Or this thing ends like baseball card fads. It's been nearly a decade since blockchain was introduced, and no one has come up with any use other than speculative digital coins for dark web transactions. Maybe the technology isn't as revolutionary as crypto fans hype it up to be.
"True blockchain-led transformation of business and government, we believe, is still many years away. That’s because blockchain is not a “disruptive” technology, which can attack a traditional business model with a lower-cost solution and overtake incumbent firms quickly. Blockchain is a foundational technology: It has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems. But while the impact will be enormous, it will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure. The process of adoption will be gradual and steady, not sudden, as waves of technological and institutional change gain momentum. That insight and its strategic implications are what we’ll explore in this article."
https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain
Ummm, I fail to see how do you draw the conslusion "Maybe the technology isn't as revolutionary" from the article. Even the article states that this technology has major strategic implication. They are suggesting if adaptation of Blockchain is anything like email and TCP/IP, it will take decades before it is fully integrates. Being a foundational technology is very much revolutionary. Think electricity. There was a huge amount of time between first batteries and first electricity based motors but electricity was a foundational technology. It revolutionized the world but it took its time. It wasn't disruptive till it got there.
Dollar or the Yuan are backed by legal tender, a country's economic productivity and the credibility of governments behind it. Gold is limited in its quanities by its physical nature. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand, are neither. Theoretically, it's limitless in terms of its quanity since you can start a thousand different altcoins tomorrow.
So ultimately you are depending upon an authority's promise, right? What if that authority turns hostile or stupid? Its a rare but catastrophic event. Bitcoin kind of currency will still retain its value because it cannot be quantitatively eased and hence inflated nor its circulation can be stopped at a whim.
Comparing 'gold' to all crypto-currencies is a wrong comparision. A proper one will be comparison of all metals and non metals against all crypto-currencies. Surely you can try making lead a store of value but it won't be acceptable as there is too much of it. Similarly, there will be one or two major cryto-currencies acting as a store of value. All the alt coins are like lead to the gold of bitcoins.
I rather trust the government more than some nerd cooked up in their mom's basement.
I would rather trust a currency that is open and well studied by many minds of the world than a currency which is controlled by an aribtrary group of bureaucrats who ruin it due to their incompetence or self-interest. I will like my money to survive a collapse of my government.
By the way, we already have digitized currency. Vast majority of major currencies in the world are held in digital form, with less than 10% being cash in circulation. You're holding on to a pot of fool's gold hoping a bigger fool will buy it off you. When the dust clears, somebody will be left holding the worthless pot.
May I ask what gives gold its worth if it is not just the acceptance?
BTW all the 'digital currencies' are also purely faith based. Your money in you bank account is at the mercy of a software written by an unknown person whom you are placing your faith in. You cann't validate that software. You cann't even challenge it. The primary record is in bank which will always be taken as authentic. You have no control over it.
What I find rather hilarious is that some how you are able to put more faith in a system which is equally fragile if not more but it is the one which you cann't even verify or challenge!
bitcoin cannot be audited so statistics about its demand and supply can be false which means its value is wrong
and manipulated easily by its controllers
On the contrary it can be! Because all transactions are a part of a public ledger! That is your blockchain. No transaction becomes permanent till it is burried deep enough in blockchain.
