© Provided by CoinDesk (Pisit Heng/Unsplash modified by CoinDesk)The new concepts are complex enough to be talked about without bothering with words. The importance of using secret words is not that great; Even well-established words can be inappropriate, and the best words still cannot be found. Painful example is a word I use many times a day because I know it's imprecise.
I didn't mention the word "crypto", although of course I could - he mentioned cryptography, which isn't necessarily related to the blockchain. I'm talking about describing what we're doing here.
Noel Acheson is the former head of research at CoinDesk and Genesis Trading. This article is from his Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter on the convergence of cryptocurrencies and the changing macro landscape. This is his own opinion and nothing he writes should be construed as investment advice.
Those of us who talk about cryptocurrencies often use the collective term “industry” to refer to any project based on blockchain, the issuance of tokens, or the transfer of assets from one owner to another. But is “industry” correct? I searched for different definitions and found this.
- Investopedia: "A group of companies with one core business."
- Collins: "Any natural or legal person involved in the manufacture of a specific product or the provision of a specific service."
- Vocabulary.com: "A group of manufacturers or companies that produce a specific type of product or service."
Find the slider. The most common definitions indicate that the industry has a common purpose and is made up of companies engaged in the same type of activity.
Browsing the major new crypto sites this morning, we found crypto exchanges, non-reversible token (NFT) platforms, decentralized lenders, game developers, new blockchains, security services, data warehouses, wealth managers and more. What is common here?
We can say that this is the introduction of blockchain technology. But should an industry standard focus on technology or business? Take healthcare as an example: the common thread is the well-being of people using all kinds of technologies. Or the insurance industry, whose overarching goal is to provide insurance coverage for every organization. An industry united by a desire to innovate rather than meet needs doesn't seem very, well, industrious.
See also: What is blockchain technology? / To learn
In other words, is technology a "big deal" or, more importantly, what can it do? Constructivists would probably argue that technology matters a lot, and they're right, but technology doesn't make much of an impact in a world with no use cases. Isolating a technology within its own industrial cluster can inhibit its impact by creating a distance between it and the activities it seeks to disrupt.
To be fair, this jargon was invented by the "tech industry". The term started out as a catch-all for companies that make computers and/or software, such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, and has since expanded to include robotics research, headset manufacturing, payments, video conferencing, and mattress providers.
Developing a design seems to be a matter of maturity. The "tech industry" was good when the focus was on usage, when the technology was being developed, because that usage was just beginning. But it had to be labeled, the mindset was set, and other companies wanted a "cool" label.
The crypto industry is in a similar situation: at first it was all about creating crypto and blockchain. But now the focus is on use cases, making categorization difficult, but habits are established and labels are readily accepted.
See Also: How Does Blockchain Technology Work? / To learn
That's why the category is more important than you think. Industry identifiers are important due to the specialization of investments and indices. Just as a good venture capital fund helps projects find synergies with others in different markets, good cryptocurrency investors can build entire teams through networking and peer learning. And as the market becomes flooded with technology exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and an incredible mix of companies, we'll soon have crypto ETFs that span multiple industries.
We know our category is maturing, but as labels blur and maybe disappear, we care more about what design does than how it works. As we can see, blockchain-based payment companies are becoming the EF of financial services. MetaPlatforms (formerly Facebook) and Nvidia shares are based on the Metaverse ETF as well as native tokens like mana and sand.
Labeling is also important for control. Lawmakers seem to understand that they can't control "technology," but they can make sure tech companies don't abuse data and grow. However, we see many calls to regulate crypto as a business, without realizing that it is already too big to be fully regulated.
See also: 4 Cryptocurrency Regulation Predictions in 2023 / Powered by Consensus
But there is little linguistic hope on the horizon. We also have a "Crypto Sector" that is not stored in the "Techno Sector" bucket - this proves that what we are working on is really innovative and unique and finally a symbol. , marking technology is developing. After all, the same thing is happening around us.
And as technology improves, maybe vocabulary should too. Perhaps it's time to ditch the word "industry," at least when it comes to technology and cryptography. First, it creates images of the product in physical space.
So what? "Sector" is too broad: today it is better applied to economic entities such as "services" or "public sector". Personally, I prefer “ecosystems”—community-driven, non-technological systems that seem more concrete and dynamic in terms of end-goals. More exciting, collaborative and welcoming even for those who have not worked on blockchain related projects.
See also: What is tokenomics and why is it important? / To learn
No doubt "diligence" still seeps into my writing, because some habits are hard to break (and because my internal "ecology" thesaurus rebels against too much repetition). But I'll try: after all, the crypto ecosystem deserves more than to settle for outdated terminology.