Innovation, prediction and probability in the crypto space

Sometimes friends or friends of friends come along and ask me about some topics in the crypto space. Maybe they have listened to someone on CNBC who predicted (again) that Bitcoin might be dead (again) or that the bubble has popped and everything is over (once again).

And as everything is only prediction and probability, no one knows for sure. If you are on crypto twitter (ct), there a hundreds of opinions out there & everyone has their own metrics if markets are going up or down.
In terms of markets, remember though, many people are playing out their own agenda, trying to make people believe that the markets are going down, so that they create a downward spiral to scoop up some cheap coins. It's all very much manipulated in all kind of ways. That's why I do research, choose coins and stick to them for some time. And always keep your BTC. If you follow the price too closely, it doesn't help. Think in terms of months and years, rather than days and weeks.

In terms of CNBC, well, they report on a monthly basis that the Bitcoin bubble has popped. There are thousands of memes out there, making fun of the mainstream media and so called "experts", that Bitcoin has died...again. Bitcoin has supposedly risen from the ashes hundreds of times. On crypto twitter CNBC and others have become a metric for when to buy (half jokingly) - whenever CNBC is coming out saying Bitcoin is dead, that is when bottom has been reached and it is time to buy. The bottom line: don't listen to main stream media, esp. in crypto. Main stream media is either not informed or what's even more probable, is deliberately spreading misinformation. The closest you can get to the crypto space is by following Twitter (crypto twitter). That means one need to follow the right people, read their tweets and articles. If you do not know who are the right people, start with known figures as Andreas Antonopoulos, Vitalik Buterin, Ivan on tech, Adam Meister, Simon Dixon, and alike. Find some people who seem to know what they are talking about and see whom they follow. After some time, you'll get the hang of it.

A friend once pointed out to me that he saw someone on CNBC talking about tech cycles and that we don’t have to worry about Blockchain as a new technology. New technology typically needs about 9-15 years until we are starting to see it implemented.
In terms of technology cycles I'd be very cautious here. Already a few years ago, I listened to an audio book about Silicon Valley & it was already projecting that the speed of new technologies would increase to a certain point where it would be hard for our minds to follow. Remember the talk about exponential innovation by Andreas Antonopoulos (highly recommended if you haven’t seen it yet)? Not only will the speed of innovation accelerate, open source technology has an even crazier curve. It's not linear, it's exponential. Combine this with massive capital through ICOs and add a community which is willing to take enormous risks. What you get is an accelerated growth.

Yesterday I listened to a new Andreas video, which he uploaded a few days ago. There, he spoke about Lightning Network which is a new technology for Bitcoin. The LN was on paper just 4 years ago and has spawned an entire network by now already, and is implemented into the Bitcoin network. Andreas said, this has never been done before – in only 4 years time... At the beginning of the year, some developers were trying out LN in test nets, strongly discouraging everyone to use it, because this new software was not ready to use - one could lose money fairly easy. The community didn't care, many tried it out, bug reports were filed, stickers bought and so on... The road map was about another year or so of testing until they felt comfortable to let it be used. Not only is the software used already, an entire network has spawned.
Even experts in the field like Andreas and others can't fathom the pace of this new technology. Therefore, no one is able to make any kind of predictions. Something like this space has never existed. Technology has never been implemented into society in a way like this. The community doesn't care about rules, regulations, leaders or agendas. Sure, games are still being played. Many different games. There are political games, massive amounts of scams, tricks, market manipulation, but in the end, this is all noise next to real innovation. The guys building this new future simply try to cut out on the noise and keep building.

As Andreas was saying many years ago: "they won't even see us coming"... and this is still true today. I've been to conferences where the talks are shifted towards enterprises. These talks and conferences are so dull and superficial meanwhile. The enterprises want to hop onto the train, trying to dissect and understand it, try to use it to their own advantage. But this is like trying to dissect a train, understanding how it functions while this (hyper loop) train is in full motion.
If you're not involved in this crypto community, you can't even imagine how fast this space is growing.

Granted, some people say it is not necessary to get involved in crypto and just wait until it is broadly available. In 10 years time we all might be using Blockchain technologies without even knowing it, similar to TCP in the internet today. And sure, maybe one can compare today’s times with the times when Microsoft was still working in a little garage. It is very early stage… but compare Microsoft in the early days to Ethereum now. Do you see the difference? And this is the difference. Times are changing and nobody knows how the future will look like. We are in the middle of a revolution, not the sort of marketing revolution like a new toothbrush revolutionizes. It is a full fledged revolution how technology is shaping itself, how global power is shifting and society might be transformed.

What I have learned so far about enterprises and people in power? There is a lot of fear out there. Fear of losing this power. But for the rest of us, I have only one suggestion: relax, don’t try to predict the future. Go with the flow and let “anicca” do its thing. People are trying to understand everything, they try to find patterns through looking at the past. And yes, in the markets it does work to some degree, human psychology might be predictable to some degree as well. But here, with this new technology, we have a whole new paradigm. Things are going to change, be equanimous and accept and embrace “anicca”.

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