Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin does not have much confidence in most ERC20s these days. In fact, he expects most of them to break and burn sooner rather than later. But the future of cryptocurrency should be much brighter as investors and developers learn from "Tokens 1.0".
"This, basically, is Tokens 1.0"
Speaking to ETHWaterloo, the 23-year-old founder of Ethereum reminded us that 90% of startups fail. The same ratio probably applies to ERC20s. According to Buterin, 90% of the chips currently registered on CoinMarketCap go to zero. (Props to Jordan Daniell for providing the quotation.)
Striking remarks are billions of dollars in initial coin offerings (ICOs), a controversial new crowdfunding model that allows startups to raise capital by hitting their own cryptocurrency. It is estimated that as much as $ 2.3 billion was paid into the ICO market during the first nine months of the year, which overshadowed traditional financing methods such as equity capital. risk in the start-up phase.
Regulators took note, but struggle to define this enigmatic space. For China and South Korea, ICOs are too problematic to even regulate. That's why they hastened to ban them recently.
Although Japan has become the epicenter of the cryptocurrency trade because of favorable regulations, the same latitude probably does not apply to ICOs. According to a well-known Japanese blockchain entrepreneur, the Japanese authorities will soon crack down on chip sales.
Light at the end of the tunnel
Of course, you would not expect Buterin to be pessimistic about the future of ICOs. While Tokens 1.0 has a sinister end, the next wave of cryptos will be much better. He calls this "Tokens 2.0". This era, which is much closer than you think, will see developers build cryptocurrencies of much higher quality.
Meanwhile, the industry still has a lot of work to do to clean up its image. As Buterin puts it, "There are good ideas, there are many very bad ideas, and there are many very, very bad ideas, and also many scams."
Image courtesy of Shutterstock .