Speculating on a tokenized future
I hear you. There’s a lot to be skeptical about when it comes to blockchain and cryptocurrency in 2018.
The current crypto marketplace has attracted a lot of free-riders, scammers, profiteers, pump-and-dump investors, shitcoins and regulatory hoodwinkers, and Ethereum is at least somewhat responsible for this.
We know most startups fail. The number often quoted is a 90% failure rate. And as Eric Ries pointed out yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2018, that number includes all acquisitions, including the ones that are acquihires or catch-and-kills by a larger tech company. The real number of winners may only be 2 or 3%. As Eric also said, if you’re a skeptic, odds are you’re probably going to be right.
And yet, despite all of this, I still have optimism for blockchain and crypto.

One of the last interviews at TechCrunch Disrupt was Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who laid out a vision that
It makes sense that any company out there who has a cap table… should have their own token. Every open source project, every charity, potentially every fund or these new types of decentralized organizations [and] apps, they’re all going to have their own tokens
What’s the point of having all these tokens? The big macro problem this potentially begins to solve is providing an opportunity to speculate and invest in growth opportunities you have an interest in and are passionate about. The value in the public markets today is largely extracted, and non-accredited, non-institutional investors are shut out of growth opportunities.
The founders and CEOs of these growth companies would probably love to have their most passionate customers and fans have the opportunity to invest in their companies. But the costs to take their investment and make sure it’s done in a compliant way that meets regulation simply costs too much relative to the small size of the investment. Blockchain and crypto offer potential efficiencies that could make that possible. And maybe, one day you won’t have to be a VC to invest in that growth company that you think will be huge.
