One of the endearing promises of Bitcoin and the subsequent ‘blockchain’ movement is its potential to unlock a new untapped economy. Much like how the coming of the internet has brought us a world where one can live without ever stepping outside our house, with all our needs and supplies delivered to our door via Amazon, Uber, and eBay. But for those of you who were born after the millennium, it may be shocking to learn that the internet was born around 30 years before Facebook started a little social media platform, and web browsers 10 years before Amazon began selling books online (and almost another decade before they got the idea to sell OTHER stuff besides books).
Yes, the technology predated the practically world-changing business use cases by at least 10 years. This seems to be the norm, with the personal computer revolution introduced by Apple with the Macintosh in 1984. It was only in the mid-nineties before we had the explosion of PCs in every home and another 10 years before the idea that you could have a “PC” in your pocket with the (again Apple) innovation of the iPhone. So, if Bitcoin is such a groundbreaking technology as well, then why would we expect otherwise?
However, there is one harrowing difference in the genetics of Bitcoin that separates it from normal technological advances. This difference manifests in a good and bad way. This difference is that Bitcoin has a monetary aspect attached to it, which means it inherently will attract its own adopters for that aspect due to the potential to get rich purely on speculation and crowd psychology. This certainly applies an accelerator on the ability for the technology to spread in the public mindset, but not necessarily for its long-term beneficial technological uses. In fact, this accelerated interest could act to impede technological development by distraction alone. Compared to technologies like the internet, www, and TCP/IP, the only people working in the space pre-mainstream adoption were visionaries who saw the potential and spent the time and effort (and VC capital) to build companies like Amazon and Google.
Whereas in Bitcoin, the noise of ICOs, DeFi, NFTs, and decentralized <insert trendy kitchen sink model here> tend to drown out the real visionaries and startups which are moving more slowly, simply because they are not dependent on the ‘quick cash’ opioid drug of using the blockchain to issue their own securities-not-securities to bootstrap their business.
Good ideas built on good innovative technologies tend to take the same amount of time to develop. Possibly because obstacles limit them to adoption that all technologies face, which are: 1) how much can it make the lives of its consumers better, and 2) how much revenue can it generate? Given that the speed of technology adoption is generally limited by its communication medium, much like the “R value” in communicative diseases1 and viruses, we should see the adoption graph follow that of the internet.
We are now fast approaching the first ‘milestone’ for Bitcoin. And while you may think that this should have been in 2020, and nothing happened, I would argue that something did happen in early 2020 in terms of the development of Bitcoin’s innovative technology: that was the year that BSV made the Genesis release, which restored most of the original smart contracting abilities of Bitcoin back into a live public blockchain, and for the first time since 2011, (when a lot of the OP_CODES that made smart contracting possible in BTC were removed) there is a live public Bitcoin that could be used to develop applications, smart contracts, tokens, NFTs… etc.
The world hardly noticed.
We all know the reason for this. It was because the rest of the world was too busy with the ‘get rich quick’ ideas and other ‘decentralized’ distractions, which come with the aforementioned monetary nature of blockchain technology. So the rest of the world is missing the message among the noise.
Nevertheless, some people DID notice. And it is likely the same few that originally noticed that the World Wide Web2 would harrow in the development of a vast multi-TRILLION dollar market in just 20 short years3. And those same few are the ones that have moved onto BSV. And, for them, the general digital currency hype “noise” actually plays a beneficial role—it keeps the mainstream competition away from them, giving them somewhat similar startup conditions as a Larry Page and Sergey Brin had for Google back in the 90s—Simply that people aren’t paying attention to what they are doing, which is a blessing if you are a startup. A blessing that most startups in the blockchain community never have because the space is so cluttered with everyone’s ‘get-rich quick’ idea. The money and capital in the space are all tainted and have very short-term goals and expectations. All the kind of stuff that is pretty toxic to startups looking to build a new industry and establish themselves as the Google for the next age.
So here we are, with the technology of Bitcoin unleashed now, and we have the first two years of startup cohorts incubating the ideas4 that will change our collective tomorrow, hacking away all while a large part of the population is oblivious. The stage is set, the band assembled, and the environment perfect.
I realize now that I have spent this week’s article setting the stage for the topic of interest I wished to discuss, which is one of the biggest things that stand to be revolutionized5 by Bitcoin6 technology: Online Advertising.
Yes, the biggest industry on the internet. In fact, you could argue the ONLY business model of the public internet that is intrinsic7 to the internet itself. This is the big beast that is prime to be slaughtered. It is what underlies the ‘market capitalization’ of the internet sector itself, and it stands to be turned entirely ON-ITS-HEAD. But with a lead-up like that, and with this article already past its word count limit, I leave you with that tantalizing morsel on your tongue, along with the piece of Christmas fruitcake, to savor8 until the next installment, when we dive into How Bitcoin will completely change the way the internet is monetizedTM.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
/Jerry Chan
***
NOTES:
[1] Quite a topical analogy, given that we are still in the middle of a COVID “pandemic.”
[2] Does anyone still call it that? Did I just date myself with the use of that term?
[3] Yes, yes, Tim Berners-Lee invented it in 1990.
[4] Check out Block Dojo to get a glimpse of what they may be working on.
[5] Note that I did NOT use the word “disrupted.”
[6] Note that I did NOT use the word “blockchain.”
[7] E-commerce, such as Amazon, is just using the internet as a customer access and channel tool. The business itself is retailing and distribution.
[8] It Depends if you normally have the kind of cake made with rum. And if not, we all know Christmas cakes last way longer than a week or more…
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