Over the weekend I read an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) entitled "Digital Currency Suffers 'Flash Crash'" by Paul Vigna. As those who follow cryptocurrency closely know, ether on Coinbase or more specifically the GDAX platform experienced a flash crash as it momentarily traded at $0.10 an ether.
That's all fine and dandy as I'm not here to talk about the crash, the causes of it, or anything related to it for that matter. To me, what stood out in the article is the continuing narrow view by this mainstream media source (and others as well). What do I mean by that?
Well first of all, this isn't the first article I've read on the WSJ related to bitcoin and/or cryptocurrency in general. And the one thing that all of these articles have in common is the amused skeptical overtones that marinate their stories from the beginning to the end. The sense that cryptocurrency is just a novelty and is bound to fail continues to peep its head out by Vigna and other mainstream media. In other words, its more of an interesting story than a groundbreaking technology.
Now while Vigna has covered bitcoin for quite some time now (he has even written a book on it), it seems that he fails to go into detail about what Ethereum is and how it functions.
He groups it together with bitcoin when he says "both Ethereum...and its eight-year-old cousin, bitcoin, have garnered enthusiasm among technology buffs who see the currencies as a way to transact more directly, without middlemen like banks." I'm not saying he's incorrect, but its certainly a narrow view on what Ethereum is and how it functions.
He saves himself a little bit later in the article by saying that it does differ from bitcoin in certain respects, mainly in that Ethereum is designed to be able to support online services and apps. WELL IT CERTAINLY IS!
Ethereum's purpose is not to be a store a value or even a currency for transacting, but rather a platform in which all other decentralized currencies and applications can be easily created and used. In this way, the potential and variety of use is far greater making it perhaps the road on which the blockchain revolution will travel on. I believe this distinction is important to make when discussing its "cousin", bitcoin.
Though the cryptocurrency world is rapidly growing, acceptance and understanding in the mainstream is still in process and we must continue to not only grow more knowledgeable about it ourselves, but learn to share with others the immense benefits this new technology can bring to society.