There's a lot of money flowing into crypto currency and many people who were around recognize the similarities between what's happening now and then. I don't invest in many of the ICO's but I am investing in companies that think are going to power the companies of the future. I think we can all agree that this growth is not sustainable. The question becomes, when will it end and who will survive?
I honestly believe we're in the infancy of a new net, but theres still several problems that need to be resolved. Remember webvan or pets.com? There will be a lot of money flowing in and then flowing out when reality hits and these companies don't earn revenue. There's the big question with decentralization. We will all have to move backwards to the pay-per-minute model of pagers. There's a problem with fee's that is a huge barrier of entry. The network scalability is another huge problem. In a way, it ends up like a ponzi, until some real technology is created that addresses these problems or new techniques/processes are made to pay for them. The only way for this to go mainstream is for people to accept paying for fees everywhere which can then power the network or the fees are masked another way.
I am a believer of the technology but I do see an uphill battle. As we have seen though this will not end up pretty for most of the companies in the space. What will happen is this first generation, will give birth to the next generation. The strongest of this cohort will survive.
Some examples of the survivors:
- Apple's return
- Amazon
- Ebay
- Paypal
These companies trained and produced a number of new companies from the people who gained skills during this time. Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Meg Whitman are the most famous, but several alum from google went on to create a number of new companies. I expect the same with this cohort. At first it was Microsoft/Oracle/Apple/Wang/Commodore etc. We constantly see these evolutions in technology that start with a big BOOM then Bust for alittle bit until things settle. The result is more people with better skills and a better idea to solve problems. Let me know what you think below.