When Bill Gates first started playing with computers out in Seattle during the 1970s, no one saw Microsoft yet. They didn’t see the internet, or Instagram shopping, or Amazon Prime delivering your laundry detergent to your house within 12 hours of ordering it. We didn’t see YouTube, or streaming, or video games, or iPhones and mobile hotspots connecting to Wi-Fi signals in any corner of the world. We just saw a bunch of big blocky computer monitors.
Bill Gates in Windows advertisement from 1985
It took decades for wide-spread adoption of computer technology. I think we are in a similar position as it relates to the decentralization movement, spearheaded from the rise in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Last week I wrote a piece covering an update on crypto and my view of the markets. It was my least read blog I have written since I started writing back in March. The lowest viewed blog posts on my Blog, have been ALL been about crypto.
I think about my audience a lot when I am writing. So far, my audience is largely made up of individuals who do not necessarily have an interest in the subject of what I am writing, but rather are subscribed / interested in what GORDY is talking about. Because of this, my readers offer a very wide range of viewpoints, interests, career paths, personal demographics, and experience. This makes for a great sample pool to get a read on how the general public feels about a certain topic.
Throughout my blogging experience so far, the personal anecdotes have resonated the best with others. When I talked about moving jobs and Growin' Up, I felt a resonation with you all. It showed up in the feedback I had from texts about that blog and the page views were noticeably higher. When I talk about crypto, it is the exact opposite. Silence. No feedback. No opinions. No messages. Nobody sees it.
I just ask you all to try and take a little closer of a look.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how to articulate what is happening in the world when it comes to blockchain technology and this new movement being called "Web 3.0". I think about how many people looked past the nerdy kids in those computer labs in the 70's and 80's who just started coding the earliest forms software we know today.
People did not pay close attention to it until it was smacking them in the face in every aspect of their life. From the second you wake up in the morning to the minute your head hits the pillow at night, you are now engaging with the internet and the computer technology that many people in the general public did not blink an eye for for the first two decades of its existence.
To many, crypto is not on their radar- and if it is, they likely are highly skeptical of its use-case or real-world adoption. And that is totally fair, the use cases for crypto and blockchain are still evolving as the tech evolves with it. But the underlying forces that are driving the growth of adoption in crypto are significant and they are worth taking seriously.
The Rise of the Individual:
Look around at some of the largest growing trends in the last few years as it relates to the value of the INDIVIDUAL. We are seeing droves of people leave their jobs for pursuit of their own individual interests or values. The pandemic allowed people to reflect on their life's goals and their career, and thankfully we are seeing record numbers of people act on those very realizations. With advancing technology, we will also see tremendous growth in the gig-economy and self employment opportunities that allow workers more flexibility.
We are also seeing radical change in the way we consume media. Not only from the perspective of the mediums that we are receiving content, (think mobile devices, streaming devices) but the content providers are changing too. Individual IP is being bought up from the likes of Netflix, Disney, and Amazon among others, and is no longer being broadcasted out through traditional cable or media outlets.
We are spending hours each day watching short-form video content on TikTok and IG, where INDIVIDUAL creators like myself are providing consumers content directly. No longer do we need large institutions to gain access to our audiences, its right at our finger tips.
The same principals I am describing also apply to crypto, blockchain, and decentralized finance.
Where the opportunity exists:
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies are aiming to provide the INDIVIDUAL with access to financial assets without a mediator. The blockchain technology they are built on is derived in a way that allows assets to be transferred from one person to another, and circumnavigates the need to have a bank or financial institution mitigate and offer lending or services at a certain % fee. Blockchain looks to establish a "proof of work" or otherwise proof of transaction, to validate and allow a transfer of currency to occur.
So as I wrote in Casting a View on Crypto, this can be especially useful for business transactions. Think about how many steps are involved in a business transaction today. Goods or services are offered, and then after completion of these services payments are then requested, and then received, and confirmed, and so on. The traditional way we conduct business and request payments is inherently inefficient. Blockchain aims to establish a pre-determined set of circumstances that ONCE met (i.e. the goods are delivered or received) the payment is IMMIDIATLEY transferred on the network.
Blockchain also allows the INDIVIDUAL to gain access to capital that they otherwise would not have had access to in the traditional world of finance.
If you want to apply for a loan in today's world, you have very few options other than going to a bank or large financial institution. These banks and institutions then have you apply for a loan, and depending on your background, income, debt, net worth, etc. can determine if you are worthy of the loan. So for many, this locks them out of the ability to get a loan or access to capital if in fact they do not meet these standards from the banks.
Crypto can allow for groups of people or entities to pool their own liquidity together, and establish their own guidelines to allow for lending. This may seem suspicious to you given the world of finance we have all grown up in, but I am convinced this technology will begin to dominate the way we view finance forever.
Remember, as I said last week- we are still very early on in the adoption curve for this new technology- I think we are currently still in the Chasm phase. Meaning we still are waiting on the Early Majority to open up to crypto as an asset class, and we have a lot of room to run before we see this become "mainstream".
One of my favorite financial writers Ben Carlson wrote a great piece talking about how the Boomer generation is just getting their toes wet on the idea of investing into crypto, and has even gone on to say that he believes that Bitcoin will pass Gold in market cap in the future. A large reason for this is that there is just SO much more wealth tied up in the older generations, as the adoption continues to grow and wealth begins to transfer, we will see more money poor into these digital assets.
Check out his blog about crypto adoption in the older generation here and take a look at his chart showing the overall wealth by generation below:
The reason this is additionally hard to see right now is that there is a lot of B.S. that surrounds crypto as a technology and an investment. On one hand you have this revolutionary technology that is going to change the way we do business and transact with one another forever, and on the other hand you have more marketing and attention being focused on 18-year old kids ripping "SHIBA" or "DOGE" coin trades on Robinhood in their bedrooms while they tweet at people "Have fun staying poor".
We need to look past these click-baited stories that are on the outer edges of crypto. We need to look closer at what is really going on here and how it is part of the underlying societal trends that have accelerated due to the pandemic.
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