Understanding the Cryptocurrency Boom (and its Volatility)

Speculative booms are often poor guides to future valuations and the maturation trajectory of a new sector. I recently came across a December 1996 San Jose Mercury News article on tech pioneers’ attempts to carry the pre-browser Internet’s bulletin board community vibe over to the new-fangled World Wide Web. In effect, the article is talking about social media a decade before MySpace and Facebook and 15 years before the maturation of social media. (Apple was $25 per share in December 1996. Adjusted for splits, that’s about the cost of a cup of coffee.) So what’s the point of digging up this ancient tech history? — Technology changes in ways that are difficult to predict, even to visionaries who understand present-day technologies. — The sources of great future fortunes are only visible in a rearview mirror.

This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2017.