Joseph Lubin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, recently attended SXSW and had a few insights to share on Ethereum, Bitcoin, his firm ConsenSys, and the role of blockchain in the global economy.
Here are a few of the comments and insights that Lubin shared on stage at SXSW.
It is Still Early
“There aren’t a lot of normal people who are using these systems right now, but there weren’t a lot of normal people firing email around in 1983. As we and others build tokenization into our company [Consensys], and we are experimenting with something called meshcoin, and offer tools to enable others, small startups or similarly-minded entities, we think it is going to catch on.”
This comment indicates that we are still in the very early stages of harnessing the power of blockchain technology. Understanding how to implement crypto economics and properly incentivize participants within the system make take some time. But once the stakeholders figure out how to conduct value transfer in an efficient and novel manner that applies to the mainstream, the modality and technology may see widespread adoption.
The Economy Will Grow and Blockchain Will Grow With it
2. “Currently, the economy is about 80 trillion dollars, when blockchain fully ramifies in 10, 20, years, the economy will be ten times larger and blockchain will be a significant part of that.”
This insight will certainly ring true if the blockchain is able to take over each component of the different asset classes present within the world today.
We are already seeing the rise of blockchain and the use of tokenization in finance with cryptocurrencies, potential central bank currencies and social media currencies, stock offerings through platforms such as tZero, real estate offerings, land deeds, supply chain, shipping, food, and other segments of the economy.
The blockchain industry is just starting to form and show value. While everyone is certainly rooting for the potential of the blockchain, there are currently many different challenges which need to be addressed. These issues include, performance, interoperability, lack of simplicity, and clarity in regulation.
Reimagining the Trust Infrastructure
3. “We’ve got to a point where there is so much debt in the system and not enough money to pay off that debt.”
Speaking on the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Joseph Lubin talked about how he got involved in the cryptocurrency sector and how collective disillusionment in the current fiat system after the crisis was a catalyst for the release of an open financial system and a better trust infrastructure.
According to the entrepreneur, Bitcoin helped to show the way in regard to what could be possible in enabling “shared sources of truth, fair playing fields for collaboration, and the ability to move from from siloed systems to collaboration as a foundational component of the IT infrastructure”.
