Circle founder: Why Im more optimistic about crypto than ever before

Original author: Jeremy Allair

Original translation: TechFlow

Im more bullish on crypto than Ive ever been. @Circle Ive been building for over 11 years and Ive never been more bullish. I also believe that the vast majority of people have an extremely narrow and limited understanding of whats going on. Thats also a reason to be bullish.

This article explains why I am so optimistic.

My perspective comes from close observation of the life cycle of Internet technology applications over the past 35 years or so.

We have seen the emergence of open networks, open protocols, and open software, and the infrastructure on the Internet has emerged in an endless stream, deepening the Internets social and economic utility. Each wave has transformed major industries, improved peoples living standards, disrupted or changed unit economics, and opened up entirely new possibilities.

In fact, open IP’s collective contribution to this ongoing internet revolution actually seems to be accelerating, and cryptocurrencies seem to be on the cusp of moving society and the economy forward in incredibly powerful new ways.

When Sean and I were thinking about this space more than 11 years ago, it became clear to us that cryptocurrencies represented the next logical infrastructure layer for the Internet. Internet infrastructure, which has enabled frictionless, near-free movement of data and the ability to seamlessly connect and deploy software and hardware across a global network, was clearly struggling with its own success and weight.

The Internet lacks a trust layer, and without it, the utility it provides to the world is limited. There is no way to get fully trusted data, transactions, or computations, which leads to an ever-increasing reliance on hyper-centralized entities (corporations and governments). At the same time, the role of the Internet in society continues to expand, and its ability to play an increasing role in the way society and the economy are organized is evident.

It was at this time that Bitcoin emerged and a large group of astute technologists began to think more deeply about how to extend the fundamental principles of cryptocurrency to provide a broader Internet infrastructure that would become the foundation of society and the economy. Digital tokens issued on public blockchains and mediated by smart contracts could unleash a trusted environment on a global scale that would become the foundation of how almost all building blocks of society and the economy become Internet native.

That’s what attracted me to this field.

It was clear to me that this would unfold, that these new decentralized Internet computers would scale, and ultimately usher in a wave of change far greater than anything we’d seen from the information and communications Internet.

In 2013, these ideas were considered crazy. Any idea related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency was seen as highly fringe, likely illegal, and, to most technologists, a largely uninteresting technological development. At the time, the technology was extremely limited, slow, expensive, and complicated to operate.

The fiduciary institutions, banks, accounting and auditing firms, insurance companies, regulators, are extremely hostile and fearful of anything in this space. The main media focus is on darknet markets, Silk Road, and the Winklevoss twins’ BTC purchases.

But if you really pay attention to what the mostly young and highly creative builders are thinking and doing, it becomes clear that a bigger vision is unfolding, even if the exact timing is unclear.

For those of us who have been building and working in this space since 2012 (and many of us since even earlier!), it’s completely extraordinary to be in the position we are in right now. And, as I’ve often said, given the tremendous progress we’ve made over the past decade, we’re really only in the early stages of cryptocurrency adoption in the world, which makes me extremely bullish on crypto today.

How far have we come? Our achievements and technological advances are too numerous to mention.

The public blockchain infrastructure has evolved to the third generation, providing a global-scale network computer that can handle large-scale applications with trusted data, transactions, and computation. There are dozens of major blockchain network ecosystems around the world, which are constantly improving and innovating the basic technologies of these networks, including data availability, computing, security, privacy, transaction throughput, etc.

We are in the early broadband phase of blockchain networks. Guess what’s next?

We are seeing breakthroughs in security, privacy, and scalability based on ZK technology and now FHE technology. We can see a world where encrypted computing becomes the foundation of the most important applications. There are tens of thousands of startups around the world building on top of this infrastructure.

Digital assets have become part of the emerging global financial system, and governments of almost all major countries in the world have established clear rules for the issuance, use, and trading of digital assets.

Bitcoin itself has become one of the worlds largest and most important alternative investment assets.

The world’s largest asset managers are offering products and services based on blockchain technology and providing investments in the underlying digital commodities.

Cryptocurrency has become a global political issue as its importance to national competitiveness becomes increasingly apparent. Governments around the world are scrambling to address the issue and ensure that innovation in this space is both responsible and fosters innovation.

We’re seeing product UX unlocking consumer-scale usage in ways never before possible, giving us a clearer view of usage for billions of users in the coming years.

As the advantages of public chains and stablecoins become increasingly apparent, most of the world’s largest payment companies are actively using this technology and exploring how to expand its scope of use.

Stablecoins have exploded in size and usage, and are the most important killer application of cryptocurrency, unleashing the digital dollar on the world, bringing more people into the future on-chain economy, and beginning to fulfill the promise of providing banking services to the unbanked, reducing remittance costs, and enabling more seamless cross-border commerce.

Stablecoins are becoming a legally defined and accepted form of digital currency in almost all major jurisdictions in the world. By the end of 2025, stablecoins will become legal electronic money almost everywhere, which will allow stablecoins to occupy an increasingly large share of the more than $1 billion electronic money market.

The infrastructure for building, deploying, and running blockchain applications has made huge advances, with enterprise-grade products and services to help use these networks, custody infrastructure that scales to end-user controlled self-custody, and infrastructure that the world’s largest banks and asset managers can rely on.

Developer tools, SDKs, and knowledge are spreading at an accelerated pace, and more and more people are becoming blockchain experts. Large consumer-scale companies are launching online applications that connect to public chains and using digital tokens for various use cases. Governments are investing in blockchain infrastructure, ecosystem development, and passing laws to incentivize companies to build in their regions.

We see more and more exciting applications of the technology every week, from payments, social, gaming, ticketing, to enterprise use cases. I could go on, but the scale of it all now compared to a decade ago is truly staggering. Like the previous wave of open internet infrastructure, this wave is growing and getting stronger every day and every week. And, as I said before, we are still in the early days of cryptocurrency adoption, and the future potential is huge, with market value and price expected to rise significantly.

What will it look like when digital tokens become a widely understood and legally used form of incentives, governance, and record keeping around the world?

What will it look like when more and more financial and commercial constructions are executed and mediated by smart contracts on public blockchain infrastructure?

What will it look like when fourth-generation blockchain networks support billions of users and millions of applications?

What will it look like when on-chain organizations are legally defined and grow explosively, competing to organize labor and capital, and consistently outperforming traditional multinational corporations?

What will it look like when political institutions — cities, states, nations, and the new cyber-nations — adopt on-chain governance and improve how democratic values are expressed in the internet age?

What will it look like when 10% of the currency in the global economy is stablecoins, when credit intermediation shifts from fractional reserve lending to on-chain credit markets built on safer digital cash instruments like stablecoins, and opens up credit and debt to long-tail supply and demand the same way Amazon did to commerce and AdWords did to advertising?

All of this can be accomplished in the next 10-plus years. Time flies, but when you take the long view and look at what has been accomplished and how it lays the foundation for our future, it’s hard not to feel incredibly optimistic.

This article is sourced from the internet: Circle founder: Why Im more optimistic about crypto than ever before

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