Absolutely. I appreciate these kinda of discussions a lot. Helps me understand a perspective that I didn’t previously have. Curious to hear more about how you contributed to building the internet?
Discussion
The Internet in the 1980's and 1990's followed exactly the same path as Bitcoin does today. When I first got involved in 1989, the people I explained the technology to didn't get it at all.
Later in the mid 90's, the Internet had the reputation as a network only used by criminals and pornographers, I was considered deviant by building the infrastructure.
Later as it became more apparent as to the potential of the Internet battles ensued within my company to gain control, I lost the internal battle so focused externally and built a large data centre business which ended up increasing my families public company share price 10 fold, leading to a hostile takeover after its collapse with the dot dom crash.
The difference between the Internet and Bitcoin?
The Internet was a threat to middle industries who were numerous but unorganised and mostly unprepared for the onslaught that was the Internet.
Bitcoin is a threat to governments and banks who, despite being centralised and having far greater power, still suffer from game theory, which John Nash successfully predicted would force these organisations to play a game that disadvantages them, because not playing, disadvantages them more.
Does Bitcoin’s direct challenge to governments and banks mean its adoption curve will be faster or slower than the Internet’s
I can't predict the future only tell tales of the past. My Polymarket account is testimony to that 😂
The threat is different, but the result will be the same. I think the adoption profile will be different. The Internet was adopted most rapidly by western wealthy nations. Bitcoins adoption as a currency, I believe, will be most rapidly adopted by emerging economies.
As for its adoption as an asset, I think we can all see what is happening there.
We argue about where on the Internet timeline Bitcoin currently sits, there are several metrics used, such as adoption numbers or technology levels. The range generally agreed upon is somewhere between 1994 and 1997, I tend to lean more towards the 1994 end.