About a year ago I started dabbling in cryptos on Coinbase. I forgot all about the $40 or so bucks I had in there until the boom in December, so I went to check on things and was floored. My measly $40 bucks was around 600 so naturally I started doing my research like everyone else and figured there had to be some new or undiscovered (by the masses) currencies that were set to explode eventually too. I made a pretty good bet on XRP, buying what I could at around 30 cents. Of course I wasted a bunch of money too, making small trades with high Bitcoin fees and even sending some Ethereum to a wrong address once. I'm not particularly ashamed of my screw ups because I'm sure I'm not alone.
Even though Bitcoin has gone from nothing to a high of almost 18k and just today in the news I saw "Wall Street Strategist Tom Lee says Bitcoin could double in 2018!", It still registers as the "friendster" of crypto currencies in my mind. Sure at some point, the whole distributed ledger concept will shake out a few winning currencies that become usable on an everyday basis and I'm excited to see what that looks like, but the mindset for every crypto currency trader i know is still "how much MONEY is my crypto worth". We're going to be on the "dollar" standard (or whatever currency you use in your home country) for a while. That's ok. We were still buying encyclopedias, overnighting contracts for signatures and hiding playboys under our mattresses for years after the first time we heard "chhhhh ping bong kchchchchchchch!!!!! You've got mail!" Now I can say "Alexa, where's the duck billed platypus from?", send a real estate contract from my phone, and... well, you get the idea.
The more I read about the distributed ledger concept, the more I believe that this going to change the way a lot of business is done. I mean, this website is a good example, but.... well, for example. If you buy a home, there's a company that has to research public records and put together a list of ways someone may come out of the woodwork and claim they actually have a right to your new house(various liens, possibly a forgery somewhere in the chain of ownership etc). If they don't find anything they will issue a warranty deed with a title insurance policy, where if something happens, they will make sure you don't end up paying a 30 year mortgage for a house that you can't live in. It's not like your car where if you pay it off and file the title, it's pretty much yours. If someone does work on your house and you don't pay them, they can put a lien on your house to collect, an equity line of credit puts a lien on your house, if you don't pay taxes on your land, the government puts a lien on your house and so on. Some of these liens get priority by their nature (you can probably guess the tax liens always comes first!) and some are first come first serve. It gets very complicated to research a home title some times. Sometimes they can't totally clear a title and you get what's called a quit claim deed where you basically say "here's some money, Ill take the house from you, but if anyone comes along with a claim to the house, I'll just have to deal with it."
As you probably know, Blockchain has the ability to log all these interactions on a distributed ledger and sort them out to where instead of paying thousands in title and closing fees for all that convoluted research and documentation, you just send the title to the house with your title key.
Truckers are now required to use a blockchain based mileage tracker that can't be cheated so they are less likely to drive sleepy (insiders I've spoken with say this is going to increase costs of good in the coming months, just a heads up)
Kodak is working on a blockchain for photographer's image rights.
I was reading recently about blockchain making traditional performance rights organizations like ascap and BMI obsolete and putting more money in the correct hands when a song is played on the radio, spotify etc.
When everything starts getting put on a distributed ledger, sorted out automatically, quicker and for far less money, there are going to be a lot of out of work paper pushers.
If done right, important medical records and billing could be far more accurate and efficient. (I say "if done right because you probably know what a shit show medical billing is)
My point is:
Just as a general rule, it's a good idea to be looking at the future for how technology could change your industry to make sure you don't become as obsolete as an AOL installation disk, and this is a big one.
I've got my currency holdings for sure. I expect a few of them to do really well, and I'm sure a couple of them are going to be farts in the wind some day. But even if bitcoin goes back to a few bucks a coin some day, I expect that it will have changed the way we store information for a long time to come and change the way we do business forever. Or at lest until we bomb ourselves back to the stone age.
Just my humble opinions.
@joesnothome Your reasoning is right on target here. This technology is going to change everything and Bitcoin is only the beginning!
Most people I overhear talking about crypto have the mindset of "how much money can I make?
In my mind these technologies are worth more than dollars. If someone buys bitcoin at $10k, sells it at $45k, but then bitcoin keeps rising and the dollar value keeps falling, have they really made money? What happens when we get the flippening with the dollar and no one wants dollars any more?
This is an exciting time where value is being exchanged for value in a more accurate way. I am eager to witness how this affects the music business.
What company is working on a blockchain for PROs? I have recently researched a startup called Sine which looks like they are trying to make a blockchain Spotify.
It'll definitely be interesting to see how people come to think about money if it ever comes to that. "How many satoshis for that doggy in the window?"
My prediction is that most of the crypto currencies will end up being for specific things. Like the value of a token that you use to transfer a home title will be decided by the market and still bought with fiat. The token will be held as investments and rise and fall roughly in tandem with the housing market. Then mortgage/title companies will no doubt try to buy them all up, etc.
https://ujomusic.com/ is one PRO interrupter I found. I think I came across another one, but it looked pretty early in development. I signed up for their newsletter yesterday, but haven't gotten an email from them yet.