I'd be interested to know patio11's updated take on the long arc of crypto.
As a crypto person, it's cool to see how the benefits he describes-- eg lower transaction costs, embedded finance, and novel items such as bundling reporting and instant settlement-- are also driving much of the product-side interest in crypto and web3.
Lower transaction fees? I moved a few hundred £ into my wallet the other day for some Ethereum and paid like £50 in various fees and gas. The crypto world is full of layers of middle men taking their slice. Even swapping some ENS to ETH cost over $100 in gas
You're right that ethereum's fees are extremely high, and they will only get much higher. That's because, heading into the future, ethereum isn't intended for direct use by end-users.
End-users may expect to use ethereum's live & emerging scaling solutions, also known as Layer-2 networks or L2s.
The ethereum chain itself has become known as the "base layer" or, more commonly, "the L1". Only rollups, governments, megacorps, and extremely rich people will be able to afford transacting directly on the L1.
The good news is that L2s are becoming great for end-users. Some are live now (optimistic rollups), and the most promising of them will be live soon (zk/validity rollups).
For example, Arbitrum and Optimism are optimistic rollups L2s and have achieved a significant linear decrease in transaction fees.
As another example, zkSync 2.0 and StarkNet are zero-knowledge rollup L2s, also called validity rollups, that achieve a greater linear decrease in end-user cost than optimistic rollups, and unlock a (truly) exponential decrease in end-user fees by using a spectrum of off-chain data solutions. This fantastic result of exponential decrease in cost for end-users is achieved by way of an important new-ish branch of mathematics called "zero knowledge proofs".
Currently, zkSync 2.0 and StarkNet are the "Luke Skywalkers" of ethereum scaling. We are expecting great things from them, and need them to deliver to allow hundreds of millions of users to onboard to ethereum next year.
You're most welcome! I'd be happy to discuss this with anybody interested. The best way to reach me is via twitter DM https://twitter.com/ryanberckmans
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies in use today. If you're out after faster transactions with lower fess, Algorand seems like a good option. Fee seems to be about 0.001 ALGO (0.002044 USD) about finalizes in about 5 seconds.
As a crypto person, it's cool to see how the benefits he describes-- eg lower transaction costs, embedded finance, and novel items such as bundling reporting and instant settlement-- are also driving much of the product-side interest in crypto and web3.