In an interview by Bloomberg during a blockchain conference in Hong Kong, the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, said that the ability for the blockchain industry to do incredible growth is probably gone. Vitalik base this conclusion on the fact that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has become more mainstream.

“If you talk to the average educated person at this point, they probably have heard of blockchain at least once. There isn’t an opportunity for yet another 1,000-times growth in anything in the space anymore.”, Buterin said.

In the early days of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a lot of the growth and adaption was focused on and dependent on marketing. A strategy which Buterin thinks is about to hit a dead end.

Ethereum, who saw an increase of 100x its initial value during its bull run from early 2017 to the end 2018, a price increase from around $18 to $1671, has since then lost a lot of its value and is currently worth approximately $280. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have also lost a lot of their previous value.

While Buterins prediction could be accurate, he says that the next step that people who are involved in cryptocurrencies should take is not just to be interested in them. Since the adoption of cryptocurrencies is increasing, he thinks that people should start using them to develop real applications for real economic activity.

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