Why Rockefeller joins the Crypto Craze
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win.”
While the jury is still out on who uttered these most famous words (many attribute it to Mahatma Gandhi), no statement could better sum up the state of cryptocurrencies than this. When Bitcoin was introduced in late 2008, only a few people in the world bothered to look again at what turned out to be a storm coming. When it slowly gained momentum, traditionalists ridiculed it as a bubble. In the last year or so, policy makers have pitched their veritable might against it. But ultimately, we know what is going to happen. This will happen sooner than later with traditional financial institutions appreciating the long term merit and value of cryptocurrencies and their decisions to start investing in crypto assets.
Rockefeller-backed Venrock looks favorably at crypto
High profile financial institutions including many government bodies are taking note of this digital and financial disruption and are investing in the future. The latest big name to invest in crypto is Venrock, a venture capital firm backed by the Rockefellers.
So why is this investment seen as important by industry pundits and crypto experts alike? For that one needs to understand a little bit of history. The Rockefeller family has been one of the wealthiest families in recorded history, is one of the pioneers of the traditional banking system and one of the most, if not the most, influential families in US history. John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and his brother William Rockefeller Jr. started Standard Oil and made their fortunes in the US petroleum industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They then diversified into banking creating the Chase Manhattan Bank. Venrock Associates, formed in 1969 as the family’s official venture capital arm (the name derives from “Venture” and Rockefeller”), is an important arm of the Rockefeller family’s financial might and was an early investor in Apple, among other Silicon Valley startups.
While deeply entrenched in tradition and everything American, the Rockefellers are amongst the most forward thinking families in the world and this is visible in their present financial clout when their contemporary families like Mellon and Du Pont could not keep themselves united. The family’s decision to invest in the currency and technology of the future was as certain as the sun rising in the East. It was just a matter of time. And now that it has happened, financial experts see this as a sign for greater things to come.
Venrock’s alliance with Coin Fund, a US-based cryptocurrency investor group aims to help blockchain enterprises and according or David Packman, a Venrock partner, they are here “for the long haul.”
Is blockchain technology in danger from competitors?
But as the world is still contemplating use cases of blockchain technology and traditional financial institutions still coming to grips with cryptocurrencies, tech experts are already looking beyond blockchain technology that will turn 10 a few months from now. While a decade is still short time to understand the implications of a new technology, it is still a long time to understand whether the technology is good for the long term.
Blockchain technology has hardly undergone any major development (leaving aside the hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain and the implementation of the Lightning Network) and has shown to be a bit uncomfortable and slow, attributes not befitting a 21st century technological innovation. Tangle and Hashgraph seem to be two new networks that appear to solve the problems of blockchain technology.
While both Tangle and Hashgraph work on distributed ledger technology, they do not build blocks and chains. This makes them faster and more efficient. While blockchain technology can only perform 3–4 tps (transactions per second), Tangle can perform from 500–800 and Hashgraph, based on a patented technology can perform upwards of 250,000 tps.
Parting thoughts
Having said that, bockchain technology has certainly paved the path for other technologies to build upon it. It’s like what Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Cryptocurrencies are the most important applications of the blockchain technology and it will be completely repetitive if we say that they are here to disrupt the traditional financial scene. And with institutions like the Rockefeller’s jumping onto the crypto bandwagon, the technology will get a much needed shot in the arm and may give rise to better technologies, maybe even better than the blockchain technology itself. Maybe someone will see further by standing on the shoulders of blockchain technology.
