Why Cryptocurrency Will Not Die

And the group that will power the next push will surprise Wall Street

Wall Street and the so-called professionals like Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffet keep saying things that present to the mainstream that crypto is a bubble, a fad, a sham etc. And the more they keep that path, the more crypto will grow. The reason is that these guys live in their own bubble and have no idea of what’s going on the ground. If they were to venture out and go to emerging markets, they’d see how wrong they are.

I was just in Ho Chi Minh City for Vietnam Blockchain Week to sit on a number of panels. As I showed up in the morning, there was a huge jam of people waiting to get in. Taxis and Uber rides kept pulling up with attendees. Then I walked upstairs and the place was already crowded and full at 9am. There were multiple rooms and translation headsets for all the Vietnamese to understand what the English speaking presenters were saying. It was all professionally done and set to inspire. I thought to myself,

“This is one city in Asia. Look at all these people here to learn about blockchain and crypto.”

This further confirmed a thesis I have been refining in the last stages of our ICO up to now. The first wave of crypto buyers were the early enthusiasts who bought early, rode through the down periods (HODL!), got the gains and with their funds are powering our current wave of blockchain projects. But the next wave are the people coming in from emerging markets. I learned this as we built up our community and I engaged with them. Our KYC phase showed all the regions and I saw the trend of people from developing countries registering.

Which all makes sense. These are groups that were kept out of real estate, are not able to buy stocks, and putting the money in mutual funds offer little return to them. But history has shown that people in emerging markets are more entrepreneurial and will find their own path. Now they see crypto as their way to improve their standard of living. The general public talks about the developed Asian countries going in — China, Japan, Korea, Singapore; but its now starting to gain steam in Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and as I just saw in Vietnam.

Going to these countries and their cities I get to speak to them firsthand and many come up and say they love our project and are big fans. Furthermore they ask what they can do to help spread the word. I learned that they are not just token buyers, they feel part of something that can be big. And this is the same for all token buyers regardless of where they are from. They are all part of the crypto-community and years from now want to say they helped build companies like Bluzelle up.

Funny enough while on my flight back from Ho Chi Minh City, I was listening to the Big Think Podcast which had world renown physicist Michio Kaku as a guest. He brought up that wealth generation comes from science and technology. We just had the third wave of technology led by the Internet. But in the United States only 30% of the people had their lives improved. The other 70% stayed the same or went back. So there is a backlash and people are wondering what will change. Kaku went on to say that the fourth wave will change things, build new wealth and will be a combination of bio-tech, nano-tech and AI. I have to disagree. Those three things will need to create products, new business models that will take time to indirectly give people gains. And that still may only go to 30%. Blockchain/Cryptocurrency is the only technology right now that is directly leading to wealth generation for a wider group that was previously blocked out.

So I say let Wall St and their Ivy Leaguers talk all they want, we know what’s really happening. To quote Gil Scott-Heron, “The revolution will not be televised, it will be live!”

Why Cryptocurrency Will Not Die was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.