[reitzensteinm]

The idea behind the phrase is that when a ton of speculation money is flooding in to a market, you should make money by proving services to the speculators, not by speculating yourself.

Creating mining hardware is actually more speculative than an exchange, because you're picking winners and losers based on what your hardware can accelerate.

Selling pickaxes to miners has been used to describe platforms like CDNs or game engines like Unity. The fact that there is something called a miner in this context is a red herring.

A metaphorical one, I mean.

[joshuaunitus]

I guess they could be the pickaxe salesman depending on how you frame it, but that's just who they are. I guess I'm bringing in actual PoW mining which the analogy has nothing to do with.

I don't think they are speculating though, they are simply doing what they do and have always done. Provide a means of exchange from national currency to digital assets. It is up to the people who build around these protocols to create more ways of utilizing these digital assets through services.

It's hard to say what's going on in this market but I don't think it's a bust. A lot of money went in really fast and then huge sell offs from Mt Gox recovered bitcoins. Bitcoin is still somewhat interconnected in price with most altcoins because of pairings, and any major selloffs seem to drag the whole market down. I think it will mature in time and more people will actually utilize cryptocurrency and not just buy it for speculative reasons. Value will be established over the next few years as practical use grows.

[stanleydrew]

Serious question: what is it that you think has prevented practical use and why will that not continue to hinder future practical use?

[joshuaunitus]

Well it is still very young and business innovation moves slow and cautious. Also regulators have not fully decided on a few issues that are very important regarding digital assets. I believe there is a lot going on behind the scenes of a lot of major companies right now though. Mostly in terms of hiring and r&d. Even Facebook is hiring blockchain engineers. I think this will all develop in time.