In the interview I had yesterday with a lead UX of a bank, I asked him, “what about crypto?”
He told me that a bank faced security issues when it came to crypto, but that they were looking into it.

The rise of cryptocurrency feels like the coming of the internet in the 1990’s. here in Europe at least, it wasn’t until the mid 1990’s that it got a bit of traction in the public media. It was still a novelty. For innovators and early adopters. I was so enthusiastic about the internet and its possibilities that my partner and I tried to sell it to companies. Like Alexander Graham Bell trying to sell the idea of the telephone to Western Union, we got waved away. Not one person believed it would serve any purpose in the future. Zero. Zip.

Now look at it.

When I look at cryptocurrency I see blockchain. I see a similar mechanism to what I did in the 1990’s. A bold statement I know.

Blockchain’s vehicle to adoption is cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is what steals the headlines. In 2015 I bought my first few Bitcoins at 210 euros a piece. I gave one to my son who was 16 at the time and told him to play with it. “Use this fake stock to understand how the real stock market works”, I told him.

Spending that amount of cash on something that could at best be described as “Monopoly money” felt like a reckless thing to do. And then I went and bought more.

* * *

Very few people I knew owned bitcoin or had even heard of it. Let alone Ether or some obvious copy called Litecoin. Very few people understood what it was. What purpose it served. Would serve.

But very few people understand the power of efficiency. What blockchain does is to take out the middleman. Take away human decision making. It’s a logical step after the adoption of the internet. Satoshi Nakamoto is today’s Nicola Tesla. His/their white paper is genius.

To the non-believers at the time I said “don’t buy a bitcoin for yourself, buy one for your children”. But I only got binary responses. Just like websites in the 1990’s, it was a hard sell. And I wasn’t even making money off of it.

Now look at it. That 210 euro bitcoin turned into several tens of thousands of euros.

I wish I had never sold it.

I wish I had bought more.

I wish I had listened a lot more to the feeling in my gut and ignored the so-called facts.

Oh irony