Bitcoin Plunges, Blockchain Suffers
Bitcoin, and other crypto-currencies, experienced colossal growth in late 2017. As with any Cinderella story, rapid popularization made most investigate the technology behind Bitcoin. Everyone was all about block-chain. Like magic, this underrated methodology became the “thing” to talk about. Everything from banking to analytics was being driven by block-chain, or so people marketed.
Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good…
Bitcoin, and others, were actually being fanned by the lack of regulation and mongers who were technically savvy. The biggest being the folks behind BitConnect, a crypto-currency exchange operated by an anonymous group online. Just like Wolf on Wallstreet and Gordon Gekko, these real-life sharks were pulling a card from the 1980’s; pump-and-dump. They were creating a market that didn’t exist only to pump the price of crypto-currency sky high. As the price rose, they sold their shares at a ridiculous profit. Everyone from office co-workers to the famous Winklevoss twins were “getting rich” off the gold rush that was Bitcoin.
As the currency made news, block-chain continued to be on the lips of every technology marketeer. While the technology is solid, the biggest advocate is not. The value of Bitcoin became heavy under it’s own weight and crashed in early 2018. This is mostly due to newfound regulations and the fear of shady investor groups. Rather than be prosecuted for what would be illegal anywhere else, they sold and caused double-digit losses in the volatile cryto-currency markets.
What’s worth doing, is worth doing for money…
In the wake of Bitcoin leveling out well below it’s height at the end of 2017, what is to become of the popularity of block-chain? Block-chain is good. It is a decentralized, network of nodes operating transparently. It is incorruptible, durable and robust. It is a distributed and inexpensive method of processing lots of data and transactions. Block-chain can seriously impact banking, databases and infrastructure verticals. It’s recent popularity was sorely needed.
The question remains, will the shadow of Bitcoin impact the excitement about block-chain? I hope it doesn’t. Block-chain offers enhanced security and an inexpensive model for file storage, governance, prediction markets, protection of intellectual property, supply chain auditing, IoT and much more! It is the future of the web and will be the key in avoiding AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure consuming the hosting market. The “cloud” needs something like block-chain to further enhance serverless architecture. Apps and data-warehousing needed in 2018 and 2019 will need something like block-chain to power them.
The most valuable commodity I know of is knowledge…
Bitcoin is not block-chain. Block-chain is not Bitcoin. Hopefully people are smart enough to pick the good and bad parts of each and move forward. Technology marketing heavily rely’s on popular trends. As Bitcoin becomes the poster boy for regulation and 21st century accounting, block-chain may get buried by accident. Help the cause, what do you think about block-chain?