Déjà vu. You know that feeling, when you momentarily are not sure of where you are in the timeline and you wonder what you’ve missed. We’re there now.
The “blockchain not bitcoin” chorus seems to be re-emerging, taking us back to the 2016-18 heyday of thematic and platform consortia convinced that the benefits of greater efficiency would overcome corporate competition. Bitcoin was an asset with no backing or clear utility, the implied argument seemed to go, whereas blockchain, well that was a technology.
Noelle Acheson is the former head of research at CoinDesk and Genesis Trading. This article is excerpted from her Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, which focuses on the overlap between the shifting crypto and macro landscapes. These opinions are hers, and nothing she writes should be taken as investment advice.