Bitcoin is over 10 years old. That’s almost half as old as what most people would call the modern internet.
Stop using that “early days” cop out. It still has the same fundamental issues.
Stop using that “early days” cop out. It still has the same fundamental issues.
Ethereum is 4 years old, and the vast majority of "tokens" even younger. Crypto is very much still early. I don't mean this as a "cop out" but rather a sober reality of how much further the tech has to go.
Would it not be more fair to compare crypto progress to that of the early internet? It took most of a decade of development before the modern internet was born, another decade before the bubble burst and a few more years before pundits stopped calling it a fad, and recognized the business value.
We should all be skeptical of those who would over promise and under deliver on new technology, but I can't imagine why we wouldn't assume an optimistic stance towards it.
I wouldn’t expect to be taken seriously after leading with that...
The Internet was always growing in capacity, size, population and applicability. At no point was there anyone ever saying anywhere "gee, we have so much Internet, what shall we ever do with it". Even during and just after the dot com bubble the Internet itself still continued growing.
Comparing cryptocoins to the Internet, the thing that massively changed virtually all aspects of human life in the past few decades, is...
Meh, it's far more volatile than gold. What it has done is proven it's value as the cash-equivalent of the internet for illicit trade.
It is hard to say how much bitcoin (and other cryptos) are used for illicit trade but one simply has to log onto a darknet market and look at the number of reviews for specific product listings, or for entire seller accounts to see that likely tens of millions of dollars a day in exchanges are occurring across 'publicly known' darknet markets, the bulk of that for drugs although still a decent amount for digital services like credit card dumps as well as fake identification/documents/coupons, weapons etc.
I even found human remains for sale on a darknet market while attempting to get a rough idea of how much commerce is taking place on them early last year. Multiple sellers had basically every major bone in the human body for sell including dozens and dozens of skulls . Now, you can buy skulls on the clear net but they're often well-handled medical specimens. I got the very distinct impression these were absolutely grave-robbed remains.