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The hype around cryptocurrencies reminds me a lot of the hype around the Wii when it came out. People called its motion controls revolutionary, and collectively hailed Nintendo for ushering in a new era of motion controls. Consumers who saw exciting early examples of work like Wii sports bought the Wii in droves.
All of it, in retrospect, was mostly for naught. The technology for motion controls, (if it could ever be implemented satisfactorily) just wasn’t “there” yet. Even if motion controls were there, game designers faced the issue that they had no idea what exactly to do with this exciting new interface, and mostly they settled on just taking motion and “throwing it in”, giving everyone a lot of games that didn’t need motion, especially not the hare-brained “waggle” variety on offer. In the end, a lot of token efforts were made, and some successes and good games were made, but at large, today people mostly agree that motion controls, as made for the Wii, were mostly disastrous and had no real use case.
Crypto currencies seem to have a similar issue of a solution created without a problem it was meant to solve. They also seem to be getting just as “thrown in” to otherwise standard existing products and service workflows, have tech that isn’t “there”, and otherwise do not seem to be meeting their hype. I expect the discussion around them to follow a similar pattern.
A lot of blockchain enthusiasts say the same thing about companies adopting the blockchain in an 'unched' way.
I'd say blockchains are more akin to AR/VR or AI in that they absolutely are valuable and they undoubtedly are the future, but the technology isn't there. The difference with blockchains is that, rather than the technology not being there, it's simply the innovation that isn't.
There is clearly a market ready and willing for adoption, and there always will be. That's just the power of 'cryptoeconomic incentive'.
There's no way to control price to USD, but you can control tokens to metrics. To use bitcoin as an example, say I'm holding 1 bitcoin and the metrics go up n. That coin pops out x satoshi. Metrics go down n and I lose x satoshi.
Anyway, I clearly have no idea how it would work. But it clearly can work; people are willing to find these tokens valuable.
But I think you are asking about blockchain technology, which is a different thing.
> What if they somehow pegged a token to their metrics, allowing them to remove a layer of abstraction and unlock value based on something closer to what really matters: the utility it provides people.
What makes you think any particular metric of theirs is a better measure of utility than stock price? If you've got a clearly-correct way to measure and aggregate utility, that's a bigger revolution than blockchain technology.
Stock prices are affected by metrics but the goal is to always monetize these metrics. Attributing a token to them turns them into an ends to monetization rather than just a means.
There's problems to solve going from there, but yeah I think going from unlockng value from users to unlocking value directly from use is a revolutionary shift.
If this happens expect layoffs from tech companies that "doing well" but keeping their profits low.
You're definitely going against the wind with that bet.