If blockchain truly is the “internet of money”, then the summer of ’17 may be remembered as Blockchain’s Netscape moment.
Netscape’s 1995 IPO was important for two reasons. First, it helped launch/finance the first user-friendly browser that allowed average people to access the open internet protocol for the first time.
The second reason is that the Netscape IPO made a lot of people very rich and kicked off the internet mania that gripped the markets throughout the late 90s and financed the creation of today’s modern internet.
So what mattered was:
A) Products that helped consumers leverage this new P2P communication network.
B) A mechanism to finance ideas/project while allowing people to invest in this new world.
The interesting twist this time around is that blockchain technologies — like Bitcoin and Ethereum — are here to redefine “money”, and to change how value moves from one peer to another (just like the internet did for P2P data transfers).
Now, many people assume this will mean disruption for payments, which they correctly point out is not happening. But this is the wrong place to start.
I don’t always agree with Barry Silbert, but he made a very astute observation a few years ago that really stuck with me. He said that the killer app for Bitcoin is speculation, and we shouldn’t underestimate how important that is.
The problem with Bitcoin, however, is that it is kind of like gold — interesting to a certain cadre of investors, but fairly useless to those who are not “digital gold bugs”.
The major turning point for blockchain assets occurred when Ethereum made it easy to create tokens and crowd-fund Dapps, projects and products — a phenomenon that really only kicked into gear this year.
Most of these projects are looking to radically change how “money” works by creating decentralized exchanges, open payments rails, derivatives markets and crypto lending solutions.
The amount of money and talent that is being thrown at these ideas is staggering and thus-far, it has been wise to follow the flow of money and talent in the crypto world.
You would be irresponsible not as ask some basic questions — Is this all a big bubble? Are some ICO tokens “irrationally” priced? Will this all end in tears? The truth is that nobody has the answers to those questions.
The more important question is: what are the odds that one of these projects hits it out of the park? What if the next Facebook, Google or Uber is lurking within the sea of “shitcoins” that seemed to have caught our collective attention. What will that mean for the daily lives of ordinary people, not to mention the structure of the financial industry as we know it?
— written by Mat Cybula
