"Crypto...what?"... is the response I get from most people when I ask them if they are involved in the crypto currency market at all. It was the same response I gave only a few weeks ago. Of course I heard about bitcoin, I heard about the fact that the market was expanding, that blockchain is the future and that there was a lot of opportunity. But frankly, I couldn't quite wrap my head around the blockchain technology and just decided to put it in the "too hard" bucket. We all have one of those I'm sure.
However, massive gains in a market spike the interest of any trader out there and I decided to do some more research. I read more about the crypto currencies and the first thing I realised is that there was a plethora of coins, exchanges, wallets, protocols, decentralised apps and Initial Coin Offerings out there and it was quite overwhelming. This obviously reaffirmed my previous "this is really hard" assessment.
But I soon realised that this is not just an opportunity to make a quick buck trading some digital currencies (although it is a 100 billion dollar market now). Once I dug deeper and started to grasp the potential application of the underlying blockchain technology I realised I haven't seen anything so disruptive and on such a global scale as the blockchain technology. And that's what got my full attention. It's fascinating!
So whilst most attention in the media goes out to the crypto currencies as they are the most "physical" (yes, I know this is an oxymoron) application of the technology and the one most of us can relate to, the underlying technology is the real hero of the story here. This truly has the potential to fundamentally disrupt business and government as we know it and it will be the technology that will drive the adoption of the digital currencies, not the other way around. I firmly believe that lots more people will wake up to it in the not so distant future. We're living in such an interesting time where we start to see the full power of the internet come into play!
From a business perspective, just think of the application of smart contracts that the ethereum protocol brings us. Smart contracts are peer to peer contracts, logging the terms and transactions in a public ledger on the blockchain, using digital currency to settle it. This could have enormous benefits in terms of transparency, speed of execution and fees in the banking, trading, insurance or healthcare industries by removing the middlemen. Or think about the ability of using decentralised computing power when there is downtime somewhere else on the globe potentially lowering the use and need of our planet's resources. Or secure identity management services to manage and verify your identity when procuring other services. These are just examples of course but I hope you get the idea.
And yes, I did mention governments as well. Due to the truly decentralised nature of the technology, it's the users keeping the system "honest" and there is no need for a centralised bank or government to make it work. The idea of providing everyone access to the blockchain instead of one centralised body is equally outrageous and brilliant, and it seems to work as it is backed by economics (mining currencies, I won't get into that for now). But how do you keep track of gains made on crypto currencies from a taxation perspective? In fact, who should you declare this to given it is a truly global model? Should you? Or how do you make sure the anonymity element is not abused by parties that are up to no good? More and more governments have now started to adopt legislation to allow for Bitcoin (including Australia and Japan) and it is said that in Japan soon there will be 260,000 stores offering Bitcoin as a genuine payment method. But it is fair to say that a lot of these questions are still awaiting answers.
Anyways, why am I writing this blog post? And by the way, well done on reading this far in this world of one-liners we live in these days. Well, it's an experiment to be completely honest. One thing I have always wanted to take on is the art of blogging. I enjoy thinking about business and technology and why not structure my own thinking by writing it down and who knows - maybe I can provide some viewpoints that others can benefit from, purely from what I have seen and done in the past and can see happen in the future. So, I have this idea of documenting my journey into the crypto world and I would like to invite you to come along. Perhaps I can educate a few more people in the community whilst educating myself...
But I'll let you guys be the judge of that. As I said, it's an experiment and these can fail...time will tell.
So, if you're interested, have a look at my first blog post where I introduce myself to you Steemians, and discuss my observations participating in the ICO for EOS. Here's the link: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@transptrader/eos-ico-distribution-simple-scenario-modelling
Let me know what you think! Looking forward to engage with you guys in the community!
Cheers,
Jeroen (aka The Transparent Trader)