互联网革命vs区块链革命系列
前言
马克吐温曾经说过：“历史不会重演，但它确实会押韵”。1994年，《连线》杂志的主编凯文·凯利著就了《失控：机器、社会与经济的新生物学》一书，这是关于社会进化、特别是互联网发展的“先知预言”，后来成为《黑客帝国》主演们的必读物。25年后，八维资本试图捕捉互联网和区块链革命之间的相似之处，以帮助人们更好地了解技术生命周期和区块链行业的未来。我们将在接下来的几周内发布一系列文章，欢迎订阅我们的微信公众号。
文章系列，点击查看：
互联网与区块链革命之：
part5:我们是在1994年吗？ 下一步该怎么办？
我们是在1994年吗？下一步该怎么办？（part5）
作者：Remi Gai @ 八维资本
编译：八维研究院
八维研究院原创，转载请注明出处
本文是整个系列的第五部分：
互联网与区块链革命：市场、基础设施和公司的演变
我们正处于1994年吗？
有趣的是，1994年初期，当时 Netscape 的创始人 MarcAndreessen 正身处硅谷，他认为他已经为时已晚，完全的错过了互联网的机会，因为1990-1991的短暂衰退严重打击了科技行业。区块链和数字货币当前所处的阶段最类似于1994年的互联网革命，那年我们发明了 TCP / IP ，HTML 和 FTP ，这些技术对 Netscape（1994）的诞生以及后来的 Facebook（2004）和 Airbnb（2008）的出现有着深远影响。
在区块链中，我们仍然在发明模块和工具，这些模块和工具允许我们进行分布式计算、保护隐私、管理身份 、提高可扩展性等 - 突破性的 dapps 已经出现并将在未来几年出现。
技术革命和金融资本的Perez技术浪潮周期
尽管在数字货币熊市期间出现了很多负面新闻，但要意识到我们仍然处于行业初期，而泡沫过早出现的原因主要有以下几点：1）尽管很多产品和技术尚未发布，但通过首次代币发行获得了流动性；2）由于互联网和社交媒体，现在世界变得更加紧密 ，这可能加速了炒作的传播，并以前所未有的方式在全球形成泡沫。 但是从技术的角度来看，我们仍然处在Perez技术浪涌周期的“酝酿”（Gestation）阶段 ，“应用”（Installation）阶段还没有出现。由于此前的市场狂潮并没有推动技术进入一个重要的转折点，这个转折点就包括“基础设施得到显著改善，具备可复制的商业模式，为技术的应用提供可行的路径”（观点来自 Daniel Heyman 的文章 ）。
互联网用户的增长 vs 数字货币用户的增长（预测）
目前用户对数字货币的采用与1994年互联网的采用情况极为相似，在1994年的24年之后，地球上超过一半的人口通过互联网生活。我们可以预计，数字货币领域也会出现类似的增长轨迹，可能会以更快的速度发展，因为世界现在更加紧密相连，而且在过去几个世纪里，新技术的采用速度将更快。例如，为了达到对全球市场25%的渗透率，电力花了46年，电话花了35年，电视花了14年，网络花了7年。因此，我们估计，数字货币可能需要15年时间达到我们今天使用互联网的水平。
从资本角度来看，互联网和区块链革命期间投资的资金规模也大不相同，1999年美国互联网创业公司流入的风险资本为356亿美元（根据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN Money）），而从2017年ICO进入全球区块链公司的风险资本为10亿美元，（根据CBInsights）。 在2000年互联网泡沫的高峰期，纳斯达克的市值约为6.5万亿美元（通货膨胀调整后），而2018年初加密货币的全球市值为8000亿美元。
互联网泡沫只发生过在美国，虽然数字货币泡沫是全球性的，但互联网的资本投资规模更大， 这是因为：1）互联网牛市与已有的长期股票牛市相互促进，华尔街和散户投资者已经做好了“热身”，进入新的高回报的IPO热潮 。2）大量资金来自婴儿潮一代的累积财富。这代人大约40多岁，正在管理自己的退休储蓄金，而且对经济危机没有太多记忆。
相比之下，数字货币投资者主要由千禧一代主导，其资本少于老一代（千禧一代：41％，X一代：24％，婴儿潮一代：18％）。 此外，机构投资者对加密货币投入的资本金额相对较小，中国和印度等人口众多的国家的机构投资者都没有参与。
区块链革命：市场、技术和公司的演变
从这些角度来看，我们应该预计未来几年会出现另一个泡沫或泡沫，因为“成功和可复制的商业模式”（Carlota Perez）将在分散的dapp应用中被发觉，更大规模的机构资本流入行业， 类似于1999－2000年互联网革命期间发生的事情。 我们可以预期数字货币市场的总市值最终将超过10万亿美金，因为它将结合效用通证（从 dapps 中获取价值），证券型通证，公用事业通证（如果该模型在未来仍被证明是可行的），以及数字货币（如果作为数字黄金的等价物，比特币可以达到1.8万亿美金）。 总体而言，我们认为我们仍然处于区块链技术周期的早期阶段，类似于1994年互联网革命时期，我们预计未来几年会出现更多的市场行情。
接下来会发生什么？
Consensys创始人Joseph Lubin和 Blockchain Capital合伙人Jimmy Song在讨论关于采用dapp程序
在当前的市场低迷时期，区块链和数字资产行业需要一些成功的案例来让人们重拾对技术的信心。 在互联网泡沫破灭后，人们逐渐愿意再次相信互联网，这是因为新一波的互联网初创公司开始找到自己的立足点，Netflix 和 PayPal 的成功 减少了一些不确定性，缓和了泡沫对人们的打击。
在区块链世界中，我们仍在寻找可以证明价值区块链技术和分布式应用程序（dapp）的成功用例，以帮助行业恢复信心。Consensys 的创始人，也是dapp领域的卓越领军人物 Joseph Lubin 日前声称，“如果你可以通过我的眼睛看到2019年的风景，你必须戴上墨镜遮挡它的光芒”。 Ĵoseph Lubin 非常强势的宣称，未来将是分布式的，而其他人物，如 Jimmy Song 从 Blockchain Capital 仍然对今后几年内分布式应用的发展抱着怀疑态度。
到目前为止，区块链产业里的独角兽仍是那些具有传统商业模式中心化治理的公司（Coinbase，币安，Circle 和比特大陆等），传统的公司治理模式仍有利于加密货币生态系统的发展 。 但我们也已经看到比特币、以太坊这样的分布式公司和DAO组织以及dapp正在取代传统的中心化公司。
区块链革命的上一阶段和未来阶段
我们目前正在过渡到区块链发展的第五阶段，在这一阶段，人们正在探索跨行业的区块链应用以及区块链可扩展性解决方案。
在第一阶段，在2009-2012年期间，比特币作为一种新型的数字货币和概念验证产品被发明，第一批用户由核心技术人员和密码学专家组成，他们在各种论坛（ bitcointalk.org、reddit 等）中挖掘和推广加密货币。
在2013-2014年的第二阶段，随着媒体报道的增加（尽管许多媒体都是负面新闻），诸如交易所、钱包、托管和支付解决方案等基础设施开始增加。2015-2017年的第三阶段更侧重于围绕金融用例的真实应用，如汇款、小额支付、跨境支付。随着与以太坊的智能合约的出现，我们进入了第四个阶段，在这个阶段，我们正在探索金融以外的用例，新的筹资工具 ICO 在这个阶段成为了一个杀手级的应用程序。
在第五阶段，我们预计将出现成功的dapp和资产上链案例，让人们重拾对该技术的信心，并改进区块链的可扩展性、隐私、数据存储、互操作性、托管和应用的用户体验。在第六阶段的后期，我们预计将看到 dapps 的颠覆式发展，与分布式应用和 Dropbox、Facebook、YouTube、Airbnb 等集中式互联网垄断企业形成白热化竞争，消费者能够深度参与其中并在数字经济中获得更多的权力。
另一方面，成功的 DAPP 可能需要一段时间才能推出，因为分布式应用程序生态系统收到的资金比协议曾少得多。在互联网泡沫时期，大部分资金投入到了构建应用程序（雅虎、eBay、亚马逊等），而协议开发者（TCP/IP、HTML、FTP）则是研究人员，他们几乎没有得到任何报酬，而非营利组织则经常处理这项技术的后续迭代。然而，在区块链领域，我们看到了相反的情况，大部分资本流入了处理协议开发的私人公司（以太坊、NEO、Icon、本体等），许多区块链工具没有从ICO中获得资本。不成比例的资金分布可能会减缓分布式应用程序的总体开发和发布。
跨越鸿沟（Crossing the chasm），Geoffrey Moore创造的一个术语
总的来说，就全球采用而言，数字货币和区块链的采用者仍在全球人口的2.5%的“创新者（Innovators）”范围内。目前，全球大约有40亿互联网用户，我们正在进入互联网技术采用的“后期多数（Late Majority）”阶段。下一个区块链泡沫可能会带来加密货币的“早期采用者（Early Adopters）”，而“鸿沟”可能会在大型面向消费者的公司（星巴克、Facebook、沃尔玛等）和金融机构（富达、纳斯达克、高盛等）的帮助下被最终跨越，这些公司已经开始探索机会，并拥有庞大的用户基础和对传统玩家的影响力。
例如，Facebook目前正在开发一种解决方案，允许在其消息应用程序 WhatsApp 上支付稳定币费用。该公司在金融服务领域的发展潜力很大，拥有超过2亿用户，在印度拥有庞大的用户群（在汇款方面居世界领先地位——据世界银行（World Bank）今年称，2017年，人们将690亿美元汇回印度）。我们还看到了三星和HTC最近发布的公告，他们已经在开发硬件，并通过在 Galaxy S10中引入内置加密货币钱包，为下一波采用做准备。
此外，我们还看到了机构方面的心态转变，特别是哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、耶鲁大学和达特茅斯大学等学校基金会的参与，这些机构正开始投资数字货币领域。最近，Cambridge Associates，一家领先的养老金和捐赠基金管理公司（为近4000亿美元的资本提供咨询服务），已经开始建议客户考虑长期投资数字资产。此外，最近由洲际交易所（ICE）创建的一个项目Bakkt，刚刚筹集了超过1.825亿美元的资金，使消费者和机构能够购买、出售、存储和消费数字资产。这些举措将进一步推动全球从机构层面采用加密货币，帮助弥合鸿沟。
总之，我们还处于区块链技术周期的早期，类似于互联网革命期间的1994年，我们预计将出现更多的资本流向 dapps 生态系统。此外，我们预计在未来几年将有更多的区块链项目和dapps被发布 ，其中一些将成为突破性的项目，逐步让人们重拾信心。大型企业和金融机构已然开始越来越多地参与到这一新兴领域，并有可能吸引大量的消费者和投资者，帮助弥合鸿沟，为大规模应用打开大门。我们仍然看好区块链行业的发展，并对未来几年感到无比兴奋。
这是八维资本互联网与区块链革命的系列文章的终篇，希望我们为您提供了一些有价值的观点和见解。
后记
马克吐温曾经说过“历史不会重演，但它确实会押韵”。 我们试图在互联网和区块链革命之间勾勒出一些相似之处，以帮助公众更好地了解技术的生命周期。请留下您的想法和评论，希望本系列文章将为行业提供一些有价值的观点。
英文版：Internet vs Blockchain Revolution Series
Introduction
Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. At 8 Decimal Capital, we are attempting to find similarities between the Internet and Blockchain revolutions, to help the community better understand technological life cycles and the future of the Blockchain industry. The Internet Revolution facts are based on the book “How the Internet Happened”, written by Brian McCullough. We will be releasing a series of articles over the next couple of weeks. Feel free to subscribe to our medium channel to stay up to date with our new posts, in which we will regularly share our findings and insights.
Article Series:
Internet vs Blockchain Revolution:
Early Successful Products (Part 1)
Origins of Disruptive Companies (Part 2)
Challenges in the Early Days (Part 3)
New Concepts, Valuations, and Timing (Part 4)
Are We in 1994? What to expect Next? (Part 5)
Are We in 1994? What to expect Next?(Part 5)
Author：Remi Gai @ 8 Decimal Capital
Edition:8 Decimal Research
This article is part ofthe Internet vs Blockchain Revolution Series. If you are interested in readingthe other articles, check out this post
Internet vs BlockchainRevolution: the evolution of the market, infrastructures, and companies
Are We in 1994?
Interestingly, when Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape , found himself in SiliconValley in early 1994, he thought that he was too late and missed the wholething as the short recession of 1990-1991 hit the technology industry hard. The current stage of blockchain and cryptocurrency development is most analogous tothe Internet Revolution in 1994, in which we have invented TCP/IP , HTML , and FTP ,and out of these will lead to the development of Netscape (1994) and much later Facebook (2004), and Airbnb (2008). Inblockchain, we are still inventing the building blocks and tools that allow us to distribute compute, preserve privacy, manage identity, and allow scalabilityetc. - the breakthrough dapps have yet appeared and will emerge in the coming years。
Perez Technological SurgeCycle from Technology Revolutions and Financial Capital
Despite thenegative press during this cryptocurrency market downturn, we are still earlyin the industry, and the bubble came prematurely due to: 1) The possibility ofearly liquidity with tokens despite the fact that a lot of the products andtechnologies were not released 2) The world is a lot more connected now, thanksto the Internet and social media, which could have accelerated the propagationof hype and formation of the bubble globally in a way that wasn’t possiblebefore. However from a technological perspective, we are still in the“gestation” phase in the PerezTechnological Surge Cycle, and the “installation” period has yet appearedbecause the previous market frenzy didn’t produce the outcomes that arenecessary to reach a turning point, which include “significant infrastructureimprovements and replicable business models that can serve as a roadmap during the deployment period” (check out this great post by Daniel Heyman).
The Growth of Internet users vs Growth Projection ofCryptocurrency Users in the World
The current user adoption of cryptocurrency is most similar to the adoption of the Internet in 1994, in which 24 years later, more than half of the population on the planetlive their daily life connected. We can expect a similar growth trajectory happen in the cryptocurrency space, perhaps at a faster rate since the world ismore connected now and there’s a general trend for new technologies to be adopted at a faster pace over the past centuries. For example, it took 46 yearsfor electricity, 35 years for telephone, 14 years for TV and 7 years for the Web to reach 25% of global market penetration. Therefore, we estimate that it could take another 15 years for cryptocurrency to reach the level of adoption that we have today with the Internet.
From a capitalperspective, the magnitude of the fundings invested during the Internet and Blockchain Revolutions is also very different, with $35.6B of venture capitalflowing into US Internet startups in 1999 (according to CNN Money) versus $1B of venture capital and $5B from ICOs goinginto global blockchain companies in 2017 (according to CBInsights ). At the peak of the Internet bubble in 2000, NASDAQ hada market cap of around $6.5T (inflation-adjusted) compared to a global marketcap of $800B in cryptocurrency in early 2018. Despite the fact that theInternet bubble only took place in the United States, while the cryptocurrencybubble was global, the former had a higher magnitude of capital investedbecause: 1) The Internet bull run was coupled with the existing long term stockbull run, in which Wall Street and the retail investors were already “warmedup” to jump into the new high returns dot com IPOs 2) A large amount of capital came from the accumulated wealth of baby boomers, who were around their 40s,managing their own retirement savings, and not familiar with economic crisis during their life. In contrast, the cryptocurrency investors were mostlydominated by Millenials who had less capital than the older generations(Millennials: 41%, Generation X: 24%, Baby Boomers: 18%). Additionally, the amount of capital invested in cryptocurrencies from institutional investors was relatively small and didn’t include the participation of countries with large populations, such as China and India.
Blockchain Revolution: theevolution of market, technologies, and companies
From these perspectives, we should expect another bubble or bubbles to appear in the yearsto come, as “successful and replicable business models” (Carlota Perez) will be found in decentralized applications, with alarger magnitude of institutional capital flowing into the industry, similar to what happened during the Internet Revolution in 1999-2000. We can expect the total market cap to eventually surpass $10T as it would combine protocol tokens(which capture value from dapps), equity tokens, utility tokens (if the modelstill proves to be viable in the future), and cryptocurrency (as a store of value - in which Bitcoin could reacha market of $7.8T if it reaches the equivalence of digital gold). Overall, we believe that we are still early in the technological cycle of Blockchain,similar to 1994 during the Internet Revolution and we should expect more marketcycle or cycles happen in the upcoming years.
What to Expect Next? :
Consensus 2018: Debate aroundthe adoption of decentralized applications between Joseph Lubin, Founder ofConSensys and Jimmy Song, Venture Partner at Blockchain Capital
With this current market downturn, the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries need some winninguse cases to re-instill confidence in the tech. After the Internet bubble had burst, people were gradually willing to believe in Internet again as a new waveof web startups started to find their footing, and the successes of Netflix and PayPal began to reduce some of the uncertainties and bad memories.In the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, we are still looking for successfuluse cases that can prove the value blockchain technology and decentralized applications to help the industry regain confidence. One of the prominent leader in the dapp development space and founder of Consensys, Joseph Lubin,recently claimed that “peeking into 2019, if you could see the landscapethrough my eyes, you’d have to wear shades”. Joseph Lubin takes a strong position that the future will be decentralized, while other figures such as JimmySong fromBlockchain Capital remain skeptical around the decentralized applications being used in theupcoming years. So far, the unicorns in the space are centralized companieswith traditional business models that benefit the cryptocurrency ecosystem itself (Coinbase, Binance, Circle and Bitmain). We have yet seen popular decentralized applications that are replacing traditional companies.
The previous and future phases of the BlockchainRevolution
We are currently transitioning into the fifth phase of the Blockchain evolution, in which theapplication of Blockchain across different industries, and Blockchain scalabilitysolutions are being explored. During the first phase, between 2009-2012,Bitcoin was released as a new type of digital currency and proof-of-concept,and the first users were composed of hardcore techies, cryptographers, andcypherpunks, who were mining and promoting cryptocurrency in various mailinglists and forums (bitcointalk.org, Reddit, etc.). During the second phase 2013-2014, with the increasing media coverage (although many of them were negative press), infrastructures such as exchanges, wallet, custody, andpayment solutions started to increase. The third phase 2015-2017 was more focused on real-world applications around financial use cases, such asremittance, micro-payments, cross border payments. With the emergence of smartcontracts withEthereum, we haveentered the fourth phase in which use cases beyond finance are being explored,and the new fundraising vehicle, ICO, became a killer application during thisphase. In the fifth phase, we are expecting the emergence of successful dapps and use cases, reinstalling confidence about the technology, and improvementsin blockchain scalability, privacy, data storage, interoperability, custody and user experience. Much later in the sixth phase, we are expecting to see dappsdisrupt and compete against centralized monopolies such as Dropbox, Facebook, Youtube, Airbnb, etc., allowing consumers toparticipate and gain more power in the digital economy.
On a side note,successful dapps could take some time to be rolled out because the decentralize dapplication ecosystem received a lot less capital than protocols. During theInternet bubble, most of the capital fundings went into building applications (Yahoo, Netscape, eBay, Amazon,etc.) while the protocoldevelopers (TCP/IP, HTML, FTP) were researchers who got paid almost nothing andnon-profit organizations often handled the subsequent iterations of the technology. However, in the blockchain space, we have witnessed the opposite in which the majority of the capital went into private companies that handled the protocol development (Ethereum, NEO,Icon, Ontology, etc.) and a lot of the blockchain tools did not have accessto capital from ICOs. The disproportional amount of funding could slow down the overall development and release of decentralized applications.
Crossing the Chasm, a termcreated by Geoffrey Moore
Overall, in termsof global adoption, the adopters of cryptocurrency and blockchain remain withinthe 2.5% “Innovators” bracket. To put into perspective, there are about 4Busers of the Internet, which in which we are entering the “Late Majority” phaseof the adoption. The next Blockchain bubble could bring in the “Early Adopters”of cryptocurrency and the “Chasm” could be crossed with the help of largeconsumer facing corporation (Starbucks,Facebook, Walmart, etc), and financial institutions (Fidelity, Nasdaq, Goldman Sachs, etc), who are already starting toexplore opportunities and have an existing large user base and an influentialreach to more traditional players. For instance, Facebook is currently working on asolution that could allow for stablecoins payment on its messaging app Whatsapp. The potential for the companyto make a move in financial services is very large, with more than 200 millionusers, and a large user base in India (which leads the world in remittances --people sent $69 billion home to India in 2017 according to the World Bank said this year). We have also seen recent announcements from Samsung and HTC, who arealready evolving their hardwares and preparing for the next wave of adoption by introducing built-in cryptocurrency wallets in the Galaxy S10, and Exodus.
Additionally, we have seen a shift of mentiality onthe institutional side, notably with the participation of endowments such Harvard, MIT, Yale and Dartmouth universities, who are starting to invest into the cryptocurrency space and recently, Cambridge Associates, a leading pension and endowment consultant advising on almost $400 billion capital, beginning to recommend their clientsto consider investing long term on the digital asset space. Moreover, a recent project Bakkt, created by the IntercontinentalExchange’s (ICE), an operator of several global exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange, just raisedover $182.5M in funding to enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell,store and spend digital assets. Such initiatives will further drive the globaladoption of cryptocurrency from the institutional side, helping bridge theadoption chasm.
In sum, we are still early in the technologicalcycle of Blockchain, similar to 1994 during the Internet Revolution, and weexpect more bubbles with bigger capital flowing towards the dapps ecosystem.Additionally, we expect to see more dapps being released in the upcoming years,in which some of them will become breakthrough projects, graduallyre-installing more confidence in the space. Large corporations and financial institutions are starting to get more and more involved in the space, and havethe potential of bringing a large crowd of consumers and investors, helping bridging the adoption chasm and opening doors for mass adoption. We remainbullish on the development of the industry and are excited to see what will come into the in the upcoming years. This concludes our article series about the Internet vs Blockchain revolutions and hope we provided you some valuable perspectives and insights.
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The Internet Revolution facts are based on thebook “How the Internet Happened”,written by Brian McCullough. MarkTwain once said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. We areattempting to draw some similarities between the Internet and Blockchain Revolutions,to help entrepreneurs and investors better understand technological lifecycles. Please leave your thoughts and comments below, and hope this articleseries will have provided some valuable perspectives about the Blockchain industry.
Sources:
“How theInternet Happened”, written by Brian McCullough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pijR8vrQphk
https://twitter.com/ethereumJoseph/status/1076171159853502464
https://medium.com/@mccannatron/12-graphs-that-show-just-how-early-the-cryptocurrency-market-is-653a4b8b2720
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/facebook-is-said-to-develop-stablecoin-for-whatsapp-transfers
https://money.cnn.com/2000/02/14/cashflow/survey/
https://diar.co/volume-2-issue-39/
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/blockchain-vc-ico-funding/
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-users-in-the-world-from-1993-to-2014-As-on-1-st-July-2014_fig1_292251717
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol2/kaa2/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/647374/worldwide-blockchain-wallet-users/
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/20/5624018/should-technology-define-generations
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18233131/samsung-galaxy-s10-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wallet-features
https://www.ccn.com/breaking-harvard-stanford-mit-have-all-invested-in-cryptocurrency-funds
