Hey there!
I've just got some thoughts back in my head.. I'm cyberpunk lover by my nature, so the crypto-revolution (or even maybe blockchain-revolution?) started recently has quite an impact on me, like I'm observing the world from the inside of a sci-fi book.
Anyways, here is how I think on crypto at this particular moment. In short, it's like a fiction world is becoming a reality, some kind of freedom revolution in high technology world. If you had a chance to read such sci-fi classics like "Sprawl trilogy" by William Gibson and "Vacuum Flowers" by Michael Swanwick, or had I pleasure to watch "Blade Runner" and "Cowboy Bebop", or maybe played "Deus Ex" then you know what I mean. Just imagine how awesome it would be to pay with cyber money say for your burger and beer avoiding all the 3rd parties, bureaucracy and centralized authorities - just you, technology and the service provider. This is a point of discussion though, as in the modern world you cannot have a business without lots of bureaucracy and accounting. This actually may lead to small businesses revolution, just as an example: imagine you are walking down the street, buy a coffee from a coffee lover or some flowers from a gardener, and both parties are not dependant on anyone except of themselves. The other side of the coin is that such services or products are not regulated by anyone (read: the government) and so you buy those on your own risk; and probably when there is no regulation - there are plenty of fraudsters. On the other hand, if you apply this to a services sector then it may workout pretty well, consider this example guys: pay a freelancer for his daily job in xvg coins, or pay out a dozen of stellar lumens for your new awesome haircut - directly from you to a service provider.
At the moment though, the amount of electricity which is spent on supporting this kind of infrastructure is scary. I recently heard that only Bitcoin is adding good half of a percent (0.5%) of the world's electricity consumption and this is huge, but aren't we moving towards reusable and "clean" energy soures? This could be the answer. Just imagine again, how cool it could be to set up a bitcoin node in your garden based on solar or wind energy! And this could come true soon!
Hah, anyway, this is just my mind flow, but now I wonder, what are your thoughts on this, my cyberpunk-fella? Where the blockchain-revolution will lead us... 甘味のみぞ知る!
Cheers,
VC