What does the internet do? I’m not asking about routers and Wifi signals, I’m asking about the purpose. If you think about Amazon and Facebook and Youtube, what do they have in common? The internet disintermediate things and eliminates time and space. It cuts out the middle man. With commerce, like Amazon it cuts out the middle men like wholesalers and retailers and lets you look at a product, tap your fingers and it shows up at your day. It eliminates time and space because you are no longer limited to shopping places within driving distances or your house, or within working hours. Before the internet, if you wanted to tell your friends something, you had to call them one by one on the phone. Now time and space is eliminated, you can do it on Facebook. Hey, want to be famous? Now you don’t need someone to give you permission to have your own TV show. If you’ve got Gmail, you’ve already got a YouTube channel. You just have to start broadcasting.
Maybe we’ve been thinking about cryptocurrencies the wrong way? Maybe it’s not digital gold. Maybe it’s an extension of the internet? If it disintermediates and eliminates time and space, what would that look like? It cuts out the middle man because you can pay people who are aren’t close enough to you for you to give them cash, but without a credit card company taking a cut. You borrow or lend without giving your bank a cut. And you can use smart contracts to enforce agreements without the lawyers getting their cut.