$10T Blockchain Market Cap And You Think That $50B For STEEM Is Outlandish?

I read an article by @kevinwong (etherpunk) yesterday where he expressed that he is rather optimistic about the future of crytpocurrencies. While it is easy to make wild claims and projections, his basis, I believe, is grounded in reality. He stated that he feels the entire market cap for cryptocurrencies will eventually be $10 TRILLION.

To put that number in perspective, the entire gold market is $8.5 T, a full 15% less than @kevinwong's projection.

Here is the article:

https://steemit.com/writing/@kevinwong/what-on-earth-is-happening

How on Earth can someone come up with valuations like that?

I think it is imperative that we all understand one simple fact: Almost all commerce over the next decade will end up on the blockchain. We are heading towards a $100T global economy with 95%+ of it being on the blockchain. Just like no company would operate today without being on the Internet, you will not find a business 10 years from now that does not utilize blockchain. It will be incomprehensible to operate any other way.

We are already seeing the claims. Ethereum wants to be the world's computer. Bitshares seeks to be the entire financial sector. Many are vying to be the world' default currency. While they are only claims at this point, these blockchains have many smart people involved. I trust that most of these claims are not made lightly. They see the potential in what is being created.

It is hard for our minds to fathom revolutionary ideas. We are often rather simplistic in our thinking. Termed "linear" thinking, we look at things in reference to what we know. If things occurred at a certain pace for the last X period of time, we figure it will continue. The problem with this is, when it comes to technology, the exponential or compounding nature of things means that we under estimate everything.

Do not look at the cryptocurrency market as a financial instrument or an investment. Viewing things through those eyes will mislead you. Cryptocurrencies are not financial, they are technological. They do not operate under the laws of finance like stocks and bonds. Instead, they operate under the laws of informational technology. While speculators will push market prices up and down, the long term market cap will be determined by the underlying technology, the blockchain.

I stated on a number of occasions that the blockchain is like the Internet on steroids. To give a comparison, we need to look at what that entity is worth. I found a 2014 article where Cisco put a value of $19 trillion on the Internet. In the same article, he said the Internet of Things will have 5-10 times the impact on society. Do you know one of the core technologies at the center of I.O.T? You guessed it...blockchain.

Here is that article:

https://www.cnet.com/news/how-much-is-the-internet-of-everything-worth-cisco-says-19-trillion/

So the head of Cisco feels the Internet of Things could be worth somewhere between $100-$200 Trillion? Here is a guy who was at the center of the Internet boom. He is not some anonymous dude on the Internet writing an article. He leads one of the foremost technology companies in Internet architecture. Of course, he is not the only one.

Yesterday, John McAfee reiterated his promise to "eat his dick on national television" if Bitcoin did not hit $500K by the end of 2020. In fact, not only did John not back down, he actually upped the price to $1M since the present $10K is double his year end projection of $5K. Now McAfee is a bit of a wild child yet, again, he does know Internet technology. He, too, was at the core of the Internet architecture being one of the authorities on cyber security.

Another way to look at this is to ponder these questions:

How much was the telephone worth?
How much was the automobile worth?
How much was the airplane worth?

Each of those innovations created trillions of dollars in wealth over the decades. They also transformed all aspects of society. We know the Internet is also on this list. And based upon my research on blockchain, that will be on the list.

So how accurate is @kevinwong's $10T projection? If anything, it might be low. With each passing year, more of our lives enter the digital realm. In a decade. almost everything we do will be blockchain based. Think about that for a second. Everything from watching a movie to ordering a pizza to the money we use will all be tied to the blockchain. All record keeping, documentation, and contracts will be found on the blockchain. Automated decisions trees means that entire companies will exist and operate on the blockchain without human managers. What is all that worth?

I see so many getting jumpy when the prices start dropping like they did yesterday. We all know crypto pricing is volatile. There is also a large contingent that wants to attack STEEM because it has not had the run some others enjoyed. These people point to the fact that steemit doesn't have a particular feature or that the system is rigged or whatever. To me, this is all rather limited perspective.

Step back and look at the bigger picture. We are looking at a hundred+ trillion dollar technology. Since everyone on here has an interest in STEEM, I will say it is imperative to remember that steem has the built in curation/reward system that applies to every site which has some kind of distribution and user interaction. No other blockchain, to my knowledge, can do this inherently.

How much of the Internet is content creation? 70%? 80%? 90%? And the head of Cisco puts the Internet at $19 trillion? Even if content creation is only worth $5T, does a 50B market cap seem outrageous? This puts STEEM at $200. Some say this is totally asinine. The numbers say otherwise.

One final point: all these numbers are achieved with only 1/2 the world online. Remember that more than half the population is still not on the Internet. What happens when another 4 billion people are connected? What does that do to valuations.

@kevinwong was right in his article. Diversify your holdings of coins (since you don't know which individual ones will succeed) and HODL. Amass whatever you can and hold on....that will make you rich.

And there is a good chance your path to wealth is already sitting in your wallet on the steem blockchain.

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