Andreessen Horowitz VC Investor Says Crypto Today Is How Internet Was in 1993

By Swati Kishore

The cryptocurrency space might have seen many scams and failed projects during the past few years but it isn’t right to write off the crypto industry or the underlying Blockchain technology just yet. Benedict Evans, general partner at one of the biggest VC firms in the world, Andreessen Horowitz, has resounded the above views in one of his tweets.

As per the financial expert:

“Crypto today has a lot in common with both the internet in 1993 and the internet in 1999. Huge potential with few of the use cases invented yet, combined with froth, scams and delusion.”

As per the views put forth by Evans on his largely followed Twitter account, it is clear that he believes that failures are a part and parcel of the process of  evolution of any emerging technology. He compares today’s failures in the cryptocurrency industry to the lack of progress of Cuecat, Boo.com, and Usenet in the 1999.

Evans elaborated that had we dismissed the internet because of such non-successes, then we wouldn’t have had witnessed the internet revolution. Blockchain technology on a similar note is driving us towards the path of another technological revolution led by value-exchange.

Evans comments on Twitter read:

“But dismissing crypto as a useless scam is much like looking at Usenet, Cuecat and Boo.com and dismissing the internet. It mistakes applications for the enabling layer.”

On a previous occasion, legendary venture capitalist Ben Horowitz had stated that in their initial stages emerging technologies can appear to be inferior to the existing technologies. As per the A16Z co-founder, this can be an illusion. Horowitz is of the view that such disparity can lead us to believe that such technologies are dominated by scams, and thus humanity can easily dismiss their potential.

The value of several cryptocurrency firms reached multi-billion level in late 2017 when the valuation of the crypto market reached a staggering USD 800 billion. This progress was made as investors rushed in to catch the bubble. However, Evans is of the view that as the crypto market will mature, the industry will witness the emergence of new use cases, and hence the Blockchain technology and its efficiency will also improve .

Evans further said:

“Looking at crypto and only seeing the scams is like looking at the internet in 1999 and only seeing the bubble. Looking at crypto and seeing no use cases is like looking at the internet in 1993, when the web was 3% of traffic.”