Exactly. It takes the first mover to discover there's some value in new space, like early social media or Bitcoin. Because there's no roadmap, they early effort

Exactly. It takes the first mover to discover there's some value in new space, like early social media or Bitcoin. Because there's no roadmap, they early efforts often fail, and the later arrivals take the core, good idea and learn from the failures. I think in the crypto space, much of the value will not actually be in P2P cash systems, but in P2P decentralised apps that will enable a decentralised web to emerge, and early adopters and network users will capture most of the value in these networks (instead of large centralised companies). Also, having a new funding model (crowd funded token sales) could unlock massive amounts of capital to fund new projects. The implications of this could be unprecedented - so many ideas and talent, particularly outside the US, currently goes unfunded. I doubt that anybody, up till a few years ago expected to see a way that traditional funding models for new companies would emerge, literally out of the ether. Turns out there's a torrent of speculative cash waiting for founding teams (yes, at some point there will be a massive crash, but like venture funding post the dotcom, lessons will be learned and the valuable ideas retained).