[darkFunction]

That's great! Hey look I would like to send you the rights to my crate of wine. You're the 1000th customer to my site. Or maybe you want to trade it for your in-game weapon. Or I just like you and it's a gift, anonymous internet user.

Of course I could just transfer directly to your Ethereum wallet. But why do that when I could explain you need to sign up to 'winespectator.com', I'll email them to arrange the ownership transfer, and if you're trading that weapon let's both sign up for a pre-agreed escrow service online and pay them a commission to arbitrage. How many forms do we need to fill in, and who is processing that data? I currently own my crate anonymously- only the person who eventually burns the token will need to provide details to the company for delivery.

As always, descriptions like this betray how little engine-peddlers know about horse breeding. Managing a stable has been a thing as long as there's been horses.

[dmitriid]

> Hey look I would like to send you the rights to my crate of wine.

You truly believe this can't be done without blockchain?

> You're the 1000th customer to my site.

You truly believe you can't track customers without blockchain?

> Or maybe you want to trade me for that in-game weapon.

You truly believe it's impossible to implement in-game trading without blockchain?

> Of course I could just transfer directly to your Ethereum wallet.

The only thing you could transfer is some meaningless numbers. What makes them meaningful is some central, trusted authority that will accept these numbers as proof of something. But then, since you depend on that authority to verify this... you don't need blockchain.

[darkFunction]

I think instead of reading what I wrote, you read "you need a blockchain to do this".

The anti-blockchain narrative on here is constantly attacking the strawman of "literally everything must be decentralised".

I'm arguing that a decentralised medium of exchange through which separate points of centralisation can interact is still a useful construct.

You're comfortable with your assets being codified in a thousand different databases in a thousand different representations but the concept of having a common database representing them as "meaningless numbers" is suddenly unacceptable.

[biztos]

The interesting thing is not that you would need a blockchain to trade wine futures — obviously you don’t.

The interesting thing is that if you can sell the futures as (for example) NFTs then you put them into this Wild West of crypto enthusiasts where

1) All kinds of unpredictable things might happen to the token between sale and redemption! And

2) The culture of crypto enthusiasts might very well lead to much higher prices for your wine than people who actually know about wine think it’s worth, cf. Beeple.

Either or both of these things might motivate a winery to give it a shot, tokenize a few thousand future cases of their weakest plonk, and see what happens.

Just because your market works fine without the blockchain doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gained by trying.

On the other hand, it might be illegal because: alcohol.

[koonsolo]

You can do all those things without a blockchain. It's just more practical using a blockchain.

I used to survive without a cellphone. It wasn't hard. You just called your friends when you and they were at home.