Are bitcoin and blockchain considered practical technologies, or are they more based in fantasy? Recently, a group of analysts sat around and discussed the matter to see whether blockchain and the crypto aboard it have legitimate futures in the United States and other developed countries.
What Will Happen with Blockchain?
Up until this point, there have been discussions about blockchain and how it could potentially serve purposes in other industries that have nothing to do with crypto or digital assets. Some of these industries include healthcare, manufacturing, and recently (as we discussed yesterday) AI music creation.
However, these ideas have not really been tested that much considering for the most part, blockchain is still predominantly considered the technology behind crypto assets like bitcoin. These assets have done a lot, but they are still considered part of a niche industry, and blockchain has had a very difficult time breaking out of the shackles the crypto industry has placed on its wrists.
For this reason, there are many experts out there that don’t believe blockchain has much of a future, though there are others that continue to advocate for it and say it’s the technology of all technologies. So, which sentiment is correct? The discussion mentioned above was hosted by Rob Nelson. As the anchor of the roundtable, he commented that bitcoin is very “utopian,” and while the ideals behind blockchain may be noble in intent, enacting them would be extremely difficult. He said:
Bitcoin’s ultimate thing was sovereignty… It’s very utopian, and one of the problems with utopianism is it’s very hard to see it enacted… Bitcoin is consensus-based, which creates a huge problem.
He also said that there wasn’t much that could be considered special about bitcoin, and he said it’s about as revolutionary as Gmail. In the end, he doesn’t think BTC has much practical use, and for this reason, he doesn’t see it going far.
Luke Stokes – managing director at the Foundation for Inter Wallet Operability – was quick to oppose his words and challenge him on the subject. He stated that a “killer app” would be needed for blockchain to truly come full circle and be seen as the awesome technology it is. He mentioned:
We know we’ve never had the ability to have network and data completely consensus across the whole world. Everyone agrees, but we just don’t really know what to do with it yet… We’re still waiting for that to happen.
Keeping the Middle Ground
Max Smotritskiy – co-founder of Crypto Oracle – believes that while blockchain is indeed strong, it needs to be made stronger. In other words, there’s a lot of work to be done before it can accomplish all that everyone’s promising it will. He said:
I’m not for hyper blockchainization of anything.
