What am I using cryptocurrencies for?

Sometimes I argue with people who say that cryptocurrencies are useless. I like to argue because I get better at it with every new opponent and it challenges me to find answers to things I didn't knew before, but most times, these people have heard only about Bitcoin and think that all cryptocurrencies are the same. That might have been true in the beginning of 2014 when I discovered Bitcoin and Dogecoin, but it is not anymore. I initially found them also totally useless, but time has moved on and there are many different projects out there now (everything is not a Bitcoin fork with slight changes anymore). My usual response is that if they don't find any use for Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that it is useless for everybody and there could be other use cases for them in other cryptocurrencies. I am not going to talk why Bitcoin can be useful for some people (there are plenty of content about that), so my examples are based on what I use.

There are 3 crypotocurrency/blockchain platforms that I have found most useful for myself: Steem, Ethereum and Byteball. These are not the only platforms that I have coins/tokens for, but these are the platforms that I use the most at the moment.

On Steem, I started blogging again. Last time I blogged was over 8 years ago on a platform that doesn't exists anymore (Microsoft Live Spaces), so hopefully Steem will be something more permanent. The reason why I think it could be is because there are multiple front-ends for Steem. Some are even dedicated just for vlogging (DLive), but I like Busy.org the most. If I have something to say that is cryotocurrency related and I can't fit that idea into Twitter post, I will plan to publish it on Steem.

On Ethereum, for a while I used different ERC20 tokens by acquiring them from decentralized exchanges or ICOs. It's great use-case because it has become a standard for tokens and ERC20 is supported by many exchanges and wallets. I think that possibility to issue your own token in the future is as basic as owning a mobile phone is today. I also used ERC721 tokens a lot too (mostly CryptoKitties). Reason why I like ERC721 is for the same reason, it has become a standard for non-fungible tokens (every token is unique and can hold metadata) and they also have their own marketplaces (like RareBits and OPSkins). So, it's not just about CryptoKitties and we will probably see much more interesting dapps (decentralized apps) using that standard in the future. My hope is the same as with Steem, that these unique tokens will be more long-lasting and can't be taken down when some corporation looses interest to support them, open-source and community will take care of them for long time.

On Byteball, I have used chatbots and smart-contracts the most. There are many chatbots that I have used on Byteball, but the one that I still keep using is Sports Betting bot, which also uses heavily smart-contracts. Smart-contracts on Byteball are important because thanks to on-chain oracles, it allows people to have peer-to-peer bets without intermediary holding the funds (Sports Betting bot and Sports Oracle are not holding the funds of active bets). These smart-contracts between only open to either side of the counterpart depending on what result Sport Oracle announced.

The reason why I am writing about cryptocurrency use-cases is because it is up to you how cryptocurrencies will be used in the future. That's why Byteball has announced yet another Use-a-thon, which I also take part as a jury member. Use-a-thons are like hackathons without hacking (programming), but the idea is the same: you have a problem and you came up with a solution how it could be solved, in this case - using Byteball platform.

And it doesn't have to end there, it can even be an idea for improvement to anything already using Byteball, something that can take the existing to new level. For example, it could be an idea how to make something more accessible for more people. When I was using the Sports Betting bot for the first time, I noticed that when there are more bets at the same time then it becomes difficult to have an overview what is available at any given time. Because I am web developer, I didn't stop with just an idea for improvement, my solution for that problem was that I built a web front-end for Sports Betting bot and called it BB Odds. I also noticed that different regions use different formats for odds, so I added a possibility to display the odds in formats that users around the world are the most familiar with.

That was 7 weeks ago, but because Sports Betting bot is peer-to-peer, I noticed another problem: it needs both, bet makers and bet takers to function properly. So, now I deployed the biggest updated since initial launch of BB Odds and it includes features that make using Sports Betting bot easier to use for bet makers too, not just bet takers.