It's not particularly early in technology terms. It's very early in terms of society, finance and money, though.
It took us at least 3000 years to go from coins to fiat currency, and we still don't really know how it works. It took 50 years to go from physical money to mostly digital, and we're still not completely there. Contactless payments predated Bitcoin and they're still rolling out in the USA, despite being a very minor upgrade on the existing technology. Up until fairly recently, finance industries wouldn't even touch the cloud. I mean the USA only reached 50% internet penetration in 2000, and packet switching was invented all the way back in 1965, and was still considered a new technology by many in the mid 2000s.
Cryptocurrencies might completely fizzle out, or they might completely replace the modern finance industry. Personally, I think they'll die in their current form, but we'll take some of what we learnt to build new technologies. My view is that CBDCs have more potential than cryptocurrencies, but there's still a lot of cross-pollination going on between the two right now.
For what it's worth, I don't own any cryptocurrencies and haven't for years. Never touched NFTs and I'm still not really entirely sure what Web 3 is. I stopped paying much attention when the whole industry was overrun by bros and shysters. I just don't think it's wise to completely dismiss this branch of technology so readily. Certainly not in a global bear market when everyone is doubting everything and dumping their risky investments.
It took us at least 3000 years to go from coins to fiat currency, and we still don't really know how it works. It took 50 years to go from physical money to mostly digital, and we're still not completely there. Contactless payments predated Bitcoin and they're still rolling out in the USA, despite being a very minor upgrade on the existing technology. Up until fairly recently, finance industries wouldn't even touch the cloud. I mean the USA only reached 50% internet penetration in 2000, and packet switching was invented all the way back in 1965, and was still considered a new technology by many in the mid 2000s.
Cryptocurrencies might completely fizzle out, or they might completely replace the modern finance industry. Personally, I think they'll die in their current form, but we'll take some of what we learnt to build new technologies. My view is that CBDCs have more potential than cryptocurrencies, but there's still a lot of cross-pollination going on between the two right now.
For what it's worth, I don't own any cryptocurrencies and haven't for years. Never touched NFTs and I'm still not really entirely sure what Web 3 is. I stopped paying much attention when the whole industry was overrun by bros and shysters. I just don't think it's wise to completely dismiss this branch of technology so readily. Certainly not in a global bear market when everyone is doubting everything and dumping their risky investments.