I had promised Jeremy Epstein of Never Stop Marketing that I would do a critical review of “Blockchains in the Mainstream: When Will Everyone Else Know?,” which is a free PDF he curated with 33 of the biggest names in the blockchain world. While there is a fair degree of overlap between the thought leaders, it really is a must read if you are interested in the future of blockchain.
With that said, a lot has changed in the six months since the PDF was published, especially in the world of “provably fair” gambling, which is exploding. The explosion of provably fair gambling sites begs the question will provably fair gambling do for blockchain what porn did for the internet, which was to MAKE it!
If you are unfamiliar with porn’s influence on the internet there are numerous accounts of its impact such as this CNN article, that states “streaming video, credit-card verification sites, Web referral rings and video technology like Flash all can be traced back to innovations designed to share, and sell, adult content…much of the success of AOL, the social networking forbearer of sites like Facebook and Twitter, to its private chat rooms.” It is often argued that without porn there might not be an internet, at least as we know it.
With respect to “Blockchains in the Mainstream: When Will Everyone Else Know?”, I agree with Eric Voorhees (ShapeShift): that “few people care to disintermediate banks.” Instead according to Jeff Garzik (Bolq) they care about “…the improvement of people’s lives and the empowerment of individuals begins with the accelerated mainstream adoption.”
However, while I concur with Garzik, I believe that if you look at the history of the internet this comes later.
I am actually more in agreement with William Mougayar (Startup Management) that “we need to see more cases where central authorities are no longer a requirement for operating a business or service.”
What really made the internet take off was the most main stream/non main stream activity of watching porn and its new opportunities to make money in new and unconventional ways.
Personally, I don’t believe blockchain is ready for the mainstream yet. It still has to go through what I call the entrepreneurial enablement (or side hustle) phase first.
This is exactly why Jake Brukhman (Storg), exclaimed, “Steem is the only blockchain that can boast tens of thousands of mainstream user accounts”. Because it enables regular people to make a little extra cash through a side hustle of blogging.
Storj is similarly interesting because of its ability for people to make some coin by monetizing their personal data. If your friends are making money then you don’t want to be left out.
Per Ryan Shea (Blockstack Inc), “People care about innovation. They know that it means progress, it allows economies to grow, and it creates jobs for them and people they know.” However, I believe this only comes about after the side hustle phase has been successful. It is being left out of making money that really motivates people.
The blockchain needs more “porn” like opportunities to really make it thrive, and before mass adoption will occur.
I believe that one of the best ways to judge the progress of adoption of the cryptocurrencies is to look at the rate of adoption in alternate markets.
For the porn industry use of Bitcoin has been steadily growing, https://news.bitcoin.com/porn-industry-adopt-bitcoin-payments/ predominantly based upon the fact that purchases aren’t showing up on your credit card. People actually think they have higher anonymity, in spite of the apparent contradiction that there is a permanent public record of the purchase on the blockchain. However, I don’t believe the adult industry has found its app yet (It’s new way for people to make money). Instead, they are simply accepting it as another form of payment.
However, from a mass market standpoint, the more they are using Bitcoin here then the more they will begin to use it elsewhere..
The marijuana industry is similar in the way it is jumping into crypto-currencies but it also doesn’t have its app yet. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/pot-entrepreneurs-look-to-bitcoin-as-big-banks-stay-on-sidelines
However, this is not true for the online casinos, which are proving to be hugely successful with their provably fair gambling apps.
In a provably fair gambling system, a player places bets on games offered by the service operator. The service operator will in turn publish a method for verifying each and every transaction that occurred in the game. Once a game has been played, the player can retrospectively use these algorithms to verify that the published odds of winning were in fact the odds they had of winning.
Because it is supposedly “honest” people mistakenly believe they can make money and this will be huge for them. As a result, this “honest” gambling may do for blockchain what the porn industry did for the Internet. It certainly has the potential.
However, I don’t believe it is really enabling new people to make money. Because the house always wins! So it remains to be seen if provably fair gambling will be blockchain’s equivalent of porn.
Note: Jeremy Epstein actually posted my complete review, which includes additional insights, in his July 18th blog post.