Crypto Curious is a podcast for listeners who want to learn more about cryptocurrency and blockchain. Hosted by Jeremy Born, James Fratzke and Ryan Fratzke, Crypto Curious invited its first guest speaker, Vienna-based crypto blogger Robby Schwertner aka CryptoRobby.
Along with giving us his own predictions on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, he reminds us that Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, in a 1999 interview conducted by the National Taxpayers Union, was one of the earliest economists to predict the rise of an internet-based digital currency.
Milton Friedman: “The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash, a method whereby on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B without A knowing B or B knowing A, the way I can take a $20 bill hand it over to you and then there’s no record of where it came from”.
Schwertner also details today’s expanding Austrian Blockchain Landscape, which includes 90+ companies across Austria that are involved in blockchain and artificial intelligence. These companies are at the forefront of exploring cryptocurrencies and how blockchain allows us to transfer true value – money, energy, data, digital content, supply-chain logistics, land registry and more.
Schwertner also updates us on City of Blockchain, an independent Vienna-based organization, in cooperation with the Vienna City Administration, to foster research, initiatives and projects around blockchain and cryptographic technologies.
As for Schwertner’s own predictions, he believes there will always be banks and that they won’t die overnight. Over the next 10 years, however, they may lose substantial profits to cryptocurrencies as blockchain will create new jobs and take away other jobs.
More thoughts:
• Banking the unbanked with smartphones for the underserved who have mobile phones is a perfect use case for blockchain technology.
• Hada DBank.com, an Islamic banking startup, aims to inform its depositors about what the bank does with their money. Since Sharia law prohibits interest, a blockchain-based bank would avoid interest in all financial transactions while promoting risk-sharing between the borrower and the lender.
• The currency aspect of cryptocurrencies will remain as fiat currencies continue to be unstable (i.e. Venezuela, Greece) and remain susceptible to crashes as well.
• Initial Coin Offerings are overheated but the blockchain bubble will not burst.
• Consolidation of coins from the 1,500+ cryptocurrencies to a solid 15-20 that are used on a regular basis.
• Exciting projects are coming on the Neo ecosystem, based in China, under the City of Zion open-source community.
• IOTA is also interesting and demonstrates another way to execute distributed ledgers, besides blockchain. It’s interesting for smaller transactions.
• Future enterprises may not belong to anybody, and robots may end up working for us.
• The cryptocurrency market is more careful. It will not grow as fast as we’ve seen, but the market cap will go up and it will be in the trillions.
• Favorite cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, IOTA and others.
Given all of the different projects and the steep, steep learning curve and understanding of blockchain technology, it’s difficult to predict which coins and projects will rise or which altcoin may overtake Bitcoin or become the next Ethereum as both Bitcoin and Ethereum are coping with challenges of speed, scalability and transaction fees.
