This post will be short for a simple reason: there are fewer reasons for blockchain technology to exist than you think. And it is one of those few but fundamental reasons that may drive such a technology towards global adoption.
If you think I’m talking about cryptocurrencies, then think again. True, cryptocurrencies were the initial impetus behind blockchain technology, but they may also end up threatening it. Moreover, it has been proved that crypto assets have required blockchain based ledgers to exist.
With this brief caveat in mind, I propose that we move on.
The one reason that could really drive the paradigm shift of Internet services is the crisis of trust. Only if (and when) people realize that the services they use every day are no longer affordable will they demand a technology that supports the data ownership shift. The cost of their social media connections, purchases, emails, document managers, chatting systems and financial transactions is paid in kind, with the currency of personal identity and private data. If people do not understand such a flaw – or just accept it – there are fewer applications that justify the existence of public ledgers and blockchain protocols. Period.
From a technological perspective blockchain is expensive, resource consuming, slow and will always have more impact on any other component of an engineering system. Blockchain is not a shortcut. Nothing can be made sustainable, except in the case in which an entire society feels obliged to shift towards the tech that solves the crisis of trust.
Not even ICOs are sustainable. In fact, they are the polar opposite of sustainable. An ICO is a way to fund the development of a service that might be used in the future, provided
- it makes sense
- it works
- it is efficient
- and there is a need for
Those who invest in an ICO are supposed to be the ones who are going to use the service they are putting their money in.
Otherwise they would be engaged in little more than speculation, which means that it is more apt to characterise them
as speculators rather than investors. Those who are interested in the service and pay for its development now are not
supposed to pay for it in the future, when/if the service is available.
How is this supposed to make sense, from a
financial perspective? How sustainable would such a company be?
As it turns out, it is financially impossible to pay back ICO investors if not in kind, by letting them use the decentralized platform.
With this said, it becomes natural to think that the many accelerators, Venture capitalist firms and investors who have been pushing to ICO everything are usually looking to cash out by selling the dream to someone else, as soon as the project they invested in becomes more credible (Usually, the project never gets more credible. The team might do).
In those rare cases when such people act honestly, it turns out they know very little about the engineering aspects and the societal impacts of blockchain technology. Nor it seems they care.
In both cases better staying away from them and hope for consistent forms of punishment whenever they egg on folks to throw money in their own pockets.
There is no blockchain without people. There is no ICO without blockchain. Got it?