It does not feel right

Recent events such as $LIBRA are disheartening. You too might feel frustrated if you consider yourself part of crypto. Whether as a builder, content creator or a community member, it does not feel right.
But let’s take a step back.

A common self-criticism in crypto is: “As a +15 years old industry, crypto has no product market fit”.

But did you know that:
- Edison thought that the voice recorder he invented would be used to record the last words of a dying person in the family. (Who the hell does that now?)
- Before founding Google, Sergey Brin tried online food ordering and delivery, with internet and fax machines! (Now we have Uber Eats, Delivery Hero in Europe, YemekSepeti in Turkiye, etc )
- The iPhone and Apple Watch were not new ideas. General Magic engineers had similar ideas, but it was 15 years before the first iPhone was released.

The lesson: The most defining factor in technology is timing.

So what is the problem with timing of crypto?

Blockchain, as an economic layer, is a technology for the public. But the public institutions are inherently slow to use new technologies. This is because change is hard and public institutions have no incentives to redefine how things work. As a result, 1) crypto being a tech for the public, and 2) public institutions being slow to change, cause crypto adoption to become slower than what we desire as industry participants.

What happens instead is that technology goes where it can in the short term, through the private sector. Unlike the public sector, the private sector has all the incentives to use a new technology where it works, be it trading, entertainment, prediction markets and gambling, or banking the underdeveloped world.

So what if we are in the General Magic times and not the iPhone moment of crypto? Does that mean we should stop working in crypto? Did the efforts of General Magic go to waste? Is it futile to try?

Looking back, General Magic failed. It was too early to create the iPhone. Yet many great things came out of it:
- Pierre Omidyar, at that time working in General Magic, built eBay.
- Tony Fadell, later created iPhone at Apple
- Any Rubin, later created Android.

So we believe in keeping at it, and we recommend the same to fellow builders in the space, and we may put a dent in the universe.

Keep at it!

P.S. For those interested in the above discussion, you can watch “General Magic The Movie”, or read “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” which is a great book on the dynamics of technological revolutions.

P.P.S. We might get lucky and @DOGE accelerates the use of blockchains for the general public, but let’s forget getting lucky for now.