I decided to slowly move out my best content from a places like Medium, Facebook or whatever. This article has been first published in cyber•Blog. The whole year behind, so this article with updates.
Illustration: Singularity by Aeoll
Align your business
I like predictions made by Ray Kurzweil. They are fun and quite accurate. I believe that we are living in a time when a startup should make strategic business decisions based on such predictions. Otherwise, it risks to stay in a business just for a short time and eventually lose in a technology race.
Making predictions for cybernomics (or cryptoeconomics) is risky but I decide to do it as I have something to share with you, on one hand, and, on the other, I want to test my own ability to forecast.
Vision 2025
We are now in 2015. What I think of the current state of the blockchain economy could be found in Cybernetic Economy Report 2014 and 2015 H1.
The next 5 prediction are from those reports. By 2025:
- ~10B people (or almost all people) will use blockchains or distributed ledgers
- ~100B robots (or every machine) will use blockchains or distributed ledgers
- ~10B autonomous entities (AEs) will exist. AE is a new kind of a living form. AEs are decentralized autonomous organization or the decentralized applications that could exist as first class entities in computer networks without obtaining any material form.
- An exponential growth of the blockchain economy will lead to the obsolescence of fiat currencies that makes it hard to predict a volume of the cybernomics. But it should reach not less than 1 quadrillion in current USD.
- Existing legal system will become obsolete.
I am an economist. Exploration of blockchain and decentralized consensus protocols awakes in me a follower of the Austrian school of economic thought. Though cybernomics inherent so much austrian it is going far beyond. A good understanding of economic reasoning including a concept of diffusion of innovations enables me to SWAG based on existing feedback loops and extrapolations.
So the following predictions are in fact just an attempt to understand a fundamental transformation of our society that has been happening at high speed. To be honest I think my predictions are a little bit naive as in parallel great technologies are evolving such as CRISPR/Cas9 or Quantum computing consequences of which I am incompetent to evaluate.
How will we get there?
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Taken this for granted a task is not to invent anything but to put inevitable events on a timeline.
2015
- Launches of Ethereum and SAFE Network enable reinvention of almost everything
- 10M people recognize power and efficiency of the decentralized consensus for economic relationships
2016
- Ethereum or SAFE Network is acknowledged as the most powerful super computer in existence
- First government is downloaded from an AppStore
- First working network of autonomous devices
- 10k operational autonomous entities emerge
2017
- 100k ATM across the globe accept cryptocurrencies
- First country introduces blockchain-based currency and personal ID
- Cybernomics is recognized by mainstream media as first truly global, ultimately efficient economy
- 1M autonomous devices are managed by blockchains
- Smart contracts become mainstream
2018
- 100M people realize a power of blockchain
- First legal boarder crossing of a person with a decentralized ID happens
- Almost any kind of government is available for download in app stores
- First country with the dominance of the official cryptocurrency
- Mesh networks enable provision of internet connection as essential right of any intelligent being
- 10M autonomous devices are managed by blockchains
2019
- First decentralized orbital and suborbital networks of transmitting, computing and storing nodes are established
- Decentralized prediction market goes mainstream thus disrupting the logic of existing economic relations
- Digital signature is recognized and is said to be a human right
- Capitalization of cybernetic economy passes $1T
- 100k operational autonomous entities exist
- Black Swan event: First collapse of one of the major reserve currency
2020
- Capitalization of the first decentralized autonomous organization passes $1T
- Governments lose control over physical internet connections and thus an ability to collect taxes
- Market of derivatives is fully converted to a blockchain
- Any product or service is significantly cheaper to buy for cryptocurrency than for fiat money
- 100M autonomous devices are managed by blockchains
2021
- 1B people use blockchain Apps on a daily basis just like we use Google or Facebook now
- 1B autonomous robots are managed by blockchains
- Fully convergent language for human-robot interactions appears
- 1M operational autonomous entities exists
- Capitalization of cybernetic economy passes $10T
2022
- Politicians become obsolete
- Handwritten signature becomes a joke or illiteracy indicator
- 10M operational autonomous entities exists
2023
- Essential Laws become obvious for any child
- 10B autonomous robots are managed by blockchains
- 100M operational autonomous entities exists
- Capitalization of cybernetic economy passes $100T
- All land property records are verifiable on a blockchain
Prediction Markets
In original post I promised to bet on my predictions 100 ethers when Augur will be launched. Well, my ethers are still waiting.
One year later
- Launches of Ethereum and SAFE Network enable reinvention of almost everything.
Almost Happened. SAFE Network is not in production and Ethereum is too raw. Motivated meshnetworks are still not here. But we have a lot except those. I could not predict Steem. - 10M people recognize power and efficiency of the decentralized consensus for economic relationships. Happened
Open Discussion
I'd like to discuss here what kind of impact lies behind blockchains, DLT (distributed ledger technology) and smart contracts. What are your predictions?