Cryptocurrency and the internet are closely linked because they both play a crucial role in our modern digital world.
A new report by Architect Partners explains how the internet’s history can teach us important things about crypto’s development. It looks at how new technology is growing by comparing the internet’s 28 years with crypto’s first 8 years.
“These networks don’t really do much in real life,” said Eric Risley and Arjun Mehra. “Just like a blank piece of paper can inspire art, these networks have inspired many software programs to be created. ”
Risley and Mehra think that crypto can learn from what the internet has done before, because they have similar traits.
Their report is important because cryptocurrency is still trying to become established, even though it is getting a lot of attention from traditional financial institutions.
This idea is also explored in the new book by billionaire investor Chris Dixon called “Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet. ”
The Internet had a lot of ups and downs in the late 1990s
At first, people didn’t think the internet would be very useful. But now, it’s the basis for lots of important things we use today. However, it has become the foundation for many important applications that we use today.
The report by Architect Partner shows that the internet started to be developed in the 1960s. But computers didn’t have a good way to talk to each other. In March 1992, the internet protocol suite TCP/IP was finally completed.
The start of companies that are very important to us today.
It all started with simple web pages, but then platforms like AOL, Yahoo, and Netscape came out in the mid-1990s, which is called Web1.
But the story didn’t stop there. In the late 1990s, the internet got a lot of money from investors. This helped create new technology, more people using personal computers, and new software programs.
“Some of today’s top leaders like Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Equinix, Expedia, and Netflix were created,” wrote the authors. By the end of the 1990s, more than 400 million people used the Internet every day.
Can Cryptocurrency become as widely used as the Internet?
From 1995 to 2000, a lot of money went to internet companies, and the value of the tech industry became $5. 6 trillion in 1999. However, everything fell apart in 2000, proving the skeptics were correct.
In 2000, there was not enough money for taking risks, and the people who doubted were correct. More than 74% of the high value disappeared by 2002.
Innovation kept going even when it was difficult. Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Workday, and DocuSign did well because they used the internet in a smart way. By 2006, people knew that the internet was very important for many things.
“The fast progress actually took 34 years – almost half of a person’s life,” the authors stated.
The report ends with an important question: Will people start using cryptocurrency like they use the internet, or will it stay unusual and uncommon.
