Unblocked

Preface

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Since you opened a book on blockchains and business, you probably already know this technology offers more than a new form of money called cryptocurrency—which is more than most people realize. In 2018, blockchains were caught in the crossfire of both cryptocurrency’s swift peak and dramatic plunge. This is not surprising: cryptocurrency is the first and most visible application of blockchain technology, and many people think they are one and the same.

It would have cost you less than $1,000 to purchase a bitcoin (the most well-known cryptocurrency) in early January 2017, and a year later it would have been worth over $14,000. By the end of 2018, it would have plunged under $4,000. That’s a pretty sensational journey. It’s no wonder the headlines focused on it.

This obscures what’s really happening in blockchains. The core blockchain functionality underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is being leveraged to do new things in just about every industry. Thousands of companies are hard at work to solve real problems and unlock meaningful opportunity with the technology. They seek to create, in many cases, an entirely new foundation for our digital world.

Cryptocurrency is, in a way, a fantastic first proof of concept: Can blockchains really be a way to safely transfer digital value from one person to another? (We’ll talk more about what that means in Chapter 3.) Over the past few years, bad actors, scandals, and large-scale hacks of various companies filled headlines. But at the same time, millions of people around the world battle-tested the wherewithal of the core technology, safely holding or transferring billions of dollars of digital value in the form of blockchain-driven cryptocurrency. There is still much work to do, but overall, the technology fared well. This inspired entrepreneurs to explore not only how blockchains could solve business and social problems, but also how digital assets could evolve to become a new kind of tool that removes friction or enables new business models.

In November of 2000, CNN declared that an index of a few hundred internet stocks lost $1.7 trillion.¹ Yet what came out of that bust changed all our lives. There are many similarities to this moment, although arguably with even higher expectations. While the mortality rate may eclipse that of the dot-com bust, keep in mind that many of the most powerful companies in the world today rose out of that bust. Buried in blockchains and their related family of technologies are seeds of change that could be powerful enough to repeat this history.

This book will help you see around both the hype and decimation. It will help you tap into where the developers and executives working in this space have set their sights. It will help you see what they see.

Come, let’s walk around that elephant blocking the view, and see what’s unfolding just around the corner.