The Crypto Dream is Not Dead. We Hope The Delusions Are

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Hopefully, our world of speculators will one day be replaced by pragmatists, who can see the blockchain for what it is: a powerful new technology, but not the new internet.

The trouble began when people started to talk up the potential of crypto to replace the world’s sovereign currencies, destroy the banks, and totally remove the need for corporate governance via distributed autonomous organizations.

The current environment is based on token issuers getting rich on day one– equivalent to a startup founder selling a chunk of their company and pocketing it before anything has been built.

To make it worse, regulators have been slow to act–which is in part why crypto has been so attractive. The sad result is that many people have been ruined by the crypto crash, and no one’s been there to protect them.

We see its possibilities as a medium of exchange–of being able to transfer ownership between two people without a trusted third party–and as a store of value.

There is potential in things like open identity verified by cryptographics, the secure transfer of digital assets, the possibility of a verified and transparent record of transactions, and institutional-grade solutions.

It may take a while before more businesses emerge in these areas, but they’re likely to share a few common characteristics. They will offer products and services to a broad set of businesses and consumers, not just crypto natives; they will provide a clear benefit to users, and solve a real pain point; and they will apply blockchain across every sector, rather than creating a sector of their own.

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