前言
前言
前言
前言
馬克吐溫曾經說過：“歷史不會重演，但它確實會押韻”。 1994年，《連線》雜誌的主編凱文·凱利著就了《失控：機器、社會與經濟的新生物學》一書，這是關於社會進化、特別是互聯網發展的“先知預言”，後來成為《黑客帝國》主演們的必讀物。 25年後，八維資本試圖捕捉互聯網和區塊鏈革命之間的相似之處，以幫助人們更好地了解技術生命週期和區塊鏈行業的未來。我們將在接下來的幾週內發布一系列文章，歡迎訂閱我們的微信公眾號。
part3:早期的挑戰
part4:新概念，估值和時機
part5:我們是在1994年嗎？下一步該怎麼辦？
我們是在1994年嗎？下一步該怎麼辦？ （part5）
作者：Remi Gai @ 八維資本
編譯：八維研究院
八維研究院原創，轉載請註明出處
本文是整個系列的第五部分：
互聯網與區塊鏈革命：市場、基礎設施和公司的演變
我們正處於1994年嗎？
有趣的是，1994年初期，當時Netscape 的創始人MarcAndreessen 正身處矽谷，他認為他已經為時已晚，完全的錯過了互聯網的機會，因為1990-1991的短暫衰退嚴重打擊了科技行業。區塊鍊和數字貨幣當前所處的階段最類似於1994年的互聯網革命，那年我們發明了TCP / IP ，HTML 和FTP ，這些技術對Netscape（1994）的誕生以及後來的Facebook（2004）和Airbnb（2008）的出現有著深遠影響。
在區塊鏈中，我們仍然在發明模塊和工具，這些模塊和工具允許我們進行分佈式計算、保護隱私、管理身份、提高可擴展性等- 突破性的dapps 已經出現並將在未來幾年出現。
技術革命和金融資本的Perez技術浪潮週期
儘管在數字貨幣熊市期間出現了很多負面新聞，但要意識到我們仍然處於行業初期，而泡沫過早出現的原因主要有以下幾點：1）儘管很多產品和技術尚未發布，但通過首次代幣發行獲得了流動性；2）由於互聯網和社交媒體，現在世界變得更加緊密，這可能加速了炒作的傳播，並以前所未有的方式在全球形成泡沫。但是從技術的角度來看，我們仍然處在Perez技術浪湧週期的“醞釀”（Gestation）階段，“應用”（Installation）階段還沒有出現。由於此前的市場狂潮並沒有推動技術進入一個重要的轉折點，這個轉折點就包括“基礎設施得到顯著改善，具備可複制的商業模式，為技術的應用提供可行的路徑”（觀點來自Daniel Heyman 的文章） 。
互聯網用戶的增長vs 數字貨幣用戶的增長（預測）
目前用戶對數字貨幣的採用與1994年互聯網的採用情況極為相似，在1994年的24年之後，地球上超過一半的人口通過互聯網生活。我們可以預計，數字貨幣領域也會出現類似的增長軌跡，可能會以更快的速度發展，因為世界現在更加緊密相連，而且在過去幾個世紀裡，新技術的採用速度將更快。例如，為了達到對全球市場25%的滲透率，電力花了46年，電話花了35年，電視花了14年，網絡花了7年。因此，我們估計，數字貨幣可能需要15年時間達到我們今天使用互聯網的水平。
從資本角度來看，互聯網和區塊鏈革命期間投資的資金規模也大不相同，1999年美國互聯網創業公司流入的風險資本為356億美元（根據美國有線電視新聞網（CNN Money）），而從2017年ICO進入全球區塊鏈公司的風險資本為10億美元，（根據CBInsights）。在2000年互聯網泡沫的高峰期，納斯達克的市值約為6.5萬億美元（通貨膨脹調整後），而2018年初加密貨幣的全球市值為8000億美元。
區塊鏈革命：市場、技術和公司的演變
接下來會發生什麼？
接下來會發生什麼？
接下來會發生什麼？
接下來會發生什麼？
Consensys創始人Joseph Lubin和Blockchain Capital合夥人Jimmy Song在討論關於採用dapp程序
在當前的市場低迷時期，區塊鍊和數字資產行業需要一些成功的案例來讓人們重拾對技術的信心。在互聯網泡沫破滅後，人們逐漸願意再次相信互聯網，這是因為新一波的互聯網初創公司開始找到自己的立足點，Netflix 和PayPal 的成功減少了一些不確定性，緩和了泡沫對人們的打擊。
在區塊鏈世界中，我們仍在尋找可以證明價值區塊鏈技術和分佈式應用程序（dapp）的成功用例，以幫助行業恢復信心。 Consensys 的創始人，也是dapp領域的卓越領軍人物Joseph Lubin 日前聲稱，“如果你可以通過我的眼睛看到2019年的風景，你必須戴上墨鏡遮擋它的光芒”。 Ĵoseph Lubin 非常強勢的宣稱，未來將是分佈式的，而其他人物，如Jimmy Song 從Blockchain Capital 仍然對今後幾年內分佈式應用的發展抱著懷疑態度。
到目前為止，區塊鏈產業裡的獨角獸仍是那些具有傳統商業模式中心化治理的公司（Coinbase，幣安，Circle 和比特大陸等），傳統的公司治理模式仍有利於加密貨幣生態系統的發展。但我們也已經看到比特幣、以太坊這樣的分佈式公司和DAO組織以及dapp正在取代傳統的中心化公司。
區塊鏈革命的上一階段和未來階段
我們目前正在過渡到區塊鏈發展的第五階段，在這一階段，人們正在探索跨行業的區塊鏈應用以及區塊鏈可擴展性解決方案。
在第一階段，在2009-2012年期間，比特幣作為一種新型的數字貨幣和概念驗證產品被發明，第一批用戶由核心技術人員和密碼學專家組成，他們在各種論壇（ bitcointalk. org、 reddit 等）中挖掘和推廣加密貨幣。
在2013-2014年的第二階段，隨著媒體報導的增加（儘管許多媒體都是負面新聞），諸如交易所、錢包、託管和支付解決方案等基礎設施開始增加。 2015-2017年的第三階段更側重於圍繞金融用例的真實應用，如匯款、小額支付、跨境支付。隨著與以太坊的智能合約的出現，我們進入了第四個階段，在這個階段，我們正在探索金融以外的用例，新的籌資工具ICO 在這個階段成為了一個殺手級的應用程序。
在第五階段，我們預計將出現成功的dapp和資產上鍊案例，讓人們重拾對該技術的信心，並改進區塊鏈的可擴展性、隱私、數據存儲、互操作性、託管和應用的用戶體驗。在第六階段的後期，我們預計將看到dapps 的顛覆式發展，與分佈式應用和Dropbox、Facebook、YouTube、Airbnb 等集中式互聯網壟斷企業形成白熱化競爭，消費者能夠深度參與其中並在數字經濟中獲得更多的權力。
另一方面，成功的DAPP 可能需要一段時間才能推出，因為分佈式應用程序生態系統收到的資金比協議曾少得多。在互聯網泡沫時期，大部分資金投入到了構建應用程序（雅虎、eBay、亞馬遜等），而協議開發者（TCP/IP、HTML、FTP）則是研究人員，他們幾乎沒有得到任何報酬，而非營利組織則經常處理這項技術的後續迭代。然而，在區塊鏈領域，我們看到了相反的情況，大部分資本流入了處理協議開發的私人公司（以太坊、NEO、Icon、本體等），許多區塊鏈工具沒有從ICO中獲得資本。不成比例的資金分佈可能會減緩分佈式應用程序的總體開發和發布。
跨越鴻溝（Crossing the chasm），Geoffrey Moore創造的一個術語
總的來說，就全球採用而言，數字貨幣和區塊鏈的採用者仍在全球人口的2.5%的“創新者（Innovators）”範圍內。目前，全球大約有40億互聯網用戶，我們正在進入互聯網技術採用的“後期多數（Late Majority）”階段。下一個區塊鏈泡沫可能會帶來加密貨幣的“早期採用者（Early Adopters）”，而“鴻溝”可能會在大型面向消費者的公司（星巴克、Facebook、沃爾瑪等）和金融機構（富達、納斯達克、高盛等）的幫助下被最終跨越，這些公司已經開始探索機會，並擁有龐大的用戶基礎和對傳統玩家的影響力。
總之，我們還處於區塊鏈技術週期的早期，類似於互聯網革命期間的1994年，我們預計將出現更多的資本流向dapps 生態系統。此外，我們預計在未來幾年將有更多的區塊鏈項目和dapps被發布，其中一些將成為突破性的項目，逐步讓人們重拾信心。大型企業和金融機構已然開始越來越多地參與到這一新興領域，並有可能吸引大量的消費者和投資者，幫助彌合鴻溝，為大規模應用打開大門。我們仍然看好區塊鏈行業的發展，並對未來幾年感到無比興奮。
後記
後記
後記
英文版：Internet vs Blockchain Revolution Series
Introduction
Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. At 8 Decimal Capital, we are attempting to find similarities between the Internet and Blockchain revolutions, to help the community better understand technological life cycles and the future of the Blockchain industry. The Internet Revolution facts are based on the book “How the Internet Happened”, written by Brian McCullough. We will be releasing a series of articles over the next couple of weeks. Feel free to subscribe to our medium channel to stay up to date with our new posts, in which we will regularly share our findings and insights.
Article Series:
Internet vs Blockchain Revolution:
Early Successful Products (Part 1)
Origins of Disruptive Companies (Part 2)
Challenges in the Early Days (Part 3)
New Concepts, Valuations, and Timing (Part 4)
Are We in 1994? What to expect Next? (Part 5)
Are We in 1994? What to expect Next?(Part 5)
Author：Remi Gai @ 8 Decimal Capital
Edition:8 Decimal Research
This article is part ofthe Internet vs Blockchain Revolution Series. If you are interested in readingthe other articles, check out this post
Internet vs BlockchainRevolution: the evolution of the market, infrastructures, and companies
Are We in 1994?
Interestingly, when Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape , found himself in SiliconValley in early 1994, he thought that he was too late and missed the wholething as the short recession of 1990-1991 hit the technology industry hard. The current stage of blockchain and cryptocurrency development is most analogous tothe Internet Revolution in 1994, in which we have invented TCP/IP , HTML , and FTP ,and out of these will lead to the development of Netscape (1994) and much later Facebook (2004), and Airbnb (2008). Inblockchain, we are still inventing the building blocks and tools that allow us to distribute compute, preserve privacy, manage identity, and allow scalabilityetc. - the breakthrough dapps have yet appeared and will emerge in the coming years。
Perez Technological SurgeCycle from Technology Revolutions and Financial Capital
Despite thenegative press during this cryptocurrency market downturn, we are still earlyin the industry, and the bubble came prematurely due to: 1) The possibility ofearly liquidity with tokens despite the fact that a lot of the products andtechnologies were not released 2) The world is a lot more connected now, thanksto the Internet and social media, which could have accelerated the propagationof hype and formation of the bubble globally in a way that wasn’t possiblebefore. However from a technological perspective, we are still in the“gestation” phase in the PerezTechnological Surge Cycle, and the “installation” period has yet appearedbecause the previous market frenzy didn’t produce the outcomes that arenecessary to reach a turning point, which include “significant infrastructureimprovements and replicable business models that can serve as a roadmap during the deployment period” (check out this great post by Daniel Heyman).
The Growth of Internet users vs Growth Projection ofCryptocurrency Users in the World
The current user adoption of cryptocurrency is most similar to the adoption of the Internet in 1994, in which 24 years later, more than half of the population on the planetlive their daily life connected. We can expect a similar growth trajectory happen in the cryptocurrency space, perhaps at a faster rate since the world ismore connected now and there’s a general trend for new technologies to be adopted at a faster pace over the past centuries. For example, it took 46 yearsfor electricity, 35 years for telephone, 14 years for TV and 7 years for the Web to reach 25% of global market penetration. Therefore, we estimate that it could take another 15 years for cryptocurrency to reach the level of adoption that we have today with the Internet.
From a capitalperspective, the magnitude of the fundings invested during the Internet and Blockchain Revolutions is also very different, with $35.6B of venture capitalflowing into US Internet startups in 1999 (according to CNN Money) versus $1B of venture capital and $5B from ICOs goinginto global blockchain companies in 2017 (according to CBInsights ). At the peak of the Internet bubble in 2000, NASDAQ hada market cap of around $6.5T (inflation-adjusted) compared to a global marketcap of $800B in cryptocurrency in early 2018. Despite the fact that theInternet bubble only took place in the United States, while the cryptocurrencybubble was global, the former had a higher magnitude of capital investedbecause: 1) The Internet bull run was coupled with the existing long term stockbull run, in which Wall Street and the retail investors were already “warmedup” to jump into the new high returns dot com IPOs 2) A large amount of capital came from the accumulated wealth of baby boomers, who were around their 40s,managing their own retirement savings, and not familiar with economic crisis during their life. In contrast, the cryptocurrency investors were mostlydominated by Millenials who had less capital than the older generations(Millennials: 41%, Generation X: 24%, Baby Boomers: 18%). Additionally, the amount of capital invested in cryptocurrencies from institutional investors was relatively small and didn’t include the participation of countries with large populations, such as China and India.
Blockchain Revolution: theevolution of market, technologies, and companies
From these perspectives, we should expect another bubble or bubbles to appear in the yearsto come, as “successful and replicable business models” (Carlota Perez) will be found in decentralized applications, with alarger magnitude of institutional capital flowing into the industry, similar to what happened during the Internet Revolution in 1999-2000. We can expect the total market cap to eventually surpass $10T as it would combine protocol tokens(which capture value from dapps), equity tokens, utility tokens (if the modelstill proves to be viable in the future), and cryptocurrency (as a store of value - in which Bitcoin could reacha market of $7.8T if it reaches the equivalence of digital gold). Overall, we believe that we are still early in the technological cycle of Blockchain,similar to 1994 during the Internet Revolution and we should expect more marketcycle or cycles happen in the upcoming years.
What to Expect Next? :
Consensus 2018: Debate aroundthe adoption of decentralized applications between Joseph Lubin, Founder ofConSensys and Jimmy Song, Venture Partner at Blockchain Capital
With this current market downturn, the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries need some winninguse cases to re-instill confidence in the tech. After the Internet bubble had burst, people were gradually willing to believe in Internet again as a new waveof web startups started to find their footing, and the successes of Netflix and PayPal began to reduce some of the uncertainties and bad memories.In the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, we are still looking for successfuluse cases that can prove the value blockchain technology and decentralized applications to help the industry regain confidence. One of the prominent leader in the dapp development space and founder of Consensys, Joseph Lubin,recently claimed that “peeking into 2019, if you could see the landscapethrough my eyes, you’d have to wear shades”. Joseph Lubin takes a strong position that the future will be decentralized, while other figures such as JimmySong fromBlockchain Capital remain skeptical around the decentralized applications being used in theupcoming years. So far, the unicorns in the space are centralized companieswith traditional business models that benefit the cryptocurrency ecosystem itself (Coinbase, Binance, Circle and Bitmain). We have yet seen popular decentralized applications that are replacing traditional companies.
The previous and future phases of the BlockchainRevolution
We are currently transitioning into the fifth phase of the Blockchain evolution, in which theapplication of Blockchain across different industries, and Blockchain scalabilitysolutions are being explored. During the first phase, between 2009-2012,Bitcoin was released as a new type of digital currency and proof-of-concept,and the first users were composed of hardcore techies, cryptographers, andcypherpunks, who were mining and promoting cryptocurrency in various mailinglists and forums (bitcointalk.org, Reddit, etc.). During the second phase 2013-2014, with the increasing media coverage (although many of them were negative press), infrastructures such as exchanges, wallet, custody, andpayment solutions started to increase. The third phase 2015-2017 was more focused on real-world applications around financial use cases, such asremittance, micro-payments, cross border payments. With the emergence of smartcontracts withEthereum, we haveentered the fourth phase in which use cases beyond finance are being explored,and the new fundraising vehicle, ICO, became a killer application during thisphase. In the fifth phase, we are expecting the emergence of successful dapps and use cases, reinstalling confidence about the technology, and improvementsin blockchain scalability, privacy, data storage, interoperability, custody and user experience. Much later in the sixth phase, we are expecting to see dappsdisrupt and compete against centralized monopolies such as Dropbox, Facebook, Youtube, Airbnb, etc., allowing consumers toparticipate and gain more power in the digital economy.
On a side note,successful dapps could take some time to be rolled out because the decentralize dapplication ecosystem received a lot less capital than protocols. During theInternet bubble, most of the capital fundings went into building applications (Yahoo, Netscape, eBay, Amazon,etc.) while the protocoldevelopers (TCP/IP, HTML, FTP) were researchers who got paid almost nothing andnon-profit organizations often handled the subsequent iterations of the technology. However, in the blockchain space, we have witnessed the opposite in which the majority of the capital went into private companies that handled the protocol development (Ethereum, NEO,Icon, Ontology, etc.) and a lot of the blockchain tools did not have accessto capital from ICOs. The disproportional amount of funding could slow down the overall development and release of decentralized applications.
Crossing the Chasm, a termcreated by Geoffrey Moore
Overall, in termsof global adoption, the adopters of cryptocurrency and blockchain remain withinthe 2.5% “Innovators” bracket. To put into perspective, there are about 4Busers of the Internet, which in which we are entering the “Late Majority” phaseof the adoption. The next Blockchain bubble could bring in the “Early Adopters”of cryptocurrency and the “Chasm” could be crossed with the help of largeconsumer facing corporation (Starbucks,Facebook, Walmart, etc), and financial institutions (Fidelity, Nasdaq, Goldman Sachs, etc), who are already starting toexplore opportunities and have an existing large user base and an influentialreach to more traditional players. For instance, Facebook is currently working on asolution that could allow for stablecoins payment on its messaging app Whatsapp. The potential for the companyto make a move in financial services is very large, with more than 200 millionusers, and a large user base in India (which leads the world in remittances --people sent $69 billion home to India in 2017 according to the World Bank said this year). We have also seen recent announcements from Samsung and HTC, who arealready evolving their hardwares and preparing for the next wave of adoption by introducing built-in cryptocurrency wallets in the Galaxy S10, and Exodus.
Additionally, we have seen a shift of mentiality onthe institutional side, notably with the participation of endowments such Harvard, MIT, Yale and Dartmouth universities, who are starting to invest into the cryptocurrency space and recently, Cambridge Associates, a leading pension and endowment consultant advising on almost $400 billion capital, beginning to recommend their clientsto consider investing long term on the digital asset space. Moreover, a recent project Bakkt, created by the IntercontinentalExchange’s (ICE), an operator of several global exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange, just raisedover $182.5M in funding to enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell,store and spend digital assets. Such initiatives will further drive the globaladoption of cryptocurrency from the institutional side, helping bridge theadoption chasm.
In sum, we are still early in the technologicalcycle of Blockchain, similar to 1994 during the Internet Revolution, and weexpect more bubbles with bigger capital flowing towards the dapps ecosystem.Additionally, we expect to see more dapps being released in the upcoming years,in which some of them will become breakthrough projects, graduallyre-installing more confidence in the space. Large corporations and financial institutions are starting to get more and more involved in the space, and havethe potential of bringing a large crowd of consumers and investors, helping bridging the adoption chasm and opening doors for mass adoption. We remainbullish on the development of the industry and are excited to see what will come into the in the upcoming years. This concludes our article series about the Internet vs Blockchain revolutions and hope we provided you some valuable perspectives and insights.
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The Internet Revolution facts are based on thebook “How the Internet Happened”,written by Brian McCullough. MarkTwain once said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. We areattempting to draw some similarities between the Internet and Blockchain Revolutions,to help entrepreneurs and investors better understand technological lifecycles. Please leave your thoughts and comments below, and hope this articleseries will have provided some valuable perspectives about the Blockchain industry.
Sources:
“How theInternet Happened”, written by Brian McCullough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pijR8vrQphk
https://twitter.com/ethereumJoseph/status/1076171159853502464
https://medium.com/@mccannatron/12-graphs-that-show-just-how-early-the-cryptocurrency-market-is-653a4b8b2720
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/facebook-is-said-to-develop-stablecoin-for-whatsapp-transfers
https://money.cnn.com/2000/02/14/cashflow/survey/
https://diar.co/volume-2-issue-39/
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/blockchain-vc-ico-funding/
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-users-in-the-world-from-1993-to-2014-As-on-1-st-July-2014_fig1_292251717
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol2/kaa2/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/647374/worldwide-blockchain-wallet-users/
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/20/5624018/should-technology-define-generations
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18233131/samsung-galaxy-s10-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wallet-features
https://www.ccn.com/breaking-harvard-stanford-mit-have-all-invested-in-cryptocurrency-funds
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