Consensus 2018 has shown itself to be the largest blockchain and cryptocurrency focused conference in the world this week, and actually living up to the hype, which is rare in our industry.
That said, there is a clear shift in tone growing within the industry's leaders who are getting over the hype of their own technology and looking toward responsible and innovative deployment of their products and services.
It's time to grow up
It doesn't take more than ten minutes researching cryptocurrency to find loads of comments and discussions harboring around price predictions, HODL'ing, and moons.
Even this week one of the most popular articles is about a few lambos displayed outside the conference, which while nice to look at isn't why thousands of industry professionals are gathering this week.
While these types of statements started out as some industry banter on social media, this speculative culture has quickly devolved into billions of dollars invested in blockchain projects with little interest of those investors in becoming actual users of those projects.
Blockchain leaders have realized they need to work harder to promote the facilitation of the emerging internet of value instead of silently remaining on the sidelines while the masses scammer about Reddit threads and Telegram channels looking for the next pump opportunity.
I mean, this is the reason I started Accrubit in the first place!
So what can we do?
How can everyone in the community help people realize the potential of blockchain technology, instead of just enabling them to buy their next crypto lottery ticket?
- Show people how to research the cryptocurrencies they find interesting. Give them the tools and the know-how to navigate financial investments in blockchain wisely. The SEC has put out some good rules to follow in this regard.
- Give people something useful to work with. You have probably heard it before, but you'll here it again. Most blockchain projects are untested, unused, and have not been validated for their business models. When introducing someone to the industry, find startups with real products and services that they can test in the present, versus ones with nothing but dreams written on a whitepaper.
- Teach them the basics of decentralization vs centralization, cryptocurrency vs fiat, smart contracts, and ensure you compare the personal ownership over data and wealth. People can't get on-board with something they can't see a use for, and earning profit on an investment isn't a sustainable way to encourage mainstream adoption.
This sentiment stretches outside the conference as well with blockchain leader Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, and the startups OmiseGo and Cardano boycotting Consensus 2018, citing their desire to not support speculative, sensational, and mischaracterizing reporting.
The message is clear for 2018. It's time for the blockchain and cryptocurrency community to grow up.
Those leading the way will ultimately be the ones taking the technology to market and reaping the rewards.
I say it's time to stop paying $4,500 a day renting a few lambos to flex at a conference and instead time to start implementing blockchain in the real world like everyone keeps saying we will.
What are your thoughts on crypto culture? Has it gone too far? Let's talk about it below!
Crypto culture has gone too far no doubt but so has a lot of other things that were hyped up in their time. 2018 will be the year a lot of Hype gets subduded and VCs finally take track of the situation and understand what they are throwing money at.
By the time this year ends i think the space would have matured a lot with major players like Ethereum taking the lead on actually improving their application by leaps and bounds and making it developer friendly to build upon.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Agreed! As a developer there is a weird culture of ownership within open-source projects that is causing a lot of headaches for those trying to learn how to actually create useful stuff with the technology.
Too many companies and individuals want to have their own projects instead of combining talent and really innovating together. Which has always been the main issue with open source projects. People stick around long enough to learn and then they fork it into their own idea which leads to 30 versions of the same broken code instead of maybe a few versions of a working product.
Ethereum is easily the best developer community to work with so far, but even they have issues containing the community focus into pressing matters over fringe projects and ideas.
Consensys has been a big help in organizing the community around specialized initiatives, and with companies like Kauri and my own, we hope to start creating universal knowledge hubs for blockchain as a whole.
Its going to be a great year for progress over hype, and i'm excited to see what this time next year looks like compared to today.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit