What is Blockchain Ecosystem, and Why it matters?
Typically, when we say blockchain ecosystem, it is these 4 things: users (e.g. people using the technology by purchasing tokens for investment, or utilisation purposes); investors (people investing in ICOs); miners (people mining the coins/tokens); and developers (people engaged in coding). Collectively, these people are called stakeholders. It’s the interest and hard work of stakeholders, that make this or in fact any ecosystem grow and make more enticing for a wider community.
If cryptocurrencies/ICOs/blockchain technology interest you, following data about the growth of blockchain ecosystem would be certainly enticing along with briefly explaining how ecosystems are developed.
In 2015, World Economic Forum predicted that by 2025, 10% of world’s GDP (which is $100tn at present), may be on blockchain. Such promising and exciting figures come from accelerated growth of start-ups, experimenting across different sectors of this energetic industry. On to the market cap..a whooping 180bn USD (approx.), indicating one thing for sure if not other, this much money had been invested in the markets. The birth of Bitcoin and Ethereum Foundation, 2009 and 2014, respectively, are transformative moments in the human history. I use to believe that Blockchain is a disruptive or enabling technology…I was wrong.. “Blockchain is a transformative technology comparable to steam and electricity, and capable of building new economic and social foundations”. When we (the ecosystem) say that crypto-industry is rapid growing, this is what WE really mean…Ethereum Foundation is the 3rd rapidly growing digital unicorn (under 2 years) as compared to the top 20 US unicorns, behind Magic Leap and Snap, and far ahead of AirBnB, Uber and Dropbox.
From having a digital currency exchange in major countries, to almost all global financial institutions involved in blockchain research, to governments adapting or had already adapted the technology, blockchain is truly transformative.
Why does the ecosystem even matter?
Now that we have an overview of the blockchain ecosystem and its growth potential, let’s see why this ecosystem matters. It is an established fact, hypothetically and pragmatically both, that in order for a technology to progress, it needs an ecosystem that rely upon scalable expertise and massive-scale partnerships across organisational boundaries.
Secondly, ecosystem invites huge potential of collaborators due to its dynamic nature. Rapid growth of ICOs, and innovative developers’ tools such as Ethereum, NEO, Stratis, are excellent examples . Arguably speaking, the ecosystem approach has an organised benefit over markets and hierarchies approach. This is because ecosystem attracts or I would say ‘draw in’ diverse set of external capabilities and distributed heterogeneous knowledge. As an example, before the introduction of blockchain, one of the obstacles in large-scale deployment of robotic swarm systems for commercial applications was security. Blockchain promises to provide reliable peer-to-peer communication channel to swarm’s agents, but also overcome potential threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks.
Thirdly, blockchain ecosystem self-organises a consistent channel of interactions and connections facilitating innovation across multiple distributed technologies as indicated above. The finest human capital is matched with the finest available information which in return, create ‘information products’ (games, media, online consulting etc.) further facilitating economies of scope, eventually resulting in economies of scope in innovation.
Backing up the above, research conducted across digital ecosystems domain strongly suggest that knowledge-sharing, knowledge-creation and community building are inevitably connected.
So what does all above mean for stakeholders?
Like it or hate it, what we are experiencing is a shift in human history that we will be telling to our grand kids.
Blockchain is distributed and theoretically-put, borderless, literally residing on the internet with no considerations for any geographical boundaries. One can register an ICO in the UK, get initial funding from the US, get listed on Chinese exchange, with first buyer from Korea with a team of developers in Europe. Literally, the possibilities of growth and potential are limitless and very very promising. It has the potential to make financial institutions, high-street shopping experience, regulated pharmaceuticals and healthcare systems, a blast from the past.
The question is….who gets in first and use this transformation for his gains.
Any comment, feedback, improvement suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
