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It's only been ten years and it takes on average around 40 years for a new technology to become useful. And this technology is much bigger and more complicated

It's only been ten years and it takes on average around 40 years for a new technology to become useful. And this technology is much bigger and more complicated than the average new breakthrough technology, like the semiconductor or whatever.

api 8y ago
I don't think you can compare Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency to semiconductors at all. Cryptocurrency is really not all that complex a technology. Once you grasp it it's pretty simple, especially if you understand cryptography and a little bit of game theory. I do still hold out some hope that the tech will evolve and eventually catch on, or that it will lead to something else, but the first big incarnation cycle of cryptocurrency seems like a total failure to a shocking degree.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  > I do still hold out some hope that the tech will evolve and eventually catch on I'd posit it's not possible for DLT to fail any more than it was possible for email to fail. Yeah adoption could have been slower if the first email clients were shittier or whatever, but at the end of the day one-to-one or one-to-many instant written communication solves a real problem and I just don't see any possible universe where the idea wouldn't have eventually worked. The conceptual breakthrough of DLT is basically using an algorithm to mathematically guarantee that two numbers sum to zero rather than taking the word of a supposedly neutral (and very expensive) third-party. Once you make that discovery there just isn't any universe where that doesn't outcompete the status quo, any more than we have globally competitive societies who haven't adopted things like fire or the wheel. The reason it's taking so long to get real products (let alone adoption) is that it requires basically reorganizing our entire society, which doesn't exactly move on a dime.
  - api 8y ago
    Part of the problem though is that the algorithm is fantastically expensive, possibly more so than managing, policing, and occasionally replacing central organizations.
- davidgerard 8y ago
  There is no tech to evolve. Bitcoin was made of old, already-existing pieces. All the parts existed by 2001, but it wasn't until 2008 that someone put them together to make a system that could exchange unique tokens without a central authority. Trouble is, the term "blockchain technology" is a way of fudging the fact that none of the good bits are new. And whether the new bits are good, well, there's a 10-year track record of not a lot so far apart from asset bubbles.
ChrisLomont 8y ago
Where did you get your 40 year claim? Plenty of research claims otherwise, e.g., https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-pace-of-technology-adoption-is-speeding-up https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-pace-of-technology-adoption-is-s... Even your semiconductor example was immediately adopted and used. A decade into Blockchain and it's still all claim and no adoption, as this study found.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  From the famous Carlotta Perez book. The reason tech adoption looks like it’s speeding up is that in that chart is just that they’re looking at more and more trivial examples. E.g. the cell phone might create huge changes in human behavior, but they’re not really a foundational technology. They’re more of an incrementally better version of a phone and a computer.
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    How is block chain not also a trivial example and an incrementally better version of previous technology? It addresses a tiny, tiny problem compared to items on that chart. If you're claiming that things on that chart are shorter because they're less important, then blockchain, being even less important no matter how you believe it, falls into the same argument. That chart has for recent things gaining widespread adoption: internet, cellphone, computer, (left off web adoption), microwave. Do you think the blockchain is actually bigger than any of those? Or is it more likely what it has shown so far - nearly zero benefit compared to the claims? It's not like it hasn't had ample time to blossom and get integrated into everywhere. It simply solves a problem almost no one needs solved.

api 8y ago

I don't think you can compare Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency to semiconductors at all. Cryptocurrency is really not all that complex a technology. Once you grasp it it's pretty simple, especially if you understand cryptography and a little bit of game theory. I do still hold out some hope that the tech will evolve and eventually catch on, or that it will lead to something else, but the first big incarnation cycle of cryptocurrency seems like a total failure to a shocking degree.

Alex3917 8y ago
> I do still hold out some hope that the tech will evolve and eventually catch on I'd posit it's not possible for DLT to fail any more than it was possible for email to fail. Yeah adoption could have been slower if the first email clients were shittier or whatever, but at the end of the day one-to-one or one-to-many instant written communication solves a real problem and I just don't see any possible universe where the idea wouldn't have eventually worked. The conceptual breakthrough of DLT is basically using an algorithm to mathematically guarantee that two numbers sum to zero rather than taking the word of a supposedly neutral (and very expensive) third-party. Once you make that discovery there just isn't any universe where that doesn't outcompete the status quo, any more than we have globally competitive societies who haven't adopted things like fire or the wheel. The reason it's taking so long to get real products (let alone adoption) is that it requires basically reorganizing our entire society, which doesn't exactly move on a dime.
- api 8y ago
  Part of the problem though is that the algorithm is fantastically expensive, possibly more so than managing, policing, and occasionally replacing central organizations.
davidgerard 8y ago
There is no tech to evolve. Bitcoin was made of old, already-existing pieces. All the parts existed by 2001, but it wasn't until 2008 that someone put them together to make a system that could exchange unique tokens without a central authority. Trouble is, the term "blockchain technology" is a way of fudging the fact that none of the good bits are new. And whether the new bits are good, well, there's a 10-year track record of not a lot so far apart from asset bubbles.

ChrisLomont 8y ago

Where did you get your 40 year claim? Plenty of research claims otherwise, e.g., https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-pace-of-technology-adoption-is-speeding-up https://hbr.org/2013/11/the-pace-of-technology-adoption-is-s... Even your semiconductor example was immediately adopted and used. A decade into Blockchain and it's still all claim and no adoption, as this study found.

Alex3917 8y ago
From the famous Carlotta Perez book. The reason tech adoption looks like it’s speeding up is that in that chart is just that they’re looking at more and more trivial examples. E.g. the cell phone might create huge changes in human behavior, but they’re not really a foundational technology. They’re more of an incrementally better version of a phone and a computer.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  How is block chain not also a trivial example and an incrementally better version of previous technology? It addresses a tiny, tiny problem compared to items on that chart. If you're claiming that things on that chart are shorter because they're less important, then blockchain, being even less important no matter how you believe it, falls into the same argument. That chart has for recent things gaining widespread adoption: internet, cellphone, computer, (left off web adoption), microwave. Do you think the blockchain is actually bigger than any of those? Or is it more likely what it has shown so far - nearly zero benefit compared to the claims? It's not like it hasn't had ample time to blossom and get integrated into everywhere. It simply solves a problem almost no one needs solved.