Regarding smart contracts and other inventions of cryptocurrency: I think, most of all, the crypto market is absolutely vicious, in a way that both capital markets and technology companies haven't seen(in the public eye) for many, many years. As of right now there's still some faith left that Ethereum is going to go places because firms keep trying to use the technology on the basis of hype. Unlike with most overhyped and half-baked tech, though, the failures do not get shoved in the back room for some hapless dev or ops team to deal with. This is like if Apple and Google had daily columns on the front page showing every bug or support issue that they experienced in the past 24 hours.
And that's been true right from the beginning with Bitcoin: scams, schemes, heists, data loss - the headlines scream blood all the time. We've never had that kind of "mean time to disaster" in technology before. The status quo was that something would fail, but the failure would never quite get back to the individual or company that produced it. They would spin it away, and no careers would be harmed. But the likes of Solidity produces a meat-grinder, a blind destroyer of any who dare enter calling themselves rockstar.
I think it's kind of awesome and beautiful, in that sense. It will induce a maturation throughout the economy to adapt to this new pressure. But like adolescence, it can be an ugly work in progress, and I don't expect Ethereum itself to be a survivor at this rate.
And that's been true right from the beginning with Bitcoin: scams, schemes, heists, data loss - the headlines scream blood all the time. We've never had that kind of "mean time to disaster" in technology before. The status quo was that something would fail, but the failure would never quite get back to the individual or company that produced it. They would spin it away, and no careers would be harmed. But the likes of Solidity produces a meat-grinder, a blind destroyer of any who dare enter calling themselves rockstar.
I think it's kind of awesome and beautiful, in that sense. It will induce a maturation throughout the economy to adapt to this new pressure. But like adolescence, it can be an ugly work in progress, and I don't expect Ethereum itself to be a survivor at this rate.