Digital gold is enough. Whether there is an ecosystem is not that important. After so many years of blockchain development, the only truly valuable application is Bitcoin. The so-called ecosystem is merely a vision and hope we impose on ourselves. What is truly necessary about Web 2.0 or 3.0? Or can’t it be achieved on Web 1.0?
This is a comment from one of our readers.
This comment is very valuable because almost every sentence condenses or represents the accumulated debates over the past decade in the development of blockchain technology, which has always been a focus of my attention.
“Digital gold is enough. Whether there is an ecosystem is not that important.”
I believe that for Bitcoin, indeed, “digital gold” is enough; whether it has an ecosystem is really not that important. Because even without an ecosystem, in the current and future digital age, Bitcoin holds a unique and outstanding position and value. No other blockchain-based crypto asset can replace this.
However, if Bitcoin could have its own ecosystem, that would certainly be better, as it could greatly expand its use and extend its value, while also addressing potential security issues.
But for blockchain technology, it cannot be said that just having a “digital gold” is enough, because its potential far exceeds “digital gold.” Its future should carry a brilliant application ecosystem.
Bitcoin is merely a very basic application of blockchain technology, and it was born when blockchain technology was still in its infancy.
When Ethereum achieved a Turing-complete platform based on Bitcoin, blockchain technology underwent a qualitative leap.
Every technological innovation and qualitative change in human history has been accompanied by the subsequent scaling and popularization of that technology. This is a general law of historical development.
This scaling and popularization either reflects in specific goods or in specific applications or services.
What does “scaling” and “popularization” mean?
It means there is almost irrefutable consensus and recognition.
Bitcoin, of course, has value in the eyes of our group.
But in the eyes of another group, it has no value, and their argument is very straightforward: it cannot produce products, cannot generate interest, cannot provide services; where is its value?
In fact, this argument is hard to refute.
Of course, for us, we can naturally empower Bitcoin from another perspective, adding value to it.
Not only Bitcoin, but even gold cannot escape this.
Mr. Buffett's views on gold and Bitcoin are essentially no different.
Therefore, it is actually very difficult for humanity to form a unified consensus on whether Bitcoin has value.
But none of us can deny the value of WeChat and Alipay.
Why?
Because they provide inclusive utility value to the general public, gaining high consensus and recognition.
At least in this regard, Bitcoin and gold cannot compare— I believe there are still many Chinese people who use WeChat and Alipay every day but do not own gold, let alone Bitcoin.
I say this not to imply that Bitcoin's value must be recognized by the public or that everyone must hold it, but to express:
If blockchain technology only gives birth to a “digital gold,” then it is too uninteresting and not worth our exploration and struggle in this ecosystem.
Blockchain technology should create a decentralized world that allows all humanity to collaborate closely without barriers. And this world has hardly existed in human history. Therefore, exploring and developing based on such technology is bound to be difficult and challenging. Because it challenges many inherent concepts and interests of human society, the most typical being “anti-censorship” and “decentralization.”
Who are you “anti-censorship” against? Who are you “decentralizing” from?— Such topics are very inconvenient to extend.
Moreover, we have been conditioned by centralized thinking for thousands of years, and even now, a considerable portion of us think of authority as the first source of help when problems arise, rather than reflecting on ourselves— this is a deeply rooted “centralized” mindset.
Look at the authors of the papers cited in Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper; if we put it in our terms, they are all “rebels.”
Look at Vitalik; when discussing a war issue, he dares to say, “Russians don’t necessarily have to support Russia.” By our standards, this is even more of a “rebel,” right?
True blockchain technology is led by such a small group of people, while they have to face a large audience, developers, and users who are filled with centralized thinking and obedience to authority.
Therefore, in this ecosystem, our applications, our thinking, and our viewpoints can easily fall into pseudo-tracks, pseudo-applications, and pseudo-needs that have nothing to do with blockchain.
Thus, achieving any real progress in this field is understandably difficult, and even after more than a decade of blockchain technology being implemented, we still have not discovered an application that can be widely popularized like Web 2.
As a result, many people naturally come to the question:
After so many years of blockchain development, what has truly landed with value?
Or to say it more objectively: After so many years of blockchain development, what has truly landed with value is Bitcoin.
In fact, this difficulty and challenge are not surprising. Without going far, just look at the development history of the internet:
In 1969, the prototype of the internet was born in the United States; by 1972, American universities had email, but it wasn’t until after 1990 that the development of the internet entered the fast lane.
Artificial intelligence has also taken nearly 40 to 50 years of exploration to reach today’s explosion.
Compared to these technologies, the progress and development of blockchain technology have been remarkable.
I firmly believe that blockchain technology is epoch-making, so I firmly believe that the prosperity of blockchain technology applications will surely come.
I just don’t know exactly when or in what form.
So I do not agree that “the ecosystem is just a vision and hope we impose on ourselves.”
“What is truly necessary about Web 2.0 or 3.0? Or can’t it be achieved on Web 1.0?”
This statement reflects a common problem in the current crypto ecosystem.
Readers who have read my past articles know that I believe that the vast majority of DePIN projects and most so-called AI + Crypto are pseudo-needs.
Why?
The reason is what this statement says, or more specifically:
I think many so-called DePIN and so-called AI + Crypto do not need blockchain technology at all; they can be fully realized with Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 technologies.
Just yesterday, I mentioned in an article that many current blockchain games cannot compete with traditional games at all because those so-called blockchain games can achieve their desired user experience without blockchain technology, aside from token incentives. Therefore, in my view, those so-called blockchain games are not the blockchain games I envision.
There are indeed many such pseudo-needs and pseudo-crypto projects in the current crypto ecosystem.
Despite this, I remain very optimistic.
Although what we see now is dark, I believe there is true light ahead; although we are surrounded by these fakes, I believe that the future of this ecosystem will definitely see the emergence of genuinely widely popular applications.
This is a viewpoint I have never wavered from.
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