BITCOIN’S PRICE EXPLOSION IS A MANIA
in love with blockchain, just not the bitcoin blockchain. It is not in their interests to have a public ledger. Again, bitcoin seems to be a solution looking for a problem. I know of almost no corporation or large institution that needs, or even desires, a public ledger. The level of security of a giant public ledger is of no concern to, let’s say, a group of a dozen insurance companies using a blockchain amongst themselves for insurance contracts. This would easily be secure enough for their needs. Blockchain technology is going from strength to strength, but the bitcoin blockchain is languishing in the land of Chinese miners, retail investors, and dreamers. This is not the bitcoin I wanted or envisaged. Sure, bitcoin will keep going. And it may go up in price more, maybe a lot more. There will be some amazing applications. Some old giants will be killed. But I now doubt that any of it will meet the dreams we all had for bitcoin. It is not going to disrupt at the massive scale we all bought into. Blockchain technology, however, will do that and more... I’m happy to take my money off the table for now and see how it develops. I have made 7.5 times my investment. It’s been a colossal home run, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome now that my dreams have been broken.
THE BLOCKCHAIN REVOLUTION IS TURNING PRIVATE Recently, I spoke with one of the key players in the bitcoin industry... He is one of the owners and founders of a bitcoin exchange and has been instrumental in introducing me positioned of any in the world to capture institutional business. That business was extremely slow to come. His focus has now shifted to private blockchains and away from bitcoin. The old startup pivot... This was my biggest fear with bitcoin – that the bitcoin blockchain would be replicated by others, improved upon or tweaked for different purposes. The rise of alternate cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Ripple is essentially this fear coming true. But the real revolution is how many private blockchains are being developed with no need for a token or tokenization such as bitcoin. Or, if they do use tokens, they have no tradeable value outside of the system as that is superfluous to the needs of the users in these cases. I see this trend everywhere, from banking and custody systems to Visa. It will appear in the accounting industry, the legal industry (smart contracts), the trade-finance industry, the insurance industry, and everywhere else where a distributed ledger and recorded ownership is desperately needed. Corporations around the world have fallen to other giants in the bitcoin world. His exchange was probably the best
36 | July 2017
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