Blockchain is a kind of disruptive technology that has the potential to unleash a new paradigm shift in the history of human civilisation and start a new era in human evolution. If we go back in time a few hundred years, the industrial revolution set up the foundations for the modern society in which we live.
While the changes to the society were radical, it is hard to imagine a person in the 18th century that could picture a future where humans would fly on machines on (and off) Earth, communicate at the speed of light with any other person anywhere in the world, and give birth to artificial general intelligence (AGI) which will be the most intelligent being that has existed on the face of this planet (if you do not believe in the ancient gods’ astronaut theory i.e. aliens). I believe that the main reason why the majority of the world population still do not understand the power of blockchain is that imaging a future that only exists in the hyperspace (like a human in the 18th century) is not something that has been programmed in our DNAs, yet still possible to achieve by a few enlightened ones including the likes of Einstein and Tesla. These extraordinary humans have the gift to channel the infinite possibilities that exist in the hyperspace and manifest one of them into existence.
I believe that when blockchain interoperability, connecting the information that is transmitted on all blockchains comes to fruition, and when the majority of the data that exists on Earth is stored on the blockchain, humans will give birth to AGI. The genius of our time, such as Dr Ben Goertzel, has provided a glimpse of a future where artificial intelligence will coexist among humans when Sophia AI came into existence around 4–5 years ago. Dr Ben is not only the mastermind behind Sophia AI, but he is also the co-founder of SingularityNet and its token AGIX, and spinout projects such as Singularity DAO (SDAO), which will transform the landscape of DeFi with trading bots powered by the most advanced AI neural networks.
The concept of humans enjoying their spare time while machines work 24/7 generating passive income (wages) is not far away, as we will access AI-driven sophisticated trading bots that will outperform any human trader or even a collective of the best human traders. There will be many other possibilities of AI-driven bots doing the hard work for humans, basically replacing us in our daily tasks which we call jobs and get paid for (i.e. basically digital types of human exchange such as writing emails and creating digital content).
Blockchain technology is only 12 years old. Solving the “trilemma problem”, which is how to scale throughput without compromising decentralisation and security, will bring it one step closer to mass adoption “on the supply side”. Many blockchains are approaching the trilemma from different angles and significant progress has been made to deliver the scalability needed for mass adoption “on the demand side”. While Ethereum values decentralisation, Binance Smart Chain and Solana are centralised blockchains, which has not hampered their high growth after their launch (2020 and 2021 respectively).
If blockchain interoperability becomes the main modus operandi, benefiting all blockchains due to the significant network effects of a whole web of blockchains that can become more powerful than the network effects of “winner takes all” in traditional tech, the current trade-offs of the trilemma might not be as relevant in delivering the high growth and mass adoption of blockchain. However, not all blockchains that exist today will play a significant role in the future; a future which is hard to not imagine Bitcoin and Ethereum capturing a lion share of the market benefiting from their first-mover advantage. Perhaps some specialisation of blockchains could be expected in the future, where some will focus on delivering the best user experience to specific industry verticals, where they have significant competitive advantages versus one size fits all blockchains like Ethereum.
Mass adoption “on the supply side” only exists if matched with mass adoption “on the demand side”. Mass adoption “on the demand side” has exponentially grown in the past 15 to 18 months, first with the success of DeFi and now NFTs. As other industries experienced their Kodak moment, DeFi has the same potential to disrupt banking, with customers benefiting from high-interest deposits and cheaper loans that banks cannot offer due to their higher cost to serve compared to DeFi.
However, finance is not as appealing as social media, where the mass market has a higher urge to learn how to buy NFTs, so they can satisfy their herd mentality needs adopting NFTs as social media profile pictures. If I would bet on what can lead to mass adoption in crypto, DeFi and high yield farming north of 1,000% APY (annualised percentage yield) in some risky farms or the profile picture NFT trend, I would bet on the latter. NFTs can fulfil basic human needs in the digital world (or the metaverse) such as providing the sense of belonging to a community (owing NFTs from a community), self-expression or belief systems (values alignment that match the art symbolisms of an NFT) and social signalling (status derived from showcasing rare NFTs). The high speculative nature of NFTs and their transformative power to change lives also play an important role, just ask anyone that has become a crypto millionaire owing CryptoPunks, Bored Ape or Loot NFTs.
Although crypto has historically moved in 4-year wave cycles, triggered by Bitcoin halves that are followed by booms and crypto winters, it is also possible that the blockchain industry has (will) become more mature. If NFTs have the power to start the mass adoption of crypto, the correlation of Bitcoin halves with altcoins prices might break eventually, and the crypto winter next year could just be a bad flu season for Bitcoin. Some altcoins (i.e. Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Avalanche, Polkadot, Algorand, Luna) will escape crypto winter and jump on a parallel universe of endless summer, with perfect and abundant waves to all. Extraordinary wealth creation is expected for those who catch these waves.
