Wow, 2018 was an eventful year. On the last day of the year I saw the news from OceanCleanup, a great project that first had to fight huge resistance and is now experiencing a setback. But actually this article is about Bitcoin and Blockchain. By the end of 2017, Bitcoin and many other crypto currencies had reached heights that made many dream (and some are converting all their belongings into cash (1) to invest in Bitcoin and benefit from the hype). You could also say: greed had gripped people and in 2018 the situation returned to normal. But what comes next?
For those who haven’t heard of Bitcoin, crypto currencies and blockchain yet, there are introductory articles on this blog or lots of other sources. From the point of view of many investors, 2018 was a disappointing year, with the value of Bitcoin, the best-known and biggest crypto currency so far, slipping from $17,500 on 07.01.2018 to $3,866 on 31.12.2018 (source). This is bitter for many who were hoping for further highs and has to be digested first, but some conventional currencies like the Turkish Lira also experienced sharp losses of up to 50% that year.
The real source of hope should not be the changes brought about by new currencies, but the potential in the technology of the blockchain itself (and thus also, but not only, in the crypto currencies). Crypto currencies are still the most common application of the blockchain, but the momentum of change that gave birth to the blockchain technology itself can put much more in motion (including the depiction of a religion with the help of the blockchain).
In this respect, 2018 was in my opinion actually a good year. The hype eased allowing Blockchain technology to be evaluated, explored and tested for itself. Crypto currencies are already in a consolidation phase and the quantity and their value will stabilize. Many of the partly insane ICOs (2) will explode and fail (3). Is that all bad? Well, if you have invested money in it and bet everything on this card, then from a purely personal point of view: yes, certainly. But from a greater distance, learning and change has only just begun. In any case, a swan song is the wrong reaction. On the contrary, I believe that it is only now starting and we will see really interesting innovations in 2019 (or 2020). And even if it takes a little longer, the toothpaste is out of the tube and definitely won’t go back in. Or as already explained in my esteemed colleague Peter’s article on change: “It’s all about our attitude to change and how to shape it”.
So what can Blockchain do now? So far I have briefly hinted at the topic of religion. This is certainly one of the more unusual topics. In a further article I will go into it again in detail – until then, happy learning!
(1) See ONE example: https://www.businessinsider.de/39-jaehriger-wartet-er-auf-einem-campingplatz-auf-den-krypto-boom-2017-10
(2) ICO = Initial Coin Offering, comparable to IPO=Initial Public Offering, see also Wikipedia
(3) See here: https://t3n.de/news/verrueckter-ico-wahn-komplett-840407/ and here: https://t3n.de/news/top-ico-investoren-machten-66-prozent-verlust-1122593/
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- owentebbs0: Owentebbs0 / Pixabay
