A Big Bet: Blockchain Tech Won’t Last Five Years

CoinDesk’s Consensus 2018, blockchain world’s biggest conference, has seen some interesting things up to now, among them an unexpected bet. Joseph Lubin, the founder of the Ethereum startup studio Consensys, and Jimmy Song, a partner at Blockchain Capital, a venture capital company, struck a handshake bet in front of an audience that blockchain technology won’t be around in five years.

Lubin bet Song “any amount of Bitcoin” – details to be sorted out on Twitter, they said – that five years in the future, blockchain will have entered the mainstream through undefined applications in businesses. Song took the bet.

As Quartz reports, Song argued that blockchain use in businesses could be replaced by other technologies to be more efficient: “You’re a hammer-thrower looking for nails at this point,” he said. “Blockchain is not this magical thing that you sprinkle blockchain dust over it and it’s okay.”

Later, Song tweeted:

”Regarding my bet with Joe, I’ll have to think about this, but the thing he said right before he said “I’ll bet you any amount of bitcoin that you’re wrong” is “Assuming we can come up with a good standard” or something like that.”

The whole situation happened due to Amber Baldet, former blockchain program lead at JPMorgan, unveiling her new project, the dapp store Clovyr. She brought Song and Lubin onstage and asked Song what he thought about Clovyr. He simply replied, “I didn’t see anything other than buzzwords,” according to CoinDesk.

In his opinion, the reason to this was the “insurmountable disconnect” between centralized enterprises and decentralized applications – thus the magical blockchain dust comment.

In the following days, let’s watch Twitter closely to see the follow-up to this bet reportedly made in front of 2,500 people – it’s bound to become an interesting topic.