What do you think about Bitcoin?

(Market Capitalization of all Crypto Assets)

Last night a good friend of mine contacted me on facebook: “What do you think about bitcoin?” he asked me. I responded, “I could write a book about this question, so what exactly are you interested in?”

It turned out, that he was interested in my view on the valuation of bitcoin and it turned out he was concerned. He is concerned about the scaling debate, the high fees for bitcoin transactions, the rise of the altcoins and the enthusiasm at the Consensus 2017 and Token Summit conference.

I understand his concerns and I loved the question. During our discussion I explained my a thesis of a paradigm change. The success of Bitcoin, Ethereum and all the other Crypto Currencies and Tokens are the first proof of this paradigm change: The way we did business the last 400 years and the nature of money that existed the last 2.500 years is changing rapidly. A paradigm change that puts the dawn of the internet in the mid nineties in the shade.

** The new New Economy **
But we are so early in this new era, that we do not have even words for it. The internet brought us Ecommerce, Social Media, Search Engines and Mobile Apps. We sum up these innovations in one word: new economy. The new economy started around 1995 and lasted until 2008. Now comes a new new economy: The digital economy.

An economy where payments are frictionless, where the store of value is no longer a clumsy and heavy piece of precious metal, but an entry in an immutable and world wide distributed ledger. An economy where stocks are are truely digital. An economy that consists of swarms that are centerless, grouped around digital assets such as utility and work tokens. An economy that has no “No”, where everybody can sell everything to anyone in the blink of an eye.

This sounds new and not easy to grasp. It provokes resistance of the ones that are tied to the old economy and also the ones that are committed fully to the new economy.

But the digital economy — the new new economy — will come. It is already visible to those that are active in the dozens or so Slack Channels, where enthusiasts and investors share ideas, thoughts and bugs. It is visible to those, that store some of their net worth in bitcoin and it is visible to those that participate actively in any token centered community.

** Conclusion **
There will be setbacks and there is much to learn but the digital economy will hit soon your mobile. I will report on this channel further for you. Stay tuned!