Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Recently a group of archaeologists and anthropologists published a really interesting, comprehensive study of prehistoric civilizations and their sources in wealth.
It turns out that the most prosperous people and civilizations across ancient history– and I'm talking 10,000+ years ago before any recorded history– were those who harnessed new technologies to become more productive.
Back then it was all about agriculture.
And while it all seems so simple and obvious to us now, the use of large animals like horses and oxen to plow fields was considered game-changing technology for these prehistoric tribes.
The researchers surveyed data across a number of civilizations and found a much higher level of prosperity in places that used animals, versus places where farmers plowed their fields by hand.
The use of animals was a huge multiple of human labor, so farmers could extend their fields far beyond what was ever thought possible… and hence produce a massive surplus of food.
Moreover, they soon discovered that animal manure was an effective fertilizer that only enhanced crop yields.
More volume, more efficiency, higher yields… precisely the results that great technology produces.
Quite simply, the people and civilizations which embraced and used the technology prospered. Those who didn't got left behind.
We've seen this over and over again throughout history. The printing press. The advent of machinery in the Industrial Revolution. The emergence of the microchip. The Internet.
Now it's the technology behind cryptofinance which absolutely has revolutionary power to disrupt the existing financial system.
Think about it– every single financial function that banks currently monopolize, from deposits to lending to money transfers and currency exchange, can already be done better, faster, and cheaper outside of the banking system.
Banks take days to transfer funds. Blockchain transactions take an hour, maybe minutes… sometimes seconds.
Banks charge exorbitant fees to change from one currency into another, as if they have to put a ton of work into finding a buyer for their customers' euros and US dollars. Give me a break.
Online platforms can do it at practically no cost.
Banks also charge exorbitant fees to make loans; it's pretty standard for borrowers to pay at least a 1% to 3% origination fee up front, before you start paying interest.
Yet Peer-to-Peer sites squash these costs down to almost nothing.
Banks no longer have a competitive advantage in finance, and it's only going to get worse for them.
The technology is powerful and game-changing. And again, those who don't adapt will be left behind.
On the flip side, it's obvious that a lot of people have made a lot of money in cryptocurrency.
And that's great. Plenty of money has been made… and there may likely be plenty more money to be made speculating in the cryptocurrencies themselves.
But the big money has always been made by the folks who were on the forefront of developing the technology and applying it to bigger and bolder uses… NOT speculating on price volatility.
Back in ancient times, once people discovered that horses and oxen could multiply the labor of human beings, there were probably plenty of traders who made money speculating in animal prices.
But the real wealth was made by people who applied that new 'technology' to bigger problems and fundamentally changed the way their societies did business.
This will very much be the case with crypofinance.
The real prosperity isn't in chasing the Bitcoin price higher, and certainly not in the latest ICO craze.
The real prosperity will be for the visionaries, entrepreneurs, and investors who back them– those who develop this technology and apply it in ways that fundamentally change the way we engage in finance and commerce.
So if you feel like you 'missed' Bitcoin, don't worry: we're just at the beginning of this phase... you haven't missed anything.
In fact we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of those application opportunities.
And the wealth and value that will be created from them will absolutely dwarf all the gains made in crypto so far. We haven't seen anything yet.
And to continue learning how to safely grow your wealth, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.
technology has had its booms and its busts, it’s usually easiest to buy bitcoin with your conventional currency and then trade bitcoin for the cryptocurrency of your choice,but if it is to become a worldwide digital currency, its value will definitely be higher than it is today. Naturally, then, booms in those currencies are leading to booms in bitcoin itself,
Consider that crypto aren't enought developed to substitute traditional money - traditional sistem handles hundreds of milions of transaction/day, Visa can scale to at leask 50.00 transation for second. Bitcoin is near to 400.000/day and its is already near to colapse point. Other cryptos, more efficient, are still smaller in terms of market and acceptation....
By a market point of view,Wait and see. When Stock market bubble will touch his peak, when bond returns will decrease because of huge demand pumped by central banks... Then we will see a huge capital inflow into cryptos. Simply, big funds and investor will look for higher return to escape a frozen market.
This will be the time of BTC and crypto economy to moon and reach new unexpectable milestones.
That is why STEEM is here....a viable blockchain with a business model to revolutionize social media. This blockchain is going to be huge and we are in at the early stages.
So yes there will be a ton more wealth created in cryptocurrencies...and that isnt speculation.
I tell people this all the time. We're at the beginning of something amazing. The entire financial system is going to take a HIT. We're going to see a new generation of people enter what many Americans consider "wealthy".
Let's look at the industrial revolution. Countries that embraced the new technologies from the revolution flourished economically. We saw entrepreneurs create dynasties of wealth.
We will see the same with blockchain.
Excellent post.
I think Bitcoin and Litecoin and a lot of other altcoins are great, but I also believe probably 75% or more of the current altcoins out there will be gone within the next 5 years. We likely haven't seen or imagined the crypto/ blockchain based application that will turn into the next google or amazon or facebook!
Ever heard of EOS. Dash is moving towards VISA level scaling and Bitshares can already handle the volume of NASDAQ. We already have the killer apps. We just need to adopt and use them.
Yea, everything is booming right now and probably will continue to do so for awhile... But ever heard of pets.com or books-a-million or inktomi or infospace etc etc etc? No? Right because they all had massive market capitalizations about 16-18 years ago and went down with the dotcom bubble.
I believe cryptocurrencies and the blockchains behind them will change the world, but being realistic many of the current hot coins and tokens will likely be little more than the kindling that gets the bonfire going.
Don't get me wrong I'll try my hand at making money off of as many of them as I can, I just don't think most of them will be around 5-10 years from now just because they're booming right now.
Insightful post. Yes , leaving aside the speculators driving cryptos there seems to be massive potential for blockchain in finance alone and arguable in many more domains
The future looks promising. Very excited to see what is next.
By a market point of view, wait and see. When Stock market bubble will touch his peak, when bond returns will decrease because of huge demand pumped by central banks... Then we will see a huge capital inflow into cryptos. Simply, big funds and investor will look for higher return to escape a frozen market.
This will be the time of BTC and crypto economy to moon and reach new unexpectable milestones.
or maybe it will be the other way around and BTC will be a bubble and people will end up selling it and put the money back in stocks.. but lets see what happens. nobody really knows whats going on atm. its quite exiting.
I think it's the best form of investment today, the Bitcoin...
May i translete this post in to my language country too ???
I missed bitcoin not because I don't know about it years ago but because I lack funds haha.
Thank you for saying "we haven't missed anything" it made me think that we are still in steemit beta right?
I agree, I'm not sure if BTC as we know it now will be the dominant chain of the future but it certainly holds promise. I think so long as BTC holds itself as a store of value, and gives up the dream of becoming a payment method for everyday things we should be fine. The main issue now will be the profitability of the miners. Without the appreciation of BTC and the fewer and fewer block rewards, their business model does not work.. I see a great many of them moving to BCH etc.. It will be interesting to see if BTC can actually keep its spot at the top..
DAILY DETAILED MARKET ANALYSIS, GIVE IT A READ, MAKE SOME MONEY OR SAVE SOME...
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@pawsdog/12-12-2017-the-market-view-and-trading-outlook
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@pawsdog/12-9-2017-the-market-view-and-trading-outlook
Thanks for your cryto news @zer0hedge
I also think so.
Thank you for useful information like always @zerOhedge