[2018-06-27] Blockchain Hype Might Point to Bubble, Steve Wozniak Says

[Thadeous]

Blockchain Hype Might Point to Bubble, Steve Wozniak Says

Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, said that the hype surrounding blockchain technology is similar to the one during the dotcom bubble.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who previously spoke favorably about Bitcoin, said on Tuesday that the hype around blockchain technology resembles the dot-com era when the hype around internet companies resulted in a bubble.

   “It was a bubble, and I feel that way about blockchain,” Wozniak noted at the NEX technology conference in New York.

He recalled that many internet companies during the late 90s promised game-changing services, but in the end, most of them bankrupted.

However, Wozniak doesn’t deny blockchain’s potential as a disruptive technology, as it is decentralized and secure. His point is that it can take longer for it to be fully implemented on a mass scale.

   “If you look now you say all that internet stuff happened, we got it, it just took a while. It doesn’t change in a day, a lot of the blockchain ideas that are really good by coming out early they can burn themselves out by not being prepared to be stable in the long run,” the Apple co-founder noted.

As per Wozniak, Ethereum could survive a potential bubble burst thanks to its use cases and its infrastructure, which allows developers to create their own projects. As for Bitcoin, even though it has lost half of its value since the beginning of this year, it’s still “just amazing,” Wozniak says.

Last year, Wozniak said at the 20/20 conference in Las Vegas that Bitcoin was better than gold or the US dollar, the latter being ‘phony’ as the US government can print it at its will.

In February of this year, Wozniak revealed that he had sold all but one Bitcoin, admitting that the hype around its price had disappointed him. He bought the cryptocurrency years ago when it was priced at $700 per BTC.

   “All of the sudden it was way down, then way up in the sky. I got scared, and sold everything but one bitcoin,” Wozniak said on Tuesday.

Source: https://cryptovest.com/news/blockchain-hype-might-point-to-bubble-steve-wozniak-says/

[Rahar02]

In February of this year, Wozniak revealed that he had sold all but one Bitcoin, admitting that the hype around its price had disappointed him. He bought the cryptocurrency years ago when it was priced at $700 per BTC.

   “All of the sudden it was way down, then way up in the sky. I got scared, and sold everything but one bitcoin,” Wozniak said on Tuesday.

He might did the right thing by sold all and just hold one bitcoin, it's a good thing as he sells at the peak, big profits for him.
On the other hand, he's not the only one who did that, there are many people sold at the peak for sure which contribute to the price to plummet more than 60% due to panic sell like a snowball, getting bigger as time goes on and stop at one point.
Look at the current price, bitcoin struggle to maintain its position above $6K, moreover to reach the ATH.
The hype came by the end of the last year, the price pumped significantly and then suddenly end in February this year.
However, the cycle always repeated, just takes time to achieve it.

[hatshepsut93]

He's totally right, except that blockchain technology is nowhere near as impactful as the Internet. It's been so many years, and there's still no use-cases aside from Bitcoin, only promises from altcoin and ICO people that they will deliver their products soon. But fundamentally blockchain is a very specialized technology, it was designed to work in environment where participants don't trust each other, it requires sophisticated setup with consensus protocol and nodes. Internet on the other hand allowed instant and global communication, so it was pretty easy to apply all sorts of ideas. After the dotcom bubble thousands of new and successful companies have emerged, but I doubt that there will be that many successful projects after the crypto bubble will burst, serious developers will focus their attention on strong coins that will survive, rather than creating their own coin from scratch.

[richardsNY]

I initially thought that application platforms such as Ethereum had a bright future, which they technically have, but not in a decentralized manner. It is that most ICO's using Ethereum as base are cash grabs, because there simply isn't a way to have thousands and thousands of applications running at the same time without it affecting the underlying network. I'm sure that serious ICO's won't mind using a centralized platform allowing far better scalability, and maybe we'll even see governments launch their own platforms and legally force everyone to use it....

[audaciousbeing]

For someone of his status making statement like this, it sure have some audience who will want to hear the direction he is going. I have read several statements he made in support of bitcoin but now he saying something else. Why? No one knows but I think he is trying to not put himself in an impossible situations where by virtue of morality, he might feel responsible should bitcoin fails and anyone who relies on his word to have ventured into the crypto industry or maybe he is under pressure to take back his word due to sensitivity surround his own personal ambitions.

I believe this is another confirmation that any decision made should be solely by the individual and not relying on anybody or celebrity to make such. Those who relied on him now are in a state of confusion after he had admitted he only has one bitcoin left and also to look on the bright side, for someone like him to be scared of market forces which pushes him to sell, maybe the "whales" are getting to him or there is no "whale" just market forces playing mind games.

[BitHodler]

I still haven't seen one single use case where the blockchain actually did its work as we all credit it for.

I get it that speculation has an upper hand in this game, but if to this day nothing has been done to actually showcase the added value of a blockchain, then when will we finally see and experience it?

It's the same with cryptocurrencies back in the days. It was hyped all the way through, and nothing came after Bitcoin that offered something based on use instead of speculation.

Ethereum and EOS will end up like that. People care less about what it can do. They just want to enter and exit ICOs with a profit and then move to the next one. Am I pessimistic? Yes I am, and I have all the right to be that.

[timerland]

I feel like that you have to make a clear distinction between bitcoin and blockchain.

Bitcoin is one of the only real promising blockchain projects, and one of the only useful ones out there at the moment. A lot of other blockchain projects are just there to try to get investors to give them money.

He has obviously still sold out on his bitcoin position because of his beliefs, which to me, is probably an illogical move to make considering the low prices of bitcoin in the bear market that he is getting for selling right now. My advice would be not investing in random ICOs or whatnot, but investing in bitcoin which Wozniak actually said positive things about himself (points such as decentralisation of supply, store of value etc. that just makes it far better as an asset to store wealth compared to USD).

[cryptofonia]

shares of Apple are probably more bubble than crypto, I guess

[Thadeous]

shares of Apple are probably more bubble than crypto, I guess

My guess is that there are lots of big companies which shares are bubbles, carefully pumped and maintained over the years

[darkangel11]

He's right because the people who entered the market at very high prices hoping for a quick gain made it go up too far up and the higher the jump the harder the landing. If there was no hype, BTC would slowly gain value and be somewhere around 10k right now. Since we've witnessed a much higher ATH the low is going to be much lower.
What Wozniak doesn't see or maybe what he just doesn't say is that the hype has started at some point in BTC's life. Not all of it is a bubble, only straight vertical moves like the jump from 10-20k resemble a bubble.

[1Referee]

shares of Apple are probably more bubble than crypto, I guess

The stock market in its entirety is one massive bubble right now. The far majority of the capital that went into stocks in the last few years is debt and nothing but debt.

That being said, professional parties owning significant amounts of Apple shares are way more of a stable factor than a bunch of retarded retail traders or investors are. The bubble in there can last years without popping, but when it does turn out to pop, prepare yourself for what has to come. Institutions will front run your orders and drag the market down before you can do. Small fishes will be toasted badly and eaten one by one.

[Thadeous]

shares of Apple are probably more bubble than crypto, I guess

The stock market in its entirety is one massive bubble right now. The far majority of the capital that went into stocks in the last few years is debt and nothing but debt.

That being said, professional parties owning significant amounts of Apple shares are way more of a stable factor than a bunch of retarded retail traders or investors are. The bubble in there can last years without popping, but when it does turn out to pop, prepare yourself for what has to come. Institutions will front run your orders and drag the market down before you can do. Small fishes will be toasted badly and eaten one by one.

Right. All depends on hodlers. Price of any asset is maintained by whales, who are interested in keeping it in some controlled price range.
And most of catastrophic price shakes are results of confrontation between such whales. There is no technical analysis that is able to predict next whale movement. And this principle works same for shares and for coins.