The internet, blockchain? Sometimes the experts are just wrong.

I am fundamentally certain that the blockchain revolution is here to stay and that we are currently seeing a homologue to the 1995 era beginnings of the internet.

Yes we are in a bubble, yes there is lots of speculation, yes 99% of current cryptoassets will crash and burn, leaving investors in the dust. Bitcoin may or may not be around in 10 years. Maybe one of its competitors (Dash, Ripple, Litcoin, bcash*, Decred, Stellar) will supersede it. Maybe something we've never heard of will come along. Ethereum, NEM, NEO, Cardano? Which will win the fight for the smart contract space? Will it be winner takes all, will any of them survive to 2019? Anyone who says they know is lying or deluded.

What we can know though, is that blockchain as a technology and a concept is here to stay. The bull case for the magical future of a blockchain based cryptopia is made far better elsewhere so I won't make it here. I simply want to remind you that the mainstream media and seasoned experts can be and often are wrong. 

I see vast numbers of New York Times and FT opinion pieces slating blockchains for having no use cases (fundamentally untrue: see basic attention token, walton chain, agrello delta, digixdao, filecoin, storj, folding coin, golem and countless others), or how it's all one huge bubble which will crash and leave those silly youngsters hurting and the old boys laughing. The old boys might just be wrong.

Warren Buffet, whilst not often wrong and arguably has the best investing judgement of all humanity, admits he missed out on amazon & google. The 'expert' commentators were wrong on the internet, wrong on AI, and they are wrong on bitcoin and blockchains now. Societal progress goes in waves, whereby each generation brings forth new knowledge, technology and societal norms to be improved upon by successive generations. 

If you believe in something, don't let a past-it banker or journalist who has a sparkling reputation tell you your own opinions, research and facts are invalid. They might well be wrong.

Mass media internet commentary from the early 90s is laughable and truly shocking regarding the internet:

'[some] argue that the internet is only a placeholder for a future commercial information network to be built by cable and telephone companies' New York Times 1994

'Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney.' Clifford Stoll in Newsweek, 1995

Marc Andreesen, the subject of the criticism in the first quote created the first internet browser: Mosaic. He's now worth billions and has changed the face of the world; all because he didn't listen to the 'experts' when he was 23. 

Trust yourself and your intuitions.

And for what it's worth, Marc is betting on bitcoin bigtime.



*Take that Roger Ver