2018 Token Economy: A Quick Look Ahead
December 2017 started with a round table discussion at the Blockchain World Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Moderator Helen Disney asks each of the four panelists to talk about a real-world blockchain issue not yet covered in the discussion. Our co-founder and CEO, Roger Haenni spoke last.
Focus of the conversation was not on some aspect of data security that hadn’t yet surfaced, or maybe even the ins and outs of building a data marketplace.
While it may sound as a surprise, we are living in a world with thousands of old and new tokens on the market, and the inter-connectivity will decide their usability… or lack of. To paraphrase a song that made the rounds when I was a kid, getting to the end of a blockchain panel discussion and realizing you forgot to talk about tokens is a bit like getting to the end of a song and realizing you forgot to jam.
“For me, it’s the integration of all these thousands of tokens,” Roger says. “That’s key to real-world usage next year and that requires a few key components…. Can this problem be solved? How can we bring all of these tokens together?”
All you need to do is jump on Twitter and look up #cryptocurrency to see just how many players are in the game. With many new tokens being introduced, I don’t think anyone knows exactly how many exist at any given point in time. Though the rate of introduction has slowed in the second half of this year, the overall number continues to grow. Take a look at Coin Market Cap for the rundown of biggest cryptocurrencies. As Vitalik Buterin said in his speech, not everything can be “tokenized” or be on blockchain.
While some enthusiasts speak “crypto” as if it were an exciting new language — which it is to some extent, I mean, who doesn’t love HODL? — getting a handle on the volume and variety of tokens is going to be a big problem for the mass market adoption of the products and services ICOs are ultimately here to produce. The more cacophonous crypto gets, the harder it will be for people who aren’t yet fluent to hammer down the basics and get conversational.
Roger went on to say that no one will realistically use 100 different tokens for 100 different things next year, so tokens need to work in the background, yet do so transparently. This is the only path to the seamless exchange of tokens between projects.
Some people say HODL means “Hold On for Dear Life”. Others say it’s a typo that became a meme. Regardless, we’ll all be hodling onto something next year as token values fluctuate and we continue to push for transparent fluidity on the exchanges, because it’s true — who wants to keep track of 10 tokens for 10 different things, let alone 100?
By recognizing the big-picture challenge this new economy is presenting us with early on, we have the chance to make smarter decisions about which ICOs, exchanges, and policies support right out the gate, which will ultimately make the adoption of blockchain technology more effective and create a larger number of real winners and positive outcomes in the long run.
At Datum, the team is dedicated to bring real world use of DAT tokens, which can be seen on a counter at https://datum.org — and the upcoming application, which is set to debut on 23rd December 2017.
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