How The Crypto Boom is Similar to the Early Internet Boom
Cryptocurrency and blockchain is the new hot topic, even my Mum has heard of cryptocurrency, so that’s how I know it’s really become mainstream. My Mum isn’t a tech person so even though she wouldn’t know much about the early internet boom, the tech world and investors from that time will. But for the fun of telling stories, let me tell you the story of the early internet boom, how it grew just like blockchain and cryptocurrency is now and what happened after…
1983, the year the internet was born. Little did it know at that time that it would change the lives of millions, though some people knew. The internet became the infrastructure for online businesses to emerge. The then new, internet technology was widely spoken about and about how it would change the world as we know it. Sounds similar to blockchain technology now right? Businesses grew on the internet, businesses such as Amazon and eBay along with many others than you may not have heard of and for good reason, such as Pets.com , eToys.com , WebVan.com , Kozmo.com and Flooz.com . Wondering why you have not heard of the five other businesses? Well the answer is in a part of history known as…. the dot com bust.
Firstly I want to point out the similarity of businesses building on the internet to cryptocurrencies building on blockchain. At that time many businesses were sprouting up to take advantage of the money being made investing in new internet businesses who had.. keyword now… POTENTIAL to build a profitable business but were not yet generating that profit nor had the customers. Wow am I seeing double?? Isn’t that what a lot of new ICO’s and cryptocurrency businesses are doing now? Yes…yes it is. And that’s why we should be cautious. As the saying goes, ‘a smart person learns from their mistakes, but a wise person learns from the mistakes of others’.
Just like the dot com era, many investors are parting with their hard earned cash right now for fear of missing out (FOMO) and because everyone is going crazy for crypto. The hot word then was dot com (.com) which was the top level domain (TLD) that followed their names. The hot word now is cryptocurrency. So the bubble grew, millions and even trillions went to companies that were not generating profits and did not have active enough customer bases and stock prices soared attracting more and more investors who did not want to miss out and wanted to make money. The hype and the novelty drew in the crowds ignoring their business sense and common sense, pretty much like crypto now. And then in 2001…*Pop*….the bubble burst.
Stock prices plummeted, bankrupting masses of people with trillions being lost. Many of the internet businesses, even some of the biggest and most popular such as Pets.com disappeared. Amazon stocks lost 96% of their value but as you’ll noticed, they survived along with eBay and others.
So what is to be learned from history and in particular, the dot com boom and bust. Well firstly lets not make the mistake that was made there, throwing money at speculation and hype crypto businesses ignoring our business sense is not wise. Secondly just as the bubble burst then, it will burst now… eventually. But thirdly, all hope is not lost… yes the bubble burst then and many businesses wilted and died but also many didn’t. The key is to look at the reasons why they didn’t die along with the others, why they survived and why the ones that exist today are actually some of the largest and most profitable businesses in the world today.
The reason is that they had a product that provided value, not just speculation of adding value at some point in time, and they also had dedicated teams that had the capability of delivering on their goals.
The final lesson to learn, though I am sure there are not only four lessons to be learned from all this, but the final lesson I want to point out in this article is the internet (the infrastructure) survived. Does that mean blockchain will survive? Well, as we say in the financial trading world, ‘Past results do not guarantee future results’ but it is worth noting that there are some huge similarities to the dot com era and the crypto era and that blockchain technology itself has huge potential and if it does survive, jjust like the internet, it will change the world as we know it.
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Our company and property platform is called Agent Not Needed. Our BETA version (at the time of this publication) is a couple of weeks if not a few days away from release. We learned from the dot com era, we have a strong desire to succeed our goals to make the property transaction process faster, simpler, more secure and the costs greatly reduced. We will achieve that by providing value to the industry building a working product with a dedicated team with not only a vision but with the capability of delivering.
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