Monday 6 November 2017

Blockchain ... The second internet revolution ?

Though it has been a while since my last blog post, I have been constantly thinking of ideas, and interesting topics to write about. In my conversations with colleagues, clients, and investment acquaintance it has become obvious to me that the investment du jour is Bit Coin. There seems to be an endless fascination with crypto currencies (specifically Bitcoin) and the thirst for the "next one" to explode in "value" as Bitcoin has. It has been incredibly interesting to witness the rise of this currency from birth in 2008, to mild prominence in 2013 when Gold was soaring to right now, as the crypto currency hit an all-time high above $7000. All the while I have struggled to understand the currency as an investment vehicle. My traditional understanding of investment vehicles does not extend to the realm of currencies with no physical assets, or government backing. There seems to be no fundamental way of valuing these crypto currencies which lead me to believe that these are vehicles of immense speculation.

That realization begs these questions;

- Can a strictly speculative vehicle be overvalued?
- What is the proper valuation for this vehicle?
- What should this instrument be valued based on?
- If I come up with future economic value for these, what discount rate is appropriate?
- Ultimately, is there a way to enjoy in long term non-speculative gains from crypto currencies?

It was the last question that lead me to think more about the foundation of crypto currencies, and dig a bit more into what underlies Bitcoin and her sisters, and how I as a non-speculative investor (these days) can enjoy the fruits of this fad.
In the off chance that you haven't heard about BitCoin or the technology that underlies the Crypto Currency, here's a link to two quick 2 min. YouTube videos discussing the coin and the technology and some of its merits.



Admittedly, the video simplifies the technology significantly, but I think it gets the idea across. Better still is the article linked below, It details the implementation of blockchain technology and puts it in a different light, one in which as an investor, you might be interested in understanding.
https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain 

In short:
Blockchain is a "foundational technology" as opposed to a disruptive one, meaning the effects of blockchain will not hit all at once or quickly, rather it will cause a fundamental change in the way business is conducted over a long period of time (maybe decades). The technology is analogous to TCP/IP the infrastructure of the internet as we know it today; specifically, understanding that blockchain is essentially a system of ledgers that keep transactions transparent and accurate thus eliminating the need for a middle man, and that TCP/IP is essentially a system of transferring packets of data without an intermediary -

"The parallels between blockchain and TCP/IP are clear. Just as e-mail enabled bilateral messaging, bitcoin enables bilateral financial transactions. The development and maintenance of blockchain is open, distributed, and shared—just like TCP/IP’s... TCP/IP unlocked new economic value by dramatically lowering the cost of connections. Similarly, blockchain could dramatically reduce the cost of transactions. It has the potential to become the system of record for all transactions. If that happens, the economy will once again undergo a radical shift, as new, blockchain-based sources of influence and control emerge. "

Ultimately, the adaptation of blockchain is projeted to be slow, and varied. The current attraction to crypto-currency is akin to the initial fascination with e-mail when the internet was formed. The thinking is that blockchain is to crypto currency as the internet was to e-mail.

In essence, it is much harder than I thought, if not impossible, to find a mature publicly traded (investment worthy) company dedicated to blockchain technology, because it's more of an infrastructure than a business model. Nevertheless, I am now convinced more than ever that this technology has transformative properties, and we might be at the cusp of something similar to the internet revolution, along with the ups and downs of the first one in the late 90's and early 2000's.


What do you think?