I am a software developer.

• Blockchains are useless

  • It's basically an incredibly slow and unwieldy database with the worst I/O times and latency of all time. Ten minutes to write to a freakin' database, as with Bitcoin? A minute as with litecoin? Pass.
  • It solves zero problems -- as the old saying goes, blockchains are a solution in search of a problem.
  • If the blockchain is immutable (i.e. can't be corrected) it means it is possible for an intern to accidentally destroy the company by programming a bug that sends coins to a blackhole address like bitcoineater
  • If the blockchain is mutable, then why the fuck would you use a blockchain in the first place, the entire point is that it is immutable.

Edit:

• As for Etherium, the entire thing is just straight up retarded from the start. The primary selling point of Etherium is 'smart contracts' aka we agree that you mow my lawn, and once my lawn is mown, I give you some etherium butts

  • The obvious stupidity here stems from an old CS bit of wisdom: "garbage in, garbage out". That is, a program that received garbage input will invariably produce garbage output. In the case of the lawn mowing example: what data source definitively establishes that my lawn was mown? There must be one for such a 'smart contract' to key on. But any such source is completely unreliable, and therefore the 'smart contract' fails before it even starts.