We are approaching a fork in the road and need to choose the right path. Except, which blockchain, and technology as a whole, it isn't just one fork. There are thousands of options. Millions even.
We are approaching a fork in the road and need to choose the right path. Except, which blockchain, and technology as a whole, it isn't just one fork. There are thousands of options. Millions even.
Like everything else, there's no one right answer. All blockchains have utility for some purpose or other, and different folks have different purposes. There are billions of people today, and each of them has their own right answer. Centralization works for some folks that yearn to just be told what to do and get their ration of soylent. Most of us don't take to enslavement quite so readily. Institutions focus the power of a group on a single matter, and thus wield greater power on that matter than an individual, but as a result institutions are one trick ponies, and the inconceivable breadth of options decentralization provides simply cannot be addressed via institutional power.
It isn't any one technology that will transcend our extant paradigm. It's all the many ways decentralization of technologies concatenate. Suppose I have a 3D printer, grow some food with aquaponics, and make myself a mesh network router so I can join my neighbors in creating a network that isn't owned by Jeff Bezos or Eric Schmidt. While some other folks may not have the printer, or grow their own food, they might do some genetic engineering in their garage, and manufacture rifled barrels with a CNC machine for trade goods. You can see how amorphous and impossible to control such networks can be for one global despot to force into 9 to 5 jobs that pay taxes very quickly. The more powerful the institution, the fewer things it can undertake.
Folks that adopt these technologies early will profit most from them. Central banks are obsolete, not because of cryptocurrency, but because parasitism on the production of masses of people is going to become impossible. Then crypto will be useful as we work out means of exchanging value without debt based fiat currency.
Seize the day.