[Devolver]

Nope! While your skepticism is totally reasonable, this is not a lead up to anything basic like a social network on the blockchain or any ICO/Coin pitch at all.

That blockchain wind up was only a foreshadowing of another piece of content..an essay that attempts to actually define what the blockchain is (in historical context) AND how it can be applied over the next generation to solve huge problems in energy, food production, transportation, municipal government, civic engineering, education, etc.

[debt]

"huge problems in energy, food production, transportation, municipal government, civic engineering, education, etc."

Completely nonsensical list of unrelated nouns, but nonsense is what fuels crypto hype.

[maxerickson]

Imagine tying your shoes, but with blockchain.

[Devolver]

Unrelated..except for the one small fact they they are all large scale social systems built on foundations of technologies and philosophies from the 18-20th centuries.

And yes, crypto hype IS 100% in full effect and there is a plurality of nonsense in and amidst all the hype.

And yet, from the railroads to the automobile to the stock exchange to the internet, groundbreaking technologies seem to develop via a massive wave of speculation that brings with it the full battery of scammers, hypers, and snake oil peddlers but also the funding and expertise that actually builds new infrastructure...

Then all the get-rich-quickers lose their shirts, some of the scammers go to jail, and what's left behind is a completely new way of doing things.

[debt]

"what's left behind is a completely new way of doing things."

You do realize this hinges on a "hope" that someone figures what to do with blockchain and it's implied by what you say that there is no current use case for blockchain let alone crypto? Just checking.