Bubble-phobic Civic CEO, Vinny Lingham, has been sounding off about blockchain and cryptocurrency at an event in Johannesburg. His address covered mass adoption in the blockchain industry, and the likelihood of another bitcoin bubble.
Correction: Lingham was incorrectly quoted by MyBroadband as saying “Do I think we’ll have another bubble? Probably, because people just don’t learn. When it hits $20,000 again, it will fall back to $100 or something like that.” His real quote is, according to Civic: “Once it broke through $20k, it would run to over $100k and then we have the start of a new bubble bust cycle.” The original report is below.
Still in its infancy
Lingham cited lack of use cases and scaling issues as current barriers to mass adoption of cryptocurrency. Although the primary uses of cryptocurrency are money transfers and trading, he saw this broadening as the market matures.
He also felt that developers and startups should be in it due to belief in their project goals, rather than the amount of money they can make. Lingham said:
You shouldn’t do this stuff for the money, you should do it because you’re passionate about what the goals of the project are.
He assesses the bubble of last year and subsequent crash as simple supply and demand. Increasing investor interest and limited supply pumped prices, which then attracted an increase in ICOs. So now there are more ICOs than buyers, and price drops mean buyers have less to spend.
He does, however, predict that investor greed will more than likely spur another bubble, saying:
Do I think we’ll have another bubble? Probably, because people just don’t learn. When it hits $20,000 again, it will fall back to $100 or something like that.
Slow and steady wins the race
Lingham has long been an advocate of the slow and steady growth of Bitcoin [coin_price], and indeed all cryptocurrencies. Back at the start of 2017, when bitcoin was still sitting at around $1200, he cautioned about hitting $3000 too quickly.
Although he appears to have underestimated “investor greed,” the bubble certainly came, and with it, the infrastructure was unable to cope with the peak in interest. He still feels that there is a great benefit in having the time to develop outside of the public spotlight.
Luckily, Lingham is able to joke about his cautious outlook. “This guy makes me look like a permabull!” Lingham tweeted in response to anti-Bitcoiner Nouriel Roubini’s current bout of flagrant self-promotion through antagonism.
This guy makes me look like a permabull! https://t.co/njG2ozoZ9A
— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) October 13, 2018
Well quite. Vinny Lingham, a white supremacist? Perhaps not.
Do you agree with Vinny Lingham? Share your thoughts below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter, Bitcoinist archives
