区块链是未来吗？ 或者它只是一种时尚？

区块链行业和美国大淘金者的共同点

今天用加密货币发生的事情让人联想到90年代的网络泡沫时代。投资科技公司的人们以及更加连接未来的雄心勃勃的想法几乎在一夜之间赚取了数百万美元。互联网股票疯狂攀升，全部都是基于猜测。大部分技术还没有被大规模采用，但每个人都会认为有朝一日会这么做。

其中一些公司今天仍在。许多不是。

但回到更广阔的视角，可以说区块链技术的发展与19世纪中期发生的伟大的美国淘金热类似。 1848年，当字第一次得知加利福尼亚发现黄金时，整个行业开始兴起，希望利用这个机会。那个时代的企业家开始销售挖掘黄金所需的平底锅，镐和铲子的商店。大公司在铁路和运输方面投入巨资。所有这些都是在大量的黄金被发现之前完成的 - 这一切都在猜测。

从某种意义上说，这正是今天在区块链领域正在发生的事情。

创新者，投资者，技术人员和爱好者 - 我们所有人都在想，这些“平底锅，镐和铲子”将会出现在区块链领域。由于急于提早采用，将会出现哪些新兴行业和公司？另一方面，为了区块链的成功，需要发现和创造什么？并且为了所有这些前期投资最终还清？

目前看来，人们可以与区块链互动的可能性是无限的，在过去的3到4年中，人们和公司都在开发自己的界面和智能合约。但为了真正扩大这些努力，需要有某种全球标准，类似于支撑互联网的协议。

你必须记住，互联网并没有“起飞”，直到建立了一种通用语言，以便日常用户可以建立在它之上。我们在Chronicled所做的事情实际上是联合一家公司即可信任IoT联盟的联盟，致力于创建一个全球协议标准体系，用于将物联网设备和传感器中的身份注册到区块链的一个特定用例 - 并有一个标准系统或一种共同语言，供大家在区块链顶部构建时使用。

这只是行业内需要发生的一件小事，才能真正取得成功，但这是一个由于区块链创新“淘金热”而出现的子行业的例子。

一个单独的挑战，并可能是一个更大的障碍，是如何让一个钱包进入每个人的手中。

首先，这个行业的语言植根于金融世界，因此令日常消费者感到困惑。并不是很多人知道“挖掘”是什么意思，或者什么是“标志”。因此，直到我们能够提出更广泛理解的术语，说服群众如何以及为什么要使用加密货币钱包将会非常困难。

其次，消费区块链最大的进入壁垒之一是最终消费者无法获得钱包。目前存在的钱包易混淆且难以访问。他们也只有一个目的：交易加密货币。

为了大量采用钱包，需要发生一些事情：

1.较少强调技术本身。

这是技术领域的“伟大辩论”，这是UI和UX之间的平衡。 UX架构师倾向于将功能放在审美设计上，而UI设计师倾向于将功能放在设计上。事实是，每个伟大的产品都需要这两者。

加密钱包目前失败的原因在于，它们几乎完全是为了功能而构建的，而不是考虑如何让用户体验变得流畅和优雅。

2.每个消费者都需要能够在他们的移动设备上访问他们的钱包。

这个钱包可以并将支持各种不同的体验，交易和验证。 但是，目前的钱包只能用于加密货币和交易。 即使这些钱包有目的，他们仍然不是非常方便用户。

例如，如果您发现自己没有现金，并且想要使用加密钱包，则访问您的钱包的过程不应超过15分钟。 这种繁琐的经历挫败了目的。

因此，要让钱包成为主流，他们需要像ApplePay一样方便。

这些只是未来几年需要发生的一些变化，以便区块链技术能够成为未来创新的良好基础设施。 但我确实相信这些事情会发生。

这只是时间问题。

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What The Blockchain Industry And The Great American Gold Rush Have In Common

What’s happening today with cryptocurrency is reminiscent of the dot-com boom in the 90s. People investing in tech companies and wildly ambitious ideas of a more connected future were making millions of dollars almost overnight. Internet stocks climbed like crazy, and all of it was based on speculation. Much of the technology hadn’t yet been adopted at scale, but everyone was betting big that one day it would be.

Some of those companies are still around today. Many are not.

But pull back to an even broader perspective, and what’s happening with blockchain technology, you could say, is similar to the great American gold rush that happened in the mid 1800s. In 1848, when word first got out that gold had been discovered in California, entire industries began to boom in the hopes of capitalizing on the opportunity. The entrepreneurs of that era started stores that sold pans, picks, and shovels required to dig for gold. Larger companies invested heavily in railroads and transportation. And all of this was done prior to mass amounts of gold actually being found—it was all on speculation.

In a sense, that’s exactly what’s happening in the blockchain space today.

Innovators, investors, technologists, enthusiasts—all of us are wondering what those same “pans, picks, and shovels” are going to be in the blockchain space. What new industries and companies are going to spring up as a result of the rush toward early adoption? And on the flip-side, what is going to need to be both discovered and created in order for blockchain to succeed—and for all this upfront investment to pay off in the end?

At the moment, it seems there are an infinite number of possibilities in which one can interact with the blockchain, and over the past 3 to 4 years, people and companies alike have been developing their own interfaces and smart contracts. But in order for these efforts to really scale, there needs to be some sort of global standard, similar to the protocols that underpin the Internet.

You have to remember, the Internet didn’t “take off” until a universal language of sorts was established so that everyday users could build on top of it. Something we have done here at Chronicled is actually bring together an Alliance of companies, the Trusted IoT Alliance, to work on creating a system of standards for global protocols, for the one specific use case of registering identities in IoT devices and sensors to blockchains—and having a system of standards, or a common language, for everyone to use when building on top of the blockchain.

This is just one tiny sliver of what needs to happen within the industry in order for it to become truly successful, but it’s an example of a sub-industry that has sprung up as a result of the “gold rush” toward blockchain innovation.

A separate challenge, and potentially an even larger obstacle, is how to get a wallet into everyone’s hands.

First of all, the language of this industry is rooted in the finance world, and thus is confusing to everyday consumers. Not very many people know what “mining” means, or what a “token” really is. So, until we can come up with more widely understood terms, it’s going to be challenging to convince the masses how and why to use a cryptocurrency wallet.

Second, one of the largest barriers to entry for consumer blockchain is the inaccessibility of a wallet to the end consumer. The wallets that currently exist are confusing and difficult to access. They also only serve one purpose: to trade cryptocurrencies.

In order for wallets to be adopted on a large scale, a few things will need to happen:

1. Less emphasis must be placed on the technology itself.

This is “the great debate” in the world of tech, this balance between UI and UX. UX architects tend to put functionality over aesthetic design, and UI designers tend to put design over function. The truth is, every great product requires both.

Where crypto wallets are currently failing is that they are almost entirely built for function, instead of considering how to make the user experience fluid and elegant.

2. Every consumer will need to be able to access their wallet on their mobile devices.

This wallet can and will power all sorts of different experiences, transactions, and verifications. However, current wallets are solely reserved for cryptocurrencies and transactions. And even though these wallets have a purpose, they still aren’t very user friendly.

For example, if you find yourself out and about, without cash, and you want to use your crypto wallet, the process of accessing your wallet should not take fifteen minutes. That cumbersome experience defeats the purpose.

So, for wallets to become mainstream, they need to be as accessible as ApplePay.

These are just some of the shifts that will need to happen over the next few years in order for blockchain tech to begin acting as a sound infrastructure for tomorrow’s innovations. But I do believe these things will happen.

It’s only a matter of time.