People keep thinking that Bitcoin, Ethereum and Blockchain generally are Fintech or crypto currencies. In doing this they fundamentally mis-understand the power of the innovation occuring around the world.
It reminds me of when John Doerr used to say that “the Internet was under hyped” in 1999 when everyone thought it was insanely over-hyped. This was in 1999 when no one watched video online, or accessed it from anything other than a desktop. Now half the internet is video and much more than half is mobile and always on.
Blockchain is expanding at a much faster pace. Some thoughts on where it’s already going:
Core protocols: Bitcoin, Eth, EOS are trying to create platforms that others can build on — similar to Windows or Linux
Infrastructure: AWS is under attack by a new breed of competitor: Filecoin, Golem and others are going to replace cloud players for compute, storage, DNS, etc, etc
Applications: Too many to count… . Everything from consumer services like Pryze to business services like BlockV
Securitization: Making illiquid investments liquid. Polymath is building simple tools to allow financial players to securitize everything from stocks to mutual funds to you name it. There’s already ICO’s for gold, real estate, and I recently got pitched one for sand???
Fintech: and that doesn’t even include the originally obvious ideas like micropayments, automating payments generally at zero cost, and more
So 10 years from now what will we look back and wonder how we didn’t see it coming — in the same way watching all my TV online in 1998 was pretty hard to believe? Not sure I have the answer but a few thoughts
- High transaction volume systems: AdTech, Realtime data, etc
- Internet of things: Proof-of-stake will allow my watch and coffee machine to become miners and collect payments for me
- Congestion management: All traffic will be prioritized by micropayment. Which plane lands first, which car goes fastest, which grocery line I get to go in
- Ownership goes away. EVERYTHING is rentable by the millisecond