Welcome Amazon, I have been waiting for you

by James Ahn

Expanding Blockchain Market

Last week, the AWS Reinvent conference caught my eye, even though since entering the blockchain industry I have not followed the Reinvent conferences.

At the suggestion of one of our telegram community members, I took a look at the conference to check out AWS’s new blockchain service.

The new blockchain service seems to lower the hurdle for adoption of blockchain technology because what a user needs to do is very similar to how one uses common cloud services.

One simply needs to sign a service agreement to gain access to the API to implement blockchain services.

I personally believe that Amazon’s entry into the blockchain space will serve as a good stepping stone to widen the scope and usage of blockchain technology – companies will have an additional option.

Their service is supposed to be stable, high performing and easy-to-use. Furthermore, the Amazon brand is well known and widely appreciated.

What i can say at this moment is that the emergence of the Amazon service will trigger the development of many DApps as well as anchoring the big giant’s invasion into the blockchain world.

I anticipate that we will witness many similar services coming into the blockchain industry, claiming that they are easy-to-use, technological superior, have low cost and so on.

This is one of my favorite topic to discuss with Eden team members, colleagues and friends.

Needless to say, blockchain approaches have huge potential and Amazon’s entry into the space validates this. Indeed, one could actually argue that the sentence, “blockchain tech is the next tech paradigm” has been validated.

The largest firms do not typically make a move into a new market unless they feel there is a promising potential and prospects for enduring success.

I believe the larger firms such as Google, MS, and Oracle have their own blockchain teams and that they have been preparing blockchain services for a long time. Their entry into the market is inevitable.

Amazon has become the first one to enter this market with reasonable services, and sooner or later other will follow. In fact my guess is that other blockchain services like the AWS implementation will be forthcoming sooner rather than later.

A changing perception on blockchain technology is the thing i have been anticipating.

Whenever i have business meetings with large enterprises, i have been asked about the stability of blockchain technology and its performance. All of these enterprises are well aware of the current limitations of blockchain technology.

It has not been easy for me to convince them of the merits of blockchain technology because, frankly speaking, the blockchain industry does not yet have a powerful reference point.

Enterprises remain conservative and cautious about new technology, they do not jump into new technology just because it is available.

It is good to see a service such as Amazon joining the fray, as I am convinced that this will cause the size of the blockchain market to grow significantly and provide us with many opportunities.

Since this is the just beginning of the game, there are many uncharted territories waiting for Eden and other blockchain companies.

Easy IT Service Operation

Besides the technology, AWS’s kind of blockchain service has another game-changing point: service operation.

It is quite obvious that the purpose of IT services, whether blockchain related or not, is to operate IT services and not to develop something, so services such as that being built by Amazon will be tempting for developers to use because they will also offer good operating environments with many proven tools.

The IT service part of a technology is a really critical factor for its success. Without a qualified service operation, no one will want to use the services.

From a developer’s viewpoint, the IT service component of a technology is not usually a top priority because developers like to create something new, to try something different.

The focus of IT service, however, is not development but, rather, on providing a stable service and making optimal use of the technology.

A typical developer often thinks that the IT service operation is “not my job” and looks for something or someone who can get rid of these “boring” items.

This is why the AWS blockchain service has an undeniable attractiveness – developers can minimize their effort on the operational aspect of the system.

To be able to focus just on development and use the AWS infrastructure to run the IT service aspect of a system is extremely attractive to developers.

Pre-Cambrian Era

Good Technology + Easy Operation is at the forefront behind a natural growth of the blockchain environment.

In this new environment the rules of the game need to be rewritten, as the dominant rules in prior environments no longer work …

So far, blockchain technology is somewhat expensive, hard to learn and not easily accessible. In the new environment, however, it will be easy to use, accessible, and available at a reasonable price.

In the next few months, the focus of the blockchain industry is likely to move from platforms to DApps because DApps are something users can play with, unlike the underlying blockchain platform. Actual benefits of blockchain technology will become evident through the use of DApps.

I would say that the blockchain industry has begun to emerge from a pre-Cambrian era. and that is a welcome step for the emergence of blockchain technology’s prevalence.

We will see many DApps coming into market in various fields. In the beginning only a small number of DApps will be available but as time goes by the number will increase substantially, very much like growth in the Pre-Cambrian Era.

Before the Pre-Cambrian era the earth was silent and calm … and then the multiple forms of life grew exponentially. We refer to this as the Cambrian explosion of life.

I expect the same Cambrian-like explosion of life to occur in blockchain industry in the near future.

Of course, it is likely that early DApps may fail due to a lack of appreciation of blockchain’s true value to normal users.

But trial and error initiated by many DApp providers will pave the way to the new future of blockchain technology.

Edenchain

This is a critical moment for EdenChain. The company that is able to intelligently adapt itself to this new environment is likely to be a great success, whilst others who miss the opportunity will fail.

We need to make smart decisions to take advantage of this new environment. As long as we set a direction correctly and relentlessly pursue our objective, small mistakes can be tolerated and the ultimate outcome will be fruitful.

Setting a strategic direction demands many things such as an understanding on Eden’s core competency, the positioning of other potential players, applicable industry, regulation, and technology development and so on.

We already have a strategic direction, and plan to keep our eyes on market conditions as well as the tech & business development of competitors to move us forward.

Good days await the blockchain industry.