| This isn't directly about cryptocurrencies. I think it's more about, at least for me, the fact that a technology as promising, useful, and technically impressive as Bitcoin / the blockchain is being trivialized to such a high degree recently. It's being exploited by capitalists who don't fully understand the tech or its implications but who see a way to make some quick cash. Couple all of this with the fact that the market is becoming extremely saturated with various coins, and bad management / corruption leading to fracturing of the Bitcoin blockchain, and you may start to see a problem developing. Bitcoin needs public adoption in order to prevail. It needs cohesion. It is losing ground on both fronts every day. It's becoming clear that Bitcoin itself will not survive if Bitcoin Core continues to mix up their priorities and support / engage in vitriolic public discourse with those who think differently. But cryptocurrency tech itself is such a powerful idea, it really has the chance to revolutionize how we think about and use money. Yet that won't happen as long as the general public, whose support is needed, is distracted and scared away by all of the different coins on the market, the controversy around Core / SegWit, or even worse, they see it as something completely trivial and useless thanks to the myriad of pointless coins being passed around to idiots who want to get in on the tulip mania. [0] It's hard not to notice the bubble if you're paying attention. My hope is just that, after the bubble pops, something is left. Something that can evolve into a dependable, ubiquitous, cohesive technology that improves ours lives in the ways we dream it can. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania |
It would be foolish, however, to assume that there won't be a handful of these startups that go on to actually change the world in a big way. Bitcoin, arguably, is already quite far along in that regard.