23-12-2017, 12:25 AM
(22-12-2017, 06:57 PM)Wildreamz Wrote:(22-12-2017, 06:49 PM)mobo Wrote: I see many people who do not even understand basic computing acting like they really understand the future of blockchain technology and by implication cryptocurrencies. The fact that MAS needs to publish an explicit warning on Bitcoin not being a currency and you could lose everything shows that the situation is getting serious. It's no longer limited to just a few morons speculating in land banking, fine wine or tree saps.
IMHO, the fundamental concept of Blockchain technology is pretty straightforward: a distributed ledger shared among many computers such that all transactions are recorded and traceable (a la double-entry accounting); which allows for decentralised transactions over the internet.
I don't think you need to be a software engineer to understand, or reflect on the implications. Steve Jobs wasn't an engineer, Jack Ma never written a line of code.
Yes, but there were millions of others who neither understood software nor written a line of code who dabbled with businesses/investments that had to do with computers or the internet. These people are all lost in history and never mentioned again. Jack Ma and Steve Jobs are interesting as individual case studies in retrospect, but not much of an assurance when somebody reads up 'fundamental concepts' from google and tells me all the supposed hazy potential breakthroughs in the future.
The devil is always in the details. Just like e-commerce, everyone who reads an article or two knows in the early 2000s that this is going to be revolutionary on shopping in the future, but that tells me nothing useful in terms of making investment decisions because the timing, extent and form the technology will present itself as is yet unknown at that time. The Amazon and Taobao we know now are simply the survivors in the ocean of competing ideas.
It is very important to know there is a difference between identifying a broad social/technological trend and translating that into useful inputs for investment purposes. The former is very easy as most reasonably well read people would know but the latter is what differentiates the insanely successful and the mediocre. Sadly I'm on track to a path of mediocrity.
