Blockchain platforms and applications ripen on average two to three years in the minds and digital cauldrons of their developers. Meaning, that however much today's applications might impress us, they merely are what toy planes are to interstellar arks, when compared to the blockchain innovations to come.
Be not mistaken: the blockchain is here to stay. Within 10 to 15 years, any agreement made within the entire socio-economic space will be blockchain based: from getting a teenager's room tidied, over disaster relief, to geopolitical trade agreements and whatnot; smart contracts the lot of them.
Bitcoin, however, is a glutton. The Proof of Work algorithm used to assure its blockchain integrity and produce new coins brinks on the scandalous in energy consumption. Already, Proof of Stake and Proof of Importance coins have hit the market. And even more novel algorithms are sure to follow. Increasingly, these inventive solutions nullify Bitcoin's use as a time-stamp agreement ledger.
Certain, King Bitcoin will always be venerated as the First Born. And rightly so.
But this will be a dead king soon. Someday, as millions of nostalgics stare at the King's fractionated corpse in the shrines of their wallets, genuinely decentralised and energy efficient blockchain platforms and smart contracts applications will orchestrate man's daily conduct in the real world.
And for the first time ever in economics, 'value', or 'worth', will also have become a quality.