They all say it's now the early days of blockchain's Web3 and metaverse, but how early? How many more opportunities?

Blockchain is a new decentralized economic organization model implemented by a series of technologies. It was born in 2009 with the construction of the Bitcoin system and became a hot spot in the global economy in 2017, but there are few successful applications of blockchain, and this emerging industry is far from mature.

Today, Vernacular Blockchain brings you a compiled article on the current state of blockchain development. I will tell you in detail where blockchain has developed so far.

The following is the text:

We're actually still in the early stages, and even in the next few years, the phrase “we're still in the early stages” will still be very valid.

If you've been in the blockchain technology space long enough, the phrase “we're still in the early stages” is definitely something you've heard or even said a lot. But have you ever thought about when exactly you want to arrive?

In this post, we'll take a look at how early the blockchain technology industry is currently developing, and how early can we go if we decide to join the industry later? But first, we need to figure out when it's considered too late?

First, let's talk about the definition of being late here? Being late is like “Oh sorry, you're late; you can't go in” or, “Oh, sorry, Mr. XX, you're too late; we're done.”

No matter what kind of definition of late this question reflects, in the blockchain industry, it's never too late. Ethereum, any other crypto asset, or an NFT doesn't reach a specific price, and once that price is reached, its value never rises or falls.

Let's move on to the more important question: How early are we in the world of blockchain technology?

To accurately answer this question, we need to go deep into the various blockchain industries, namely blockchain itself, web3, crypto assets,DeFi, NFTs, and the metaverse.

01

blockchain

Blockchain isn't just about storing transactions; as more people adopt this technology, people are discovering more and more about its features.

Recently, the South Korean government revealed that it plans to embed blockchain-based digital identities into citizens' phones in 2024 to boost its economy.

Additionally, Google Cloud recently launched the Blockchain Node Engine — a technology designed to help Web3 developers build and deploy new products on blockchain-based platforms.

And more and more entities and companies are taking advantage of blockchain technology. Yes, products developed by these entities and companies using blockchain will help advance blockchain technology in the long run, but until then, we are still in the early stages.

02

crypto assets

The whole idea of building digital assets based on blockchain technology began inBitcoin, a cryptographic asset developed in 2009 by an anonymous person or entity under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto,” about 13 years have passed since this year.

From the creation of Bitcoin in 2009 to Bitcoin today, there is clearly a huge difference. When Bitcoin was first created and released, not many people knew about it. People who knew it called it “just an internet scam” or “criminal asset,” then people gradually downplayed its existence until a man named Laszlo Hanyec sold his 10,000 bitcoins for just two pizzas.

Fast forward to 13 years later, and Bitcoin is the biggest crypto asset by market capitalization. Everyone (me included) wishes they had bought Bitcoin at a bargain price 13 years ago.

Well, time can't be turned back, let's continue to talk about the development of crypto assets.

Bitcoin was created as a digital payment method on the internet. The idea behind creating Bitcoin was to make digital assets an alternative payment system that operates in a decentralized manner.

While some of the reasons Bitcoin was created have been debunked on the internet, even some countries, such as El Salvador, have accepted Bitcoin as legal tender.

Although some of the primary purposes for which Bitcoin was created have already worked in the 21st century we live in, it still hasn't become as mainstream as its white paper or Satoshi Nakamoto hoped.

Not everyone on the internet today uses Bitcoin as a means of payment, and some don't even know what Bitcoin is.

If we were to put it in writing, let's say that about 45% of people on the internet have probably heard of Bitcoin, 33% know that Bitcoin is a cryptographic asset, and only 5% of people on the internet can use Bitcoin as a means of payment.

Now let's talk about the crypto asset industry as a whole. First, if Bitcoin becomes mainstream, what should the industry look like?

At this rate, we need to compare the crypto market to the stock market. As of August 2022, the stock market capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange in the US stock market was just over $24.1 trillion.

This is a huge difference compared to the world's all-time high market capitalization of just over $3 trillion as of November 2021.

For the crypto market to have a market capitalization like the US stock market, it needs to go mainstream, and to go mainstream, almost everyone on and off the internet should know and use it.

But looking at the state of the crypto industry, such as how many transactions per second (TPS) blockchain can process with or without layer 2, and how powerful and secure they are, the crypto market may not be ready for mainstream adoption.

With all this in mind, it's enough to prove how early we are in the crypto asset industry.

03

Decentralized finance (DeFi)

Arguably, the rise of DeFi dates back to 2017, with the popularity of stablecoins such as the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, and Maker DAO. Some disagree, though, and think DeFi has been around since the Bitcoin era.

Whether the rise of DeFi began in 2017 or 2009, either way, it seems like we're still in the early stages.

The term DeFi is an abbreviation for decentralized finance. What are the main goals of this industry? Decentralize any finance and let users become their own banks. Simply put, DeFi allows users to control their own finances without any intermediaries.

From an industry perspective, where we are in DeFi today shows that even in the next 10 years, we'll still be seen as early days.

why? Great question.

There are billions of people on Earth who deal with finance in one way or another. Whether it's through banking, saving, sending or receiving money, they handle financial issues in one way or another. Most of them don't know, and probably have never even heard of the term “decentralized finance.”

Fewer than millions of people have adopted or are using DeFi in one way or another. That alone proves we're too early, and if you started using DeFi today, you were probably around 15 to 20 years old before DeFi became mainstream and adopted.

04

Irreplaceable Token (NFT)

The first thing that comes to mind when you read this post is probably jpeg. But trust me when I tell you that NFTs aren't just jpegs, NFTs are basically anything you can think of that's irreplaceable to exist on the blockchain.

It can be your audio, video, files, digital land, or even content, including your podcast and your work, it can be an NFT. But I'm not here to tell you what an NFT is, and what isn't.

I'm talking about how early were we in the NFT industry? Very early!

The first ever NFT, Quantum, was minted in 2014. The most famous NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, was minted in 2021, that is, last year.

Not many people know or even hear the term “irreplaceable token” on the internet as we know and use today.

I'm not trying to give you hope, but if you already work in the NFT industry, you're in luck because 10 to 20 years from now, you might have a chance to become a veteran of the industry.

If you haven't entered the NFT industry yet or haven't traded your first NFTs, or if this is your first time reading about NFTs, seriously, you're lucky because you came into contact with NFTs early in the industry.

Before NFTs get the mainstream adoption they need, everything you see online has proof of ownership, and it will take a while. I mean you won't see NFTs becoming mainstream even for a long time to come, which is hard to say even for decades to come.

Why am I saying that?

First, you need to know that the current use of the NFT industry is not or exceeds what it should be used for. Today's NFT industry is full of cash looting, low-quality, or labor-saving projects that are only meant to make money and have little value to buyers.

Second, NFTs have yet to take full advantage of their strengths. In addition to the jpeg or pfp of most NFTs today, NFTs can also be tickets, passes, and podcasts, videos, and even articles I mentioned before. But until now, most people aren't even interested in this side of NFTs.

Most people are now only interested in creating cash-making machines that don't work.

05

Web3

Web3 is a decentralized network, and it will be the next stage in the development of our current internet. Although almost everyone on Earth uses the internet, currently more than half of internet people have not heard of this so-called decentralized network, Web3.

This alone shows that it's still too early to become mainstream, and even within the next 5 to 10 years, web3 won't necessarily become mainstream.

06

metaverse

The metaverse didn't start to be something people started watching until last year (2021), when Meta (previously known as Facebook) rebranded its company to show its focus and their seriousness about bringing the metaverse into the real world.

However, currently less than 0.5% of people on the internet probably know what the metaverse is, and even some people in the web3 industry don't know what the metaverse means.

I didn't know there was something called the metaverse until about a few months ago. The metaverse is a technology that requires many things to combine to truly become one thing.

VR headsets are still a technology that not everyone knows or even owns, and AR is still something that is still being investigated. The company is also still lagging behind in creating interoperability to bring the metaverse into a very smooth digital world experience.

Don't forget, for the metaverse to become mainstream, everyone needs to have a VR headset or AR glasses, just like they have computers today, but I don't even feel like this will happen for the next ten years.

So the metaverse is an early technology, and it can even be said that it hasn't appeared yet. However, it already has some early versions, such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Second Life, and Roblox. But these are just early versions, not a real metaverse.

The true metaverse is yet to arrive, and predicting when it will become mainstream is difficult.

Before we started seeing people have AR and VR technology, just like they had computers or parts of our real-world Mr. Stark or Avengers technology, the metaverse was still a technology in its infancy.

07

Summarize

Through all this analysis, we can see that our current technology is actually still very early. Even in the next few years, saying “it's too early” will still be out of date.

Furthermore, one thing we must always keep in mind is that these emerging technologies on the blockchain will eventually arrive, and when they do, they will become so mainstream that they will take over our world.

So if this is your first time reading about these emerging technologies, you should definitely do more research and use them in your own way to seize early opportunities.