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I don’t buy the hype of the blockchain as much as the average hacker news user, but this article lacks anything but anecdotal data. A bubble needs two things:

I don’t buy the hype of the blockchain as much as the average hacker news user, but this article lacks anything but anecdotal data. A bubble needs two things: 1. Misallocated hype 2. Real money As far as I can tell no one has done much digging on how much money blockchain ventures represent in terms of real world investment dollars. Can you call something a bubble if there isn’t much “real” money in it? If all the blockchain related companies died tomorrow how many people would be out of a job, and how much money would be “lost”? As far as I can tell most investors, even the ones bullish on the future of blockchain, are suspicious of new blockchain ventures. This isn’t how bubbles work, unless I am massively misinformed about the amount of money in this area.

amarant 8y ago
I mean, it's a billion-dollar industry, by any estimates I've seen at least. I don't know about you but I would classify that as "a lot" of money. this estimate for example says $1.3B was invested in 2018 alone! https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/20/with-at-least-1-3-billion-invested-globally-in-2018-vc-funding-for-blockchain-blows-past-2017-totals/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/20/with-at-least-1-3-billion-... this one is on a similar track: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43526618 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43526618 plenty of cash to be lost!
- hacknat 8y ago
  Nah. 1 billion dollars is 1/13000th of the American economy.
- ericb 8y ago
  > this estimate for example says $1.3B was invested in 2018 alone! That's like 1/50th of an Enron (which had a 70 Billion dollar value and went to 0). Enron in itself wasn't a bubble.