Coindesk just concluded Consensus 2018 in New York where it welcomed over 8,000 attendees, four-time of the number last year. The conference ran for three days with keynotes, pitches, panels, exhibitions, meetings. People told me that the conference has got more and more superficial, a lot of noise on site, no real insights shared, less technical details discussed, and more branding and marketing than ideas exchanging. The popularity of this industry was criticised on the first day in front of the public by Jimmy Song, a partner at Blockchain Capital, said that some blockchain projects are just a collection of “hotwords", like blockchain, interoperability, and open source. Joseph Lubin (founder of Consensys) didn't agree but it is with no doubt exciting to see the different opinions. For me personally, willing to see the day when Jimmy is proved wrong. The keywords that have been frequently brought up and discussed during the Consensus shows the best side of its legitimacy.
The consensus this year may miss a couple big names, and key players for example Vitalik who boycotted, but the new joiners bring a new level of prosperity.
I met many people onsite coming from different positions of this blockchain industry chain, and it has become far more complete than last year. For example, the investors group diversified and mirrors the traditional investing industry, focusing on investing in early stage, or secondary market, futures, hedging, etc. In addition, there are more solution/service providers for projects including recruitment, marketing and more. Amber Baldet, former head of blockchain at JP Morgan Chase, launched a new project called Clovyr, a decentralized app store. More exchanges, wallets projects exhibited, other interoperable/cross chain solutions for exchanges and projects pitching for clients. Rather than accusing the industry of impetuously developing, I would argue that luckily it borrows the experience from traditional industries and the internet industry and it enables a developing speed that human history has never seen before.
The keywords I listed below, which to an extent reflects where we are in this industry development. I hope during the consensus next year, there won't be arguments on WHY but more on HOW. The advantage of a project should be as self-explanatory as Uber and Airbnb, the meaning of decentralisation should be given when application scenarios require.
KEYWORD #1: dApp
There will be an ‘iPhone moment’ for DApps where it’s drop-dead simple and we can consume [them] in almost the same way as regular applications - Fred Wilson
After the 2017 ICO activities flourishing, many projects have been developing dedicatedly for decentralised applications (dApp). After all, no matter how advanced the technology is, how many partners a project has formed, eventually, if it is targeting the consumer market, there shall be a client facing product. Several panels discussed the timeline of dApp’s mass adoption, what the future would be like when people are using dApps. "There will be an ‘iPhone moment’ for DApps where it’s drop-dead simple and we can consume [them] in almost the same way as regular applications,” said Fred Wilson, a partner with Union Square Ventures. In my opinion, from a project’s perspective, it is not hard to develop a decentralised App technically, Metamask, Leeroy, QLC Chain all has there working products, the critical step is user acquisition. The value should NOT lie on the fact it is a decentralised App powered by blockchain, but on the value-add the technology provides inherently - trustworthy, fair, transparent, convenient. Alternatively, it could provide a service that doesn’t exist before which caters the market needs.
A team’s capability of developing a dApp is the very entry level requirement and the next questions people should ask should be, how is user experience and how is the team’s user acquisition capability. From an operation perspective, this is no different from a centralized App. Allen Li, Chief Architect of QLC Chain thinks the first batch of dApps would be browsers and wallets, then the games which have the potential to acquire large users swiftly.
KEYWORD #2: Scalability
For dApp’s mass adoption, there are technical barriers which have been discussed since the born or Bitcoin. Two years ago, there was this judgment that blockchain is not suitable for frequent transactions and mass adoption because of the limitation on TPS and scalability. These two critical factors seem to be by nature conflict with the decentralized model. Therefore, the technology improvement for solving this problem has gained its popularity. Novel consensus such as dPoS of EOS, dBFT of NEO, Shannon Consensus of QLC Chain and RPoW of Usechain; novel architectures are acclaimed to be the next generation distributed ledger, such as DAG and Block Lattice, adopted by IOTA, QLC Chain, Fantom, et. It seems scalability will not be an issue any longer.
KEYWORD #3: Token Economy
There are uncountable numbers of projects showed up on Consensus, some build Public ChainS with innovative structure, some build a project and issue a certain kind of token for a niche market, second-hand ticketing, music beat copyright, elderly care…It feels scary when thinking that in the future, each person holds a thousand kinds of tokens for services. It doesn’t sound of making our life easier at all. Unfortunately, I have to say it might be true, definitely with a more user-friendly solution, maybe in-app purchase. In that case, forget about the speculative token price traders are looking at right now, and forget about fiat, token is token. It is evaluated by the market cap, at the same time market demands. Consenting with Leo Wang’s opinion, the early token holders right now are like vendors of popular concert tickets. He may or may not listen to the concert, but he bet it is going to be hot in demand and price will go up exponentially when the concert is open for customers. So, carefully, they are calculating each project’s demand and market cap. I agree, believing it is smart.
