This answer was originally posted on Quora. . For more trending tech answers from , visit . You can view the answer here Quora HackerNoon.com/quora , though I have my suspicions on what those could be. It’s hard to say which technology stack is going to be the ‘3.0’ generation until it actually happens Before diving in, here’s a bit of terminology: Looking back, people have started to put each blockchain iterations into the 1.0/2.0/3.0 framework. . This went on from 2009 until roughly 2013/14. (considered 2014 until present). Blockchain 1.0 was Bitcoin and the simple alt-coins (like Litecoin) that were just cryptocurrencies Blockchain 2.0 was the extension of blockchain 1.0 into privacy, smart contracts and the emergence of non-native asset blockchain tokens and capabilities . Dapps like Auger or Cryptokitties were not possible with a blockchain 1.0 protocol. ICO’s and DAO’s weren’t possible under blockchain 1.0. Blockchain 2.0 offered different capabilities that opened new markets and changed the landscape significantly. The reason this break was created was because the blockchains that defined blockchain 2.0 offered significantly different markets and opportunities than the previous generation Extending this logic to the next generation, blockchain 3.0 would have to offer as significant of a change. Not just offering better capabilities, but doing so in such a way that they enable new markets and opportunities. What those markets are is up to history, but here are some of the biggest contenders (in my view): allowing for instantaneous, cheap transactions on the blockchain (Lightning, Raiden, etc) Layer 2 services The emergence of (Byteball and IOTA via Tangle) M2M blockchain applications (Storage, Compute, Utility, etc) that allow for truly decentralized autonomous organizations (many organizations here) The combined set of compute protocols built on top of blockchains Or it could be something we don’t even have a concept of yet. Just because the first phase of blockchain took four years does not mean this phase will take four years as well. It could be a long time before we see blockchain 3.0. One more thought: we have defined blockchain 1.0 and 2.0 by today’s standards. Smart contracts a lot different than Bitcoin, but only because we don’t know what the next generation looks like. It’s very possible that whatever comes next is so dramatically different from today that blockchain 1.0 and 2.0 get re-categorized as 1.0. At the end of the day, it’s just a label that’s easy to remove and morph if the situation fits. seem Originally published at www.quora.com .
