I came to the US to be part of building a more open internet and financial system by investing in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

Blockchain and crypto have the potential to democratize access to the financial system and threaten the hold that nation states have over monetary policy, and that centralized corporations have over access to our information. In the not-so-distant future, I believe that the notion of monetary policy being set by governments (at will), and ownership of your assets and data being controlled by a third party, will be a thing of the past.

That being said, we are still a long way from that reality. One of the main criticisms that the industry receives constantly and that I’m always asked is about adoption. “Where is mainstream adoption today?”, “What are the killer apps?”, “Billions have been raised, but what has changed?"

These are valid questions and my typical response is along the lines of new disruptive technology of this nature takes time. My prediction is that change of this nature will come about like it always does: gradually and then suddenly.

It’s helpful to think of this change through the lens of the hype cycle.

In 2017 we were very much in the peak of inflated expectations. Bitcoin shot up to almost $20,000 in record time and if you were doing any type of investing in crypto, you looked like a genius. Everything came sharply tumbling down almost as quickly, with the 2018 proverbial ‘crypto winter’ bringing us squarely into the trough of disillusionment (the Bitcoin price dropped to around $3,400 and almost all other crypto projects losing over 90% of their value).

I believe that we’re now slowly coming out of the other side of this trough and beginning to move towards the slope of enlightenment. But this phase is slow, it’s gradual. It’s almost unnoticeable. So much so that the ‘mainstream’ has lost interest in crypto. To many, it appears dead. But it is certainly not dead. New applications are being built daily and new discoveries in how to think about this technology and scale are occurring as frequently.

Many of these solutions are still rudimentary in comparison to their more centralized and closed counterparts, and will only improve as the technology gradually does. For “mainstream adoption” to happen though, we can’t wait. To bring about that change, we need to be supporting the startups that are working on this alternative future. If these companies or organizations don’t get support, we may not get there.

So with that I’ve decided to commit for the next 180 days and wherever I can, to ‘live on crypto’. By that I mean, wherever there is a choice to use a decentralized alternative, I will do so. From shopping online, to investing, to paying for meals at restaurants, to using alternative decentralized apps. I’m going to work to incorporate crypto into each portion of my life and I’ll be reviewing the experience here on the blog with a weekly update on how hard or simple the process is. Some of these will be companies that I’ve invested in, others will be new.

Over the weeks that come, these experiences will hopefully help paint a much clearer picture of where we as an industry are today, what has been solved and where the biggest challenges still lie ahead. And it is my hope that while I go up the slope of decentralized enlightenment, you too will join me too.