Things Just Got Real: Crypto Grows Up and Calls Itself Blockchain

steven masur
Nov 1 · 3 min read

Just got back from an awesome, if somewhat smaller WCC 2019 in Vegas. Apart from some fun crypto insanity at VooDoo Roof, Cardi B, an elite crypto poker party at the Mike Tyson Mansion, and more mask wearing prognostications about Satoshi, things are getting super real.

The SEC and Justice are publicly cracking down on some pretty egregious instances of fraud and extortion. Yes, there IS a rear view mirror on past acts. The SEC is also extending its activity beyond wrongdoers (and possibly beyond its constitutional limits) and making examples of legitimate companies (Kik, Telegram) where it wants to redirect the market and exert tighter controls to get Congress off its back. EOS avoided this by cutting a deal, even though no tokens were sold in the US (except to a few people who figured out how to game the system). The incumbent bank money is buying into XRP, so no government action there. The CFTC seems to want to get involved, stating vaguely that tokens are probably also commodities, while the FTC has remained relatively quiet. Libra is going down in flames while Zuckerberg keeps getting bloodied by increasingly under-informed Congresspeople. Pavlov’s dog would probably stop going to DC. But it’s too late to complain about shortsighted US policy decisions now. We’re dancing on the deck of the Titanic with China entering crypto and taking over nation state after nation state in a Third Reich reminiscent co-optive march across Asia.

Of course, all of this complicated news keeps the ICO market in a deep freeze, and continues to push a lot of state-side innovation offshore… But it’s all good…

WCC 2019 was in Vegas at the same time as Money 2020. The old money and the new money were sitting in different rooms, but close enough to have a lot of good meetings. Crypto trading has moved from your parents’ basement to more sophisticated fund products being offered to the rich. Enterprise is adopting blockchain. The banks are backing projects, building their own products, and making acquisitions. Samsung has a blockchain. IBM, a lot of platform solution providers, and the consulting firms are loudly shopping blockchain solutions to larger and larger companies. Startups are raising equity capital and building real products, which may one day soon complete with big banking the way Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram compete with big media. It’s still very early, but you start to see products in which the blockchain component is hidden from view and “it just works,” like BlockParty’s ticketing platform. So it’s all good. Just like the build cycle after the internet bubble, this is how it happens when things get real.

Thanks goes to David Moss, Merri Silverstein, Les Borsai, David Siemer, Brock Pierce, Chrystal Rose, Virtual Growth, Serry Osmena, D Hustle, Michael Terpin, Brian Young, Anthem Blanchard, Everett Carney, Ken Bosak, Robert Beadles, Shane Kehoe, Thomas Cox, Jorg Molt, Joe Chiapetta for their contributions to this piece.

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