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> my point was after a few years of hype about how the blockchain was going to revolutionize everything, and billions of dollars of investment, we should have a

> my point was after a few years of hype about how the blockchain was going to revolutionize everything, and billions of dollars of investment, we should have at least a few real-world use cases. Something beyond the PoC stage. Perhaps the wild claims and shoot-for-the-stars plans prevented most the blockchain startups from capitalizing on where the easy money was (and usually is), enterprise sales. IBM sells blockchain solutions. I bet they've made some money doing so (at worst because they could probably sell digital toilet paper and make a profit off enterprise contracts before they phase it out).

timoth3y 8y ago
Absolutely. There is always money to be made selling picks and shovels. IBM, ConsenSys, and others selling blockchain "solutions" to large customers has made a great deal of money over the past two years.
decentralised 8y ago
Consider AI which is an academic field for over 50 years and has had billions thrown at it. What's the best we've got so far? Alexa? Watson? Blockchain is very promising but it's an immature field with plenty of room for growth. Most of the people I've met in the last two years are brilliant scientists and engineers but few are experienced at building products with mass appeal (myself included...). In 2019 we'll see plenty of developments in privacy (Zk-SNARKs/STARKs) and scalability (Plasma, Sharding) and hopefully we'll be able to prove if Proof of Stake is as secure as PoW. With all these new building blocks, I'm certain there will be second generation blockchain products that are closer to regular users.
davidgerard 8y ago
> IBM sells blockchain solutions. I bet they've made some money doing so (at worst because they could probably sell digital toilet paper and make a profit off enterprise contracts before they phase it out). Conference gossip is that this is not the case, and they're experiencing internal pressure to show a production system - any production system - and then to show one that makes back some of the money they've ploughed into this. e.g. IBM's systems for Walmart and Maersk are completely centralised, but the back-end database is Hyperledger, so they're being trumpeted as "GOOD NEWS FOR BLOCKCHAIN" - the correct perspective is "with sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine", and boy are IBM strapping Porky to a rocket.

timoth3y 8y ago

Absolutely. There is always money to be made selling picks and shovels. IBM, ConsenSys, and others selling blockchain "solutions" to large customers has made a great deal of money over the past two years.

decentralised 8y ago

Consider AI which is an academic field for over 50 years and has had billions thrown at it. What's the best we've got so far? Alexa? Watson? Blockchain is very promising but it's an immature field with plenty of room for growth. Most of the people I've met in the last two years are brilliant scientists and engineers but few are experienced at building products with mass appeal (myself included...). In 2019 we'll see plenty of developments in privacy (Zk-SNARKs/STARKs) and scalability (Plasma, Sharding) and hopefully we'll be able to prove if Proof of Stake is as secure as PoW. With all these new building blocks, I'm certain there will be second generation blockchain products that are closer to regular users.

davidgerard 8y ago

> IBM sells blockchain solutions. I bet they've made some money doing so (at worst because they could probably sell digital toilet paper and make a profit off enterprise contracts before they phase it out). Conference gossip is that this is not the case, and they're experiencing internal pressure to show a production system - any production system - and then to show one that makes back some of the money they've ploughed into this. e.g. IBM's systems for Walmart and Maersk are completely centralised, but the back-end database is Hyperledger, so they're being trumpeted as "GOOD NEWS FOR BLOCKCHAIN" - the correct perspective is "with sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine", and boy are IBM strapping Porky to a rocket.