What everyone gets wrong with Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain!

Bernd Lapp
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read

I love Blockchain technology because it creates a trustless, transparent and secure system. But I don’t see that it is used for these reasons. Let me explain three topics that show why I think that a lot of people are getting it wrong.

  1. Many people see Cryptocurrencies only as an investment. It is much more than that. Blockchain is a technology that allows us to create censorship resistant, transparent, unstoppable, secure products that support being self-sovereign. The cryptocurrency within it should be used for new business models and allows for programmable money (inheriting rules). Most of all it adds security through game theory methodology meaning it rewards good actors and hurts bad actors (more than they can gain). Most people that create products don’t activate these crypto economics.
  2. A lot of developers focus too much on the technology instead of the problems they can solve with it. This reflects in UI and UX that cannot be used by regular people. And once they have a product, they attract other developers that use their product, which creates an echo chamber of feedback. In the end, their product cannot be used by the masses because you need to be an engineer to use it.
  3. It’s really hard to pay in crypto because everyone calculates the value in USD. It’s like living in Europe and paying in Euros but everyone has the USD exchange rate in his head. I wrote a medium post about the true value of a token and the core thesis is, that as long as we don’t have a closed system, where people can earn, buy and sell in one currency, these currencies will not have their own value. Volatility is only a perspective on a non-closed system.

I am a Developer. A Business Developer, not a coder. I really want this technology to succeed. Therefore I recommend everyone to read the great information that Karl Floersch provides on the topic of Crypto-Economics. If you don’t understand this part, you will never utilize the potential of this great technology.

Second, and this goes to all developers, please, please add UX and UI experts to your team of engineers. Your product might be on the forefront of cutting edge technology and solves the technical issues very elegantly, however you need good UI and UX to allow people to use it. No discussion, do it!

Finally I am urging every product that is looking for users to have a close eye at developing markets, like Latin America, Africa or some areas of Asia. Look for markets where people have to fight oppression, corruption or hyper inflated currencies. This is where you will find users for your blockchain based product. People in these markets will use your product because it is censorship resistant, trustless, censorship free and has its own cryptoeconomics. They can fork from their economy without having to leave the country!


About the Author:
I am a former Advisory Board Member of the Ethereum Foundation, the CEO of Old School GmbH, Business Hive in Swarm City and Advisor to a few Blockchain based Projects.

I like to simplify things. Nothing written in my blog posts is scientifically researched. I use naive logic and have come quite far doing so.

If you like my posts, please feel free to follow me here or on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Place your spare Ether or ERC20 tokens here if you like: 0xfc394e19c45370b57b157DEc58674CbFd77A9bee

Bernd Lapp

Written by

Former Advisory Board Member of the Ethereum Foundation, CEO of Old School GmbH, Business Hive in Swarm City and Advisor to Blockchain based Projects.

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