Blockchain Economy: Going Mainstream In 2017

Now it begins. Solving big problems.

Now it’s starting to get interesting. Forget about Bitcoin price spikes and fluctuations. Put aside the bizarre and often contradictory activities of governments in reaction to the remarkable proliferation of blockchain assets, activities and initiatives. Even forget for a moment that a $20b+ financial market has emerged while the old economy wasn’t paying attention.

Forget all that and focus for a moment on this. The Blockchain economy has entered into Stage 3.

Every techie knows that version 3.0 is always the a whole new level above version 2.0 and 1.0.

Every numerologist knows that the number 3 has the energy of the catalyst. It causes or catalyzes change.

It’s where things start to get good.

It’s where concepts begin to materialize and the theories get tested through real world applications.

It’s easy to get lost in all of the hype about different cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets, the ICOs, the regulatory issues, political activities etc., and forget that the opportunity that blockchain technologies enables is the empowerment of humanity like never before.

From desalination of ocean water on the African coastline, to removing corrupt systems and interests in government and electoral processes, humanity is now poised to move forward in a significant way, thanks largely to the emergence of blockchain-based applications.

It’s easy to get lost in all of the hype about different cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets, the ICOs, the regulatory issues, political activities etc., and forget that the opportunity that blockchain technologies enables is the empowerment of humanity like never before.

Blockchain technologies emerge in the context of a race that is willing and intentional about improving the quality of life on planet Earth.

Blockchain technology is not the means per se, but it is a key means that fills a void and provides a powerful tool; one that draws the energies of integrity and openness into everything it touches.

Are there still elements of greed and manipulation at play within the blockchain universe?

Of course there are. For now anyway.

But in the same way that blockchains are designed to expose and lock out indiscretions within code and technical design, so are emerging blockchain oriented systems and communities proving to be very efficient at rooting out inappropriate activities and behaviours.

Like a massive beam of light, blockchain is rapidly exposing inappropriateness and inefficiency, setting in motion a dismantling protocol, and performing a fundamental reconfiguration.

The appearance of Bitcoin in 2008–09 marked the beginning of a new era in global finance and economics. There was no VC backing, there was no marketing hype or ICO launch; but nevertheless less, a brilliant, complex and ultra-resilient technology was born that would spearhead a long tail of implementation/application that would give rise to an entirely new universe of human interaction and value exchange. Fairly narrow in it’s scope of being a store of value and a method of payment, Bitcoin’s performance has been nothing short of remarkable — stellar even.

The Bitcoin blockchain would showcase this new technology and prove it’s utility as an unstoppable force, marching forward through space, time — and beyond.

Bitcoin is the backbone of the blockchain economy. The foundation. The launchpad.

In it’s infancy, the first wallets and exchanges emerged. Bitcoin meet-ups started popping up. Millionaires were made overnight, seemingly out of nothing. The first Bitcoin ATM appeared on the scene, and so did dozens of other cryptocurrencies similar to Bitcoin, but with slightly different features designed/intended to improve functionality in some respect.

That was Blockchain 1.0.

The progression of the blockchain economy into phase 2.0 is largely attributable to the quantum mind of Vitalik Buterin, creator of the Ethereum platform. It was he who seemingly effortlessly was able to identify and conceptualize a vision of blockchain opportunities that would increasingly empower humanity with the tools to begin to solve virtually all of the challenges that have been plaguing the planet for millennia.

Vitalik’s development of ’smart contracts’ was designed to tie complex agreements to a blockchain platform that would ensure execution, security and transparency of data, all the while benefiting from the immutability (DAO fiasco notwithstanding) and reliable performance of sound blockchain design.

Intermediaries of questionable value would cease to exist. Inefficiencies would be written out of existence (in theory) by code. The need for regulatory bodies would evaporate as the coding and decentralized nature of the technology would be self-regulating

With Blockchain 2.0, there was a graduation.

It marked an expansion beyond a new financial system of storing and exchanging value, and into the realm of social engineering. Through smart contracts, the integrity and transparency afforded by blockchain technology could be drawn into the reality of everyday human activity, thus creating a very real and visible path to extinction for the highly permissioned systems of the old economy.

The ‘platform’ stage of of Blockchain 2.0 very quickly enabled the flood of applications that had been envisioned, starting with DAO, Iconomi, and many others currently in early launch or pre-launch stage.

Welcome to Blockchain 3.0.

This is where the rubber hits the road. It is the application stage. It is the dapp (decentralized applications) and appcoin stage.

This is where things get practical, and the general public starts using blockchain technology, perhaps without even realizing it, to do simple things like listen to music, or share content on social media.

This is where the massive disruption starts to happen.

It’s more than the ‘Uberization of everything’ stage. It’s where the disruptors like Uber and AirBnB get disrupted as the intermediaries that they are prove to become largely redundant.

You might also call Blockchain 3.0 the massive empowerment stage.

It is the stage where human intent gets willed into existence in a shared environment that nation states and various regulating bodies have no capacity to respond to with any kind of coherent policy. They are simply too far behind and too invested in an old paradigm to adapt without extreme difficulty to this new reality. For the most part, I personally expect them to experience rapidly declining usefulness and relevance.

As we speak, doors are metaphorically flying open to creative entrepreneurs and their teams of developers armed with the new blockchain-empowered power tools to design new systems and structures that can solve real problems — in whole or in part, instead of trying to patch holes and cracks of the crumbling old world economy.

Like a massive beam of light, blockchain is rapidly exposing inappropriateness and inefficiency, setting in motion a dismantling protocol, and performing a fundamental reconfiguration.

This is where we find ourselves today.

What is coming next? Phases 4, 5, and 6.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you would like to peer into the world of blockchain technology and you aren’t a tech-type individual, no problem.

Neither am I.

But there are a few simple concepts and a few simple steps that you can look at that will help you begin to familiarize yourself with some of the basics that will enable you to ‘ease in’ to the Blockchain Economy.

You may want to start by having a look at this post where I discuss some of the keys to getting started and doing well in the blockchain economy.