Beyond the Hype: Why Blockchain Still Matters
Remember the 2017 crypto craze? I do. It was the year I dove headfirst into Bitcoin and Ethereum, captivated by the promise of a decentralized future. That enthusiasm was further fueled by a professor in Australia, the mastermind behind Red Belly Blockchain, then the world's fastest, processing a staggering 500,000 transactions per second.
That year I built a blockchain server, invested in my first few cryptocurrencies, and bought some less than legal things using Bitcoin…
Having bought my first Bitcoins for $700 each and a handful of ethereum, I remember my excitement seeing Bitcoin reach $1000 later in 2017 around December.
In fact I was so excited, by the time I joined Google, I wanted to share the inner workings of crypto mining and ended up publishing a video with Women Techmakers (https://x.com/WomenTechmakers), a channel with 134,000 followers.
100 seconds of me trying to explain through illustrations how crypto mining via proof of work and proof of stake work.
Today, the hype has faded, but my belief in blockchain's potential remains. Why? Because the technology addresses a very real problem: our antiquated payments system. Even Gary Gensler, chairman of the SEC, had been encouraging blockchain as a real solution to our outdated payments rails for the U.S.
Having launched a consumer fintech startup, I've experienced firsthand the frustrations of sending and receiving money. It's slow, expensive, and held hostage by intermediaries like Visa and Mastercard, who extract a hefty fee for simply existing. The decline of cash and rise of digital transactions has only exacerbated this issue.
This is where blockchain comes in. Imagine near-instantaneous payments for a fraction of a cent, bypassing the gatekeepers entirely. This is the revolution blockchain promises – a more efficient, transparent, and democratic financial system.
This is crucial to support growing digital economies in the metaverse - or rather, as Everything Everywhere All At Once puts it, the multiverse. We as citizens on planet earth will have many more citizenships to different universes in digital worlds. Each of these digital worlds needs technology and infrastructure to support the economies within. Robucks, Vbucks, Neopoints, etc… all were critical digital currencies operating on centralized ledger systems built by the operators of their respective digital worlds. With blockchain, technology can support more use cases and solve for trust - the missing component of web 2.0 that we’ve had built overcome via ratings systems and clunky expensive credit card chargeback guarantees. Messy is an understatement.
Yet, challenges remain for the future that blockchain promises. Widespread adoption hinges on developing compelling use cases and delivering user experiences that are simple, intuitive, and secure. We need to move beyond the jargon and speculative frenzy that has characterized the crypto space and demonstrate blockchain's tangible benefits.
The good news? Incumbents are clearly threatened. Their attempts to stifle blockchain through regulation are a testament to its disruptive potential. As Bob Metcalfe, the father of Ethernet, famously said, "To innovate one must think out of the box. To sell, one must put innovation back in the box."
Blockchain's journey is far from over. It's time to package its transformative power into solutions that benefit businesses and consumers alike. The future of finance depends on it.
