Promises

Trust is a critical feature of a well functioning society. Of course you don't need everyone to trust everyone else, but there are always specific trustworthy individuals that help keep everything running smoothly.

Crypto society has the benefit of smart contracts. The technology allows us to operate even without trust between people in a lot of situations. You no longer need a trusted individual (or company) to facilitate your business. You can participate in society even if you don't trust anyone at all.

For most dApps, that's the end of the story. There's very little incentive to move past our current trustless society. The problem is that there's lots of valuable applications that require some trust to work.

Take lending as an example.

The loans you can get on blockchains today are limited to the kind that can't be cheated. You have to put up collateral to get the loan. Even if you break your promise to repay, the contract just takes your collateral.

This is effective for certain use cases, but it only works for people who already have money. If you want to serve people who don't yet have the resources to fuel trustless dApps, you need trust.

-Luke

P.S. trust scores for wallets may help, but should also be easily cheated, difficult problem to solve.