1. Bitcoin & Ethereum
Bitcoin which is pretty much the simplest blockchain use case imaginable and is only now getting understood by general public (as a fiat money substitution), hence the price surge. “I see”, they think, “I can store value, hedge savings and transfer funds easily”.
Ethereum goes two levels up with the concept of the decentralized web with dapps (Mist). I would argue it’s still in the research phase right now, as we still don’t have a truly working version of Casper and we haven’t seen any useful and usable dapps for anyone outside the crypto space. Moreover, it’s unlikely we’ll see any massive use cases or at least preliminary understanding by the public within the next 2–3 years. So, yeah, buy ETH if you’re ok to wait until 2019.
Obviously, there’s not much reason why by 2020 it’ll be Bitcoin+Ethereum but not Monero+Synero (ok, Synero is done, I know, but it rhymes!). I’m actually a strong believer and proponent of innovation and I do lean towards the latter.
2. 2016 & 2017
This year, 2016, was anticipated as a “year of blockchain”. Even though we’ve seen a lot of media activity of the topic of private blockchains, there’s been no real and significant projects — just pilots, memorandums and tons of talking. And I can see why — private blockchain is a database technology. Neat and cryptographically sound, but plain old boring and in 90% centralized databases, not a revolution at all. What truly inspires people is trustlessness — censorship resistant and borderless movement of information and most importantly value.
I am confident we’re on the right way. And here’s my understanding of where all these dots are going to connect. Don’t forget that we need the best from all worlds:
- Strong and stable anonymous cryptocurrency with market cap north of $20bn (e.g. Bitcoin)
- Innovative and research-heavy platform for DAOs and dapps (e.g. Ethereum)
- Large community of developers interested and knowledgeable in blockchain and crypto technology (Private blockchain ecosystems and Dapps builders)
- Fundraising and ownership means for the decentralized age (ICO)
No matter which of these do you decide to focus on — all of it brings us closer to the common goal.
Автор: Stepan Gershuni
Канал в ТГ: CryptoEssay