Blockchain hype is an essential part of the crypto-craze, and its fading is cause to expect the eventual crash.
The reason is a relationship between a beguiling, but wrong, idea about technology, and the value it has injected back into crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Break that cycle, and you unspool the loop that’s spun itself into a boom.
It goes something like this:
Crypto-currency prices attracted attention. Serious people recognised a fad, seeing the inherent and fatal contradiction of something trying to be both a speculative asset and a currency useful for buying wheelbarrows, lattes or running shoes. No-one uses gold bars from the safe for petty cash.…Blockchain doesn’t even solve most problems of trust. The integrity of data on a public blockchain can be trusted not to change, but that says nothing about whether the data is right in the first place.
Eulogy made by Dan McCrum
