Blockchains allow for the immutable encoding of Capitalism.
We are already seeing a vast number of "traditional" finance applications being written on the blockchain. Applications that reinforce the Capitalist mode of production, in a way that is impossible to ever get rid of.
What are these "applications"?
DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations)
DAOs are "smart contracts" (code that exists on the blockchain) that encode an organisation wherein there are voting/participation mechanisms. Members can make proposals to execute some series of transactions, members vote, (upon the proposal passing) the transactions get executed.
Why is this bad?
Two reasons.
The first reason: The sheer majority of DAOs that have been created are traditional private ownership organisations. Your power in the organisation is directly proportional to how wealthy you are. Yes, any run-of-the-mill person can hop on and become a member, but this does not differ from traditional publicly-traded corporations in any way whatsoever. I can become a part-owner of Google if I want, but because I am not rich, I will always be out-powered by the mega-rich. Don't let anyone trick you into thinking these DAOs "help the little guy" by providing lower barriers to entry, more transparency, etc. While they do provide more transparency, I would argue that makes little difference to the fact that these organisations in no way empower anyone other than the rich.
The second reason: While DAOs provide more transparency in regards to what the DAO is doing, it provides the polar opposite regarding who is doing it.
How do I exile a corrupt businessman when their only identity is ihateminorities.eth?
Gone are the days when we were able to hold individual rulers accountable for their crimes against humanity.
Lending and Borrowing
This is probably one of the only areas that I see a non-negligible benefit for ordinary people (kind of). Decentralised lending and borrowing protocols allow you to freely lend your money in a way that doesn't allow you to get ripped off by a big bank. For example, I can put my USD into app.aave.com and get far more interest than any bank would ever give me.
Obviously this only matters if I'm privileged enough to actually be able to save up USD.
It obviously means nothing for most people.
Perpetual Swaps
Gambling for rich people. A good way to lose your life savings if you aren't already buffered with a lot of wealth.
Synthetic assets
Ways to "invest" in to stocks/cryptos/etc without actually owning it. Not much to say here.
Prediction markets
Decentralised betting platforms are still betting platforms. They still allow the average joe to get addicted and lose all their money.
Remember, once the majority of the financial world switches to using blockchain technologies, it will never be possible to get rid of it. Blockchains are "immutable".
Is there any reason why I should not be scared of this?
Provide me with any way you could stop, get rid of, or end this immutable & permanent hardcoding of Capitalism, and I will explain why it is impossible.
They don’t produce any value. Done.
Blockchains produce a lot of value. It is ignorant to think otherwise.
When people get the opportunity to perform every financial activity they currently perform, but in a completely autonomous and private way, they will flock to it.
Don't get me wrong. As it stands today, the main smart contract blockchains are not scalable enough to support the entire world's financial transactions. It is infeasible for every financial institution to switch to Ethereum. Within the next two years max, that will no longer be the case.
Edit: Within the next two years maximum, Ethereum 2.0 (sharding, PoS) will be finished, a multitude of EVM-compatible optimistic rollup protocols will be finished, I don't want to guess where will be with zero knowledge rollups, but if I had to I would say we're probably going to be pretty close to an EVM compatible ZK rollup protocol.
All of this will provide scalability in the factors of hundreds of thousands, not even mentioning the ability to create new, completely robust, Arbitrum networks as seen fit by protocol creators.
No, they produce zero value whatsoever. Labor produces value. Some people getting rich by trading Bitcoins doesn't mean that the value was created by the blockchain, any more than people getting rich via a Ponzi scheme means the Ponzi scheme created value.
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Can I live in blockchain? Can I eat blockchain? Their use value is zero, same as naked money.
They can switch to solana/matics of this world rn, but it’s a change of form, not substance.
What kind of fallacious argument is that?
No, but they sure as hell provide a lot of value to some very rich people.
They do? If I strand bezos tomorrow with a pile of amazon stock certificates, how long he will last? If all money tomorrow changes to blockchain, what do you think will change, exactly?
You are basing your entire argument off an idea that for something to "produce value", it has to have a direct & physically tangible benefit.
Do you think that Bezos hasn't benefited greatly off being the largest owner of Amazon?
You're correct; he can't eat Amazon stocks. But he can control one of the largest companies in the world with them.
Because everyone (and the military) agrees that he does. If tomorrow he disappeared what would change? Conversely, if everyone decided he is a bum and isn’t to be listened to, what control would he have?