Every 20 years or so, mankind tends to overhaul an infrastructure and build a new, more efficient one.
In recent times, we have had the invention of the printing press, then came the radio. After that came the television and recently came the internet. All these advances in technology improved the speed at which we communicate with one another. This spread of information enlightened and educated people that caused revolutions and has made the average person more intelligent than, say 40 years ago. Nowadays if you want to learn something, you get on youtube and watch a documentary or browse the self evolving wikipedia (another open source successful project). Enter the blockchain.
After seeing the recent price correction, I have read many posts about people in absolute panic. People who discredit the blockchain, calling it a fad or that the bubble has burst.
History tends to repeat itself . Many people who have their traditional way of life see this as a threat. And rightly so it is. The blockchain is so disruptive, if understood properly, that it can beat many traditional marketplaces just like online shopping on the internet is doing to retail shopping.
The blockchain is secure, the blockchain is fast, the blockchain is transparent and the blockchain includes everyone. True decentralization. This is what many are missing, the lack of understanding on how many businesses and lives will be positively affected.
With the blockchain, we can for the first time think will a collective mind, a collective logic. We could be able to predict better, educate ourselves better and faster, communicate better and organize ourselves better. During the years that I have followed cryptocurrencies evolve, new ideas are being contributed and we are already seeing new applications that will save billions of dollars in time, administrative costs and staffing costs, not to mention transparency and fraud reduction, if not elimination.
The latest surge in market cap valuation has been the corporate market adoption, new businesses being built and 'venture capitalists' (ie the general public could access these markets - just like a private placement, the crowdfunding principal), investing new billions of dollars in it. We yet have to reach the mass market phase and adoption. When applications get evolved and become more user friendly, that is when we will see real growth. I have previously stated many a time that the blockchain is like evolution from mail to email.
However, I believe that this is just the start. 115 billion USD in market cap is not even close to what this infrastructure will be worth in a few years, also observing the rate of growth in new users in particular platforms. In the dotcom peak, the market was valued at 3 trillion US dollars. The blockchain has not even achieved 5% of that yet. In my opinion, we are still scratching the tip of the iceberg.
I am very bullish on blockchain and its potential to disrupt businesses. Moreover, the blockchain is unstoppable, as long as there is internet.
Price apart, I wanted to share what I see in this exciting technology and the opportunity the blockchain has given us. The more you understand this technology and learn how to use it in your favour, rather than discredit it, the more you will help contribute to a faster, fairer and more transparent way of doing things, whilst being financially rewarded in the meantime.