I am pretty anti-crypto generally but I feel compelled to reply to your maximalist position that there is "no practical value whatsoever, current or potential" to blockchains. The one use case I have seen for blockchain that is real is that cryptocurrency is great for moving money around the world when governments or banks maybe don't want you to do so. At the very least the experience of sending crypto is about as annoying or a little bit less annoying than sending a wire, and you can avoid all those pesky AML/KYC requirements that banks and payment processors impose.
I am not suggesting that this isn't ethically fraught -- of course it is. But one can imagine uses. I personally have known a couple people who fled Syria during the civil war, and bitcoin was a useful way to pull money out of the country, and much less dangerous than carrying a suitcase of cash.
But isn't this awfully close to saying: Blockchains/Cryptocurrencies are useful exactly for money laundering and sanction busting? And ... saying that publicly _and_ supporting the implementation tends to go very badly. (As it should imo, but that's a different story).
IF that is the summary conclusion to crypto (which I'm currently holding), then this is pretty close to "no practical value whatsoever", isn't it?
>The one use case I have seen for blockchain that is real is that cryptocurrency is great for moving money around the world when governments or banks maybe don't want you to do so.
No it isn't. You don't need blockchains to create illegal banks and exchanges or to launder money. All of that was around for a long time before blockchains. You could even create those things "as a service" without blockchains, it would be just as shady and illegal. I'm serious here, there is absolutely no practical value to blockchains whatsoever.
I am not suggesting that this isn't ethically fraught -- of course it is. But one can imagine uses. I personally have known a couple people who fled Syria during the civil war, and bitcoin was a useful way to pull money out of the country, and much less dangerous than carrying a suitcase of cash.