remote contractors in cryptocurrency when dealing with foreign banks, who often didn't speak the same language, in less developed countries (Including America, hah.) Quite a few countries have integrated crypto into their banks which made it more practical and cheaper — they actually preferred it.
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Digitial trust. The distributed ledger, though inefficient, created a strong, secure system that is prohibitively costly to corrupt. It's easier to play the game than to cheat, even if the whales are in it.
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Personal, international trade. On a personal note, I was able to post and sell my art internationally without messing around with foreign money transfers. If you've ever had to send money to someone in the states from Canada, you know what I mean. A transfer took seconds and the distributed ledger made it so there would be no backsies or disputes.
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NFTs... you're all gonna hate me here. I accept it, because NFT hype was crazy pants — BUT! It was like selling art prints digitally. I included a creative commons contract that was folded and sealed into the blockchain and high quality images that could be printed anywhere in the world, instead of shipping the prints themselves. Blockchain just made it easy to set up and manage on my own. Otherwise, to sell internationally I would have had to use Etsy or something. With a little know-how I could forge and trade NFTs directly and it cost only pennies to transfer.
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I can buy stuff with crypto, directly. There are lots of companies who take it, including the print shop who does my stickers.
Now, these points aren't exclusive to blockchain. There are quite a few options out there to handle the various problems blockchain solves, but I have yet to find an easier way to transfer funds internationally than by using blockchain based crypto.
edit: A couple typos.
Ill address and counter all your points:
- As I already pointed out nothing is really being decentralized since it cant really be used as a currency, it doesn't matter how valuable it is if nobody accepts it. As of now its a glorified unregulated stock market.
- This causes just as many issues as it fixes if not more, unregulated international money flow naturally leads to companies being able to avoid taxes and huge money laundering operations.
- The places you can deposit and withdraw from this system are centralized and thus is pretty easy to track and corrupt 4, That makes scams easier, the fact that once you send money its impossible to retrieve it back. I would consider that a bad thing, it removes all buyer protections.
- The blockchain cant even store images, people were spending tens of thousands on links to images which arent even guaranteed to still be working. At that point since you're not really offering a service why shouldnt someone just download the jpg and make the print themselves since they have to do the second part anyway.
- Maybe a few shops ran exclusively by nerds but normal stores that normal people go to dont use crypto, you cant just pay with bitcoin or eth at a local grocery store
You asked for practical uses and these were all practical uses for me and for many people.
Lack of regulation, your understanding of how NFTs work, how people in other countries with other regulations want to be paid, or whether you know about the shops that accept crypto, like newegg and shopify, have nothing to do with whether something is practical or not.
But from your last point, it doesn't seem like you care whether blockchain technology has built anything useful for people who aren't you, and it doesn't sound like you're engaging in good faith.
And, again, I am in no way endorsing or advocating for cryptocurrency. I got paid to do work for crypto people, so I learned about and spent cryptocurrency, practically.
Edit: I can't believe I forgot buying drugs. There is no better way to buy drugs on the darknet.
Wow. You really got the response from the meme lmao. Friendo there decided your expertise meant nothing compared to her confidence lmao
Yep. I hoped someone else saw that. It was clear they were geared up for that argument the moment I mentioned blockchain, no matter what I said.
I know nothing about this topic, and I'm just here to learn - you said that blockchain isn't the best solution with regard to decentralizing currency, but it is an option. What other options exist?
GNU Taler
Obligatory not a finance person.
I meant it more like "not the best." In that it's clunky, energy intense, and widely unregulated. As far as I know, there are no better solutions which aren't theoretical.
edit: But I guess there are plenty of small ways we trade value outside of a centralized currency. It's just hard to put "great person who helps their friends move" on a credit report. But that's less about currency and more about value as a concept.
“YOU’RE WRONG — I DON’T CARE HOW QUALIFIED YOU ARE TO COMMENT ON THIS” /s
Confidently incorrect.
Swiped right on an incel, shit. They’re getting more clever with their profiles.
Throughout my entire marriage.
Me: masters in behavioral health and practicing clinician
Him: high school diploma, studying completely unrelated field, somehow thinks his strong feelings override scientific fact and knowledge of it
It'd be interesting to have a conversation with you and my brother. I don't have a masters, but I do work in the field of behavioral child psychology. Last time my nephew was over, my brother didn't approve of how I handled his son's behavior. Even though I work with kids who exhibit far more dangerous behaviors and am trained to handle them, the fact that he's his father overrules everything. I can't argue that - parents gonna parent how they do. But it hurts, because he complains about my mom all the time but doesn't realize he's treating his kids the same way our mom treated us (which exacerbates said-behaviors.)
Just being a parent doesn't mean you instantly know how to raise kids. Especially if you didn't learn from the failures of your own parents.
Hmmmm I don’t think that sounds like an interesting conversation I think it sounds like a migraine. Parent training foremost involves parents consent and kiddo assent, without both I can’t do anything anyway, and consent has to be to my treatment plan based on needs mutually identified as you are aware I’m sure. So ultimately if they don’t want my services there are tons of people who do.
Hope you moved on from the dick 🙏
Yep, in more way than one. 😉
Ok, so I know I'm not the smartest person, but when he looks at me and tells me I'm wrong and it's this, not that and I ask him for a source and he says "I don't have one, that's just how I thought it was," I might actually deserve a medal for having to even hear that. Some ice cream at least.
🏅 ➕ 🍦
😅 thank you!
One of my students is a chemical engineer who has been in her field for a decade or so. She has to be constantly prepared during presentations for her (largely older male) audience to ask her malicious questions questioning her expertise. It’s asinine.
How embarrassing for them. And they don't even realise they're humiliating themselves more than her
Right, that’s a good point to mention to bolster her confidence.
Do you want that in minutes?