I should’ve known better than to buy a book touting “the age of” something that came into existence only a few years ago and is currently playing out. Living history? Only if it leaves a meaningful legacy behind. But after reading this breathless book about bitcoins and blockchains, I have my doubts.
According to the authors, the primary usefulness of the blockchain, what makes it revolutionary, is that it will allow for low cost financial transactions. Not improved privacy, accuracy or honesty in exchanges. Not an end to the menace known as government. A few basis points in savings on transactions requiring a financial intermediary.
And even then, that is doubtful. The blockchain does nothing of and by itself. Despite being the heralded horseman of the middleman apocalypse, it requires a bunch of middleman applications and services (still being developed!!) to be practically useful to anyone, and of course no one is building and operating those mechanisms for free. Hello, economic scarcity, nice to see you again!
That’s kind of the theme of this entire, horrible book. “Wouldn’t it be so cool if…” and “Things are going to be totally different when…” but we’re not there yet, and we might never be.
This book was prematurely written, poorly researched (hyperventilated hype and name-dropping is not journalism, it’s puff piece paid marketing) and offers little to anyone seeking to understand how the blockchain operates in layman’s terms, nor does it put the extremely short lifespan of this technology into a meaningful chronological context so one can follow where it came from and where it might be going.
Challenging the global economic order? Considering the amount of fraud the community has already witnessed as disclosed in the book, it appears to be more part and parcel and less revolution in the streets.
The blockchain may offer some interesting applications in due time that don’t involve stupid self-owning companies pursuing their robotic amoral self-interest, but in the meantime I’m bearish to indifferent about it all and will continue to keep a bemused distance from the phenomenon, including schtick introductions like this work.
A House Rises 