Cryptocurrency is Killing Blockchain

Which has greater value? Cryptocurrency or the transaction?

Consider for a moment how you define “value”?

Cryptocurrency is of far less value than the potential of the transaction. Unfortunately, cryptocurrency has dominated the discussion related to blockchain. The industry has evolved to equate cryptocurrency price with value. Value is something other than the price that a cryptocurrency is trading at. One should consider the utility, the functionality and capability offered by a system.

To be clear, the volatile and speculative nature of cryptocurrencies have thoroughly discouraged those who might benefit from using or developing applications upon a public, non-repudiation and immutable data system.

We, of the crypto-community, with few exceptions, have not been very honest with ourselves or with anyone else. The dearth of real and practical use cases is the proof. The tide is turning on public sentiment towards blockchain. We have lost our way. If we were ever credible enough to have the trust of the public then it is now waning.

The conversation, so far, has been unbalanced. The focus on the price of cryptocurrencies is effectively killing blockchain. As the price of cryptocurrency has increased without a corresponding increase in utility then innovation and investment dollars have skewed towards the development of systems with no real value.

The solution is to decouple speculation from the underlying transaction. How do we do this? This where innovation should focus. As long as cryptocurrency acts as a security then that will be the use case. Utility in transactions is what we should strive for.

Our art for this blog is intended to commemorate Día de Muertos.