Balaji S. Srinivasan believes that bitcoin is the largest unicorn of the past ten years. Even bigger than the startups of recent years such as Uber, Snapchat and Airbnb.
What is a unicorn?
A company receives unicorn status if they meet two requirements: it must be a startup and they must have a market value of 1 billion. This combination is just as unique as their mythical namesake the unicorn. That bitcoin has a larger market capitalization than many popular companies, some of which are even older than bitcoin says enough.
Balaji S. Srinivasan is the founder of Earn Counsyl, Coin Center and also former Coinbase CTO. He says that bitcoin is the biggest unicorn of the decade, not the Silicon Valley startups such as Uber, Snapchat and Airbnb.
As the decade ends, the biggest unicorn of the 2010s was not Uber, Airbnb, or Snap. It was Bitcoin.
– Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) December 4, 2019
Srinivasan may have a point. Uber currently has a market capitalization of approximately $ 49 billion. The market capitalization of Airbnb is around $ 35 billion and that of Snapchat is $ 23 billion. Even if you add these three together, they will fade at bitcoin. The market capitalization of bitcoin is $ 133 billion.
Common denominator
Bitcoin has a lot in common with Uber and Airbnb. All three concepts turn existing and old industries upside down. Disruptive is the right word for this. Go after:
- The taxi world is never the same again because of Uber.
- Anyone can rent out their room to tourists because of Airbnb, the monopoly of hotels is slowly disappearing.
- Almost every central bank and government wants to develop a cryptocurrency, that was not possible without the rise of bitcoin.
Bitcoin has become a household name in the last decade. What used to be a nice technology for nerds and cryptographers, has now become a globally recognized financial instrument that threatens the hegemony of gold as a store of value.
Almost all countries are working on their regulations regarding cryptos. With this they acknowledge that bitcoin will have an even greater impact on society. Germany even goes so far as to state that national banks will be allowed to store and sell cryptos from next year.
Comparing a protocol with companies makes no sense
Srinivasan receives sincere remarks to his digital head that this comparison is not valid at all. He defends his comparison from the point of view of an investor. He refers to an essay by Mike Masnick entitled Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech.
He summarizes this by stating that in the coming decade, from the user’s point of view, the opposition company-versus-protocol will become as common as commercial-vs-open-source code that has been the last 10 years.
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