Infrastructure is essential as it enables applications to be built on top of it, and I see this as the first required layer in this new era. Among the core cryptocurrencies/platforms, we should pick those with true technical innovations, or the ones promoting solid concepts of decentralized economy and governance.
As in early 2018, I believe we are still in an early foundational phase of the future we all imagine with crypto. This means that infrastructure needs to be built and improved first, before the applications, or dapps, can become effective for the mainstream. While many applications are already being developed, we are seeing a pickup again on the infrastructure side, with an increased awareness of how essential that is.
It is likely that the Bitcoin forks and limitations, as well as the Ethereum challenges experienced in 2017 and onwards, helped in this awareness. It’s a good thing. Now we are at a stage where we see corporates and startups collaborating on many experiments, along with the guidance of governments, lawyers, hedge funds, and most of the required actors to produce a mature outcome at the end. I remember back in the days of 2013 to 2015, hearing of one big company just mentioning blockchain or bitcoin was a big deal. In 2016, a single corporate partnership or government mention was a big deal. Let us realize and pause on the progress for a moment.
IBM with Stellar. SAP with hyperledger on Ariba. Banks with Ripple, and Ripple added to Hyperledger BC. Devices companies with IOTA. Bitcoin and Lightning Network. EEA growing. Plasma et Plasma Cash. OmiseGo and Thai government, plus plasma implementation soon. Coinbase and ERC20 tokens. G20 positive. More and better decentralized exchanges. Modum and SAP, plus 43 pharmaceutical corporates. Cobinhood. NEO & Qtum tokens spreading. Skycoin innovations. Tau agoras research and implementation progress. Many other events are just as big or bigger, this is far from an exhaustive list.
Those are all the great things going on that will make tomorrow a better day. Help or bet not.