Following the 2017 ICO mania Blockchains reached a feverish level of hype.
Peddled as the panacea to the ills of the world, many of those promises were unintentional, initial coin offerings raised huge sums of funds within minutes as the focus of the public shifted to the wild world of cryptocurrencies. After the excitement died, the evolving discourse surrounded the blockchains of companies and the immense potential of the new technology to drive businesses into the next internet century.
Most of the initial dream of blockchain technology and crypt has been lost in the hype, however.
Consortium-backed chains, corporate blockchain research projects, and delegated proof-of - stake networks were supposed to be inaugurated as "next-generation platforms," but they stumbled — and in Steem 's case, an ugly failure continues.
2020, however, proved to be a dramatically different year. Startups realized the way forward was to design systems around the existing crypto protocols to gain value from them — not to bootstrap whole networks.
Easing user-interface dilemmas hampering mainstream acceptance became one of the key concerns; decentralized finance blossomed on the Ethereum network; and a flourishing ecosystem of financial instruments and institutional resources adopted Bitcoin ( BTC).
Then, it hit COVID-19.
While everybody was toiling away at home under the pressure of a global pandemic, financial markets dropped off a cliff; the Fed and Treasury Department stepped in with unparalleled relief; and the subject of the day was speculation about a devastating event 's imminent implications. The corporate blockchains narrative was slipping into the background.
More immediate issues such as data privacy, the confusing (and never-ending) debate about inflation vs. deflation, safe haven asset speculation and a novel virus intrusion took the stage.
The story timeline has accelerated, and hopefully, since the meteoric period of 2017, we have heard more than we did.
