Defi is only about 2-3 years old. It's indeed fair to say that bitcoin has completely failed in getting any adoption beyond speculation.
>Nobody is using crypto as an alternative to fiat.
Ethereum is the best way to save in dollars outside of the developed world. High single digit or double digit yields (powered by speculators borrowing to speculate) vs ~0% in the banking system. Also much safer. Not compared to an American bank, but to Russian/Lebanese/Brazilian etc.
The history of defi can be traced back to mid-2013 (mastercoin) or earlier (colored coins).
And what the cool kids are calling “defi” today was called “appcoins” and “utility coins” several years ago. It’s all just marketing spin.
> It's indeed fair to say that bitcoin has completely failed in getting any adoption beyond speculation.
Digital gold is a euphemism for speculative store of value. Gold itself is a speculative SoV. For Bitcoin, that’s a sign of success — which is reflected in its market price.
There is not one single cryptocurrency on the market today which isn’t a speculative store of value primarily by real world usage. Rather there is Bitcoin which is upfront about this, and then there are other coins whose skilled sophists promote it as being something other than a speculative store of value as a hollow front. Peak behind the curtain and you’ll find a speculative store of value in 100% of cases, absolutely without exception. If anything has failed here it’s the moral compass of altcoin promoters globally, and investors for being so easily misled by hype entrepreneurs.
>The history of defi can be traced back to mid-2013 (mastercoin) or earlier (colored coins).
I disagree. Defi started with lending and borrowing dapps. If just tokens themselves are 'defi' then bitcoin itself is defi, which would make the definition pointless. Finance requires lending and borrowing.
>Digital gold is a euphemism for speculative store of value. Gold itself is a speculative SoV. For Bitcoin, that’s a sign of success — which is reflected in its market price.
The title of the bitcoin whitepaper is 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' which means it objectively failed in its stated goal. Of course, it had to, as bitcoin is not backed by anything and money must be backed by something.
Now it's just a ponzi scheme that continues to make people poorer while fooling them that they're getting rich. The only way to make a profit on bitcoin is to take someone else's wealth - it's zero sum by itself. On top of that there's mining, which ensures bitcoin continuously destroys wealth and makes bitcoin buyers poorer as a group compared to everyone else.
>Nobody is using crypto as an alternative to fiat.
Ethereum is the best way to save in dollars outside of the developed world. High single digit or double digit yields (powered by speculators borrowing to speculate) vs ~0% in the banking system. Also much safer. Not compared to an American bank, but to Russian/Lebanese/Brazilian etc.