ChatGPT is everything you wanted Bitcoin to be

Bitcoin is a middling technology that, 15 years after its introduction to the world, still doesn’t have a single legitimate use case in the developed world where it’s the best possible solution to a problem. It is worse than our traditional stores of value (gold, US dollar) due to its inherent volatility (about 5 times more volatile than the stock market). It’s clunkier and more annoying than our existing payment systems, and any argument that it’s cheaper or more efficient as a medium of exchange has become laughable in the last six months. And it certainly didn’t earn its keep as an inflation hedge during one of the biggest inflation spikes of all time in US history. Defenders of bitcoin technology continue to bend their words (and minds) into pretzels when trying to describe its current usefulness. The only reasonable argument left is “just wait and see”, which is the same argument people have been making for over a decade. Well, we are waiting. show us. I have an open mind.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT was introduced a few months ago and has already spread like wildfire in a way that Bitcoin never has, despite the latter’s explosive rise in public awareness as a way to bet and speculate. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has instantly found use cases, particularly in high school and college, as kids start experimenting with it as a way to help them complete (or cheat) their assignments. I wouldn’t scoff at this development: It’s a well-established Silicon Valley trope that some of the most world-changing technologies appear at first as toys and silly little toys for children. If millions of kids start using technology in their everyday lives over the next year, this behavior will become entrenched and have long-term ramifications for how these kids grow into adulthood and incorporate it into their careers.

While Bitcoin rests on the instant millionaire dreams of traders or the steadfast belief of its Twitter-based cult, the actual utility function of AI chatbots will continue to proliferate without the need for endless conference panels and impassioned defense of threads. of tweets on social networks. media. It just works. No need to theorize or pump. It’s easy and accessible in a way that Bitcoin as a payment system never was (or will be?). Any technologically unsophisticated child or adult can make use of it on first contact. Not in Venezuela. Not in the near future. Here and now.

I speak from experience, having bought my first bitcoin in 2017 and then invested in a variety of coins and tokens for the next five years. I’ve been among the unrequited believers all this time, and I have financial war wounds to prove it.

I still think there is something there. My main criticism of the industry is that too much time, attention and capital has been spent inventing things to trade and not enough creating useful products and services. You can argue, but I have all the evidence on my side. The largest entities in the crypto ecosystem, despite the 1929 moment of last year, remain brokerage houses and exchanges. There is nothing else worth talking about. If there are any brilliant entrepreneurs in the space who have created useful crypto things suitable for mass adoption, where are they? Who are they? Why don’t we hear more about them? In his absence, we have nothing to focus on but plummeting prices and international scandals.

It is too early to rule out the possibility of blockchain becoming transformative in some way. But at the current rate of progress, it would take a century for the financial benefits of using blockchain technology to outweigh the hundreds of billions of dollars lost by gambling on it. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is instantly useful and obviously ready for prime time. Every corporation and organization in the world will spend 2023 crafting their AI strategy. The arrival of this particular chatbot was like the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Nothing will be the same in its aftermath. Conversely, if Bitcoin were to disappear tomorrow, hardly anyone would know the difference.