Blockchain Needs its Windows 95 Moment
Blockchain and cryptocurrency have been compared to the internet at various stages in its development. Some claim we are at the TCP/IP stage, which would put us at the late 1980s; some claim we are in the pre-adoption era which is roughly 1992-95; others compare the 2017 bull run and following crash with the dot com boom and bust of the early 2000s. The fact that numerous comparisons are made with the same event suggests that there is a good enough correlation to consider the adoption of the internet as a likely candidate to which blockchain can compare itself. After all, until the mid-1990s the internet was a brand-new technology of which only a select group of people truly saw the potential. Computer ownership was extremely low and only enthusiasts with specialist equipment had the ability and the knowhow to log on. For most people, the internet was something they had gone along perfectly well without and they didn’t know any different. Then Microsoft brought us Windows 95 and suddenly the internet, and home computing in general, exploded. Blockchain needs that Windows 95 moment so people can really get an understanding of what it is capable of and the multitude of opportunities it represents. Until then it’s just headlines about how much Bitcoin is worth that week.
Boarding Difficulties
The argument that we are somewhere around the early 1990s internet is echoed by the difficulty faced by investors trying to get into the space. Coinbase is arguably the easiest on-ramp, but with only a handful of currencies to choose from it is not representative of the market as a whole. Conversely, were Coinbase to list as many coins as other leading exchanges, the number would be overwhelming. With so many projects out there and no one-stop shop for easy education, potential investors are understandably put off by the wealth of information in front of them. The same problem faced early internet companies, who sent CDs in the post in the way of flyers to help people get online. Convincing regular people of the importance of the blockchain is the same as convincing people of the importance of the internet at the time – most couldn’t foresee the benefits and the transformational nature and only signed up, metaphorically and literally, when others around them began experimenting with it and telling their friends and family. Cryptocurrency had its dinner table moment in 2017 when Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were peppered with talk about Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP, but this was almost exclusively because of the price rather than the underlying technology. Few of those who bought crypto back in late 2017 hung around through the crash because of the technology.
Going Mainstream
Blockchain needs a real-world use case to show what it can do, a use-case that does more than get a few people on crypto Twitter excited for a month or two and something that takes the media spotlight away from price action. Like with the internet in 1994, we need to make people realize what the blockchain is capable of and what it can do, something that makes regular people sit up and take notice. Before Windows 95 the world didn’t realize it needed the internet, and now many of us couldn’t function in our daily lives without it. We at x42 believe that blockchain will have a similar impact, that in ten years’ time we will be using dApps without a second thought, scanning our food to trace its origins and making fast, cheap (or even free) cryptocurrency payments for everyday items. But that revolution has to start somewhere.
Build it and They Will Come
x42 was born out of a desire to bring the blockchain and great ideas together and to let anyone with a vision for an app of any kind take advantage of the flexibility, security and speed that blockchain, and in particular the x42 blockchain, offers. Other app stores have the monopoly over this space, and they make the most of it. Android’s Google Play store for example added an average of 2,500 apps to the platform every day in 2017. Each of these app designers paid Google to get on the platform, then handed them over 30% per download once the app was live. The x42 blockchain will be able to host all manner and size of projects, from small games to virtual and augmented reality applications, thanks to its near infinite scaling, minimal upfront costs and lightning fast, feeless transactions. It is a canvas on which the developers of tomorrow can paint, with limitless opportunities.
No one knows yet what the ‘killer app’ that catapults blockchain into the mainstream will be, but we know it’s coming – there is too much talent and energy in the space now for it to be far away. This killer app is going to have to be unique, fast and reliable and is going to have to do something that non-blockchain apps simply can’t do. It is our job to ensure that a platform is available for that idea to be developed, tested and launched on, a platform that can take the strain of the vast number of transactions that such an undertaking will demand. The idea is coming, and so is the platform. And that platform is x42.
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