What are you buying, the tulips or the East India Company?
(中文按此) A few hundred years ago, only a few visionary people dared to join the stock market. Who would dare to fund a crew of explorers to explore the uncharted water in the Far East? In addition, most people were uneducated, and had no idea what a share certificate represented; they would rather choose to buy bread.
It may be a mistake to equate the rise of Bitcoin to Tulip Mania: the buyers in the two scenarios are completely different. Over the past 24 hours, 18 billion US dollars worth of Bitcoin have been transacted. But are you and your friends buying Bitcoin? Until now, I cannot see any bubble of Bitcoin, not a bit The rise of Bitcoin price does not mean bubble. A bubble is when even your mom is buying.
The Bitcoin phenomenon means much more than Bitcoin itself and even the market of cryptocurrency as a whole; Bitcoin phenomenon is shaking the world of the Internet. Everyone is talking about Bitcoin because the media is covering it every day. You may be aware of Ether, because of CryptoKitties. The real deal most of the general public has ignored is that the genius of blockchain engineer is now working hard to solve the bottleneck of the technology of cryptocurrency, and this is what you should be aware of: the emergence of blockchain technology. Bitcoin is just like the earliest generation of mobile phone, the “brick phone” back to the 80’s, whereas Ether is like the early generations of Nokia. The era of cryptocurrency has just begun.
Furthermore, we’ve just got one or two futures exchanges started the trading of Bitcoin futures. How many exchanges are coming? How many risk capitals are poised to join the race as well? Apart from bitcoin, how many quality blockchain startups have launched or ready to launch?
Cryptocurrency is a completely new market. Whether you participate or not has no bearing on this market, just like the absence of general public investors would not stop trailblazers from exploring the Island of the Gold in the Far East.
(Thanks Ms. Alexa Cheung to contribute the translation and polishing works of the English version of this article. Alexa is a student journalist currently studying in the University of Hong Kong.)
Originally published at www.forbole.com on December 8, 2017.
