Noah Smith, Columnist

Blockchain Hype Missed the Mark, and Not by a Little

The technology might still change the world, but all the skepticism seems warranted.

May 3, 2019 at 11:30 AM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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Bitcoin’s glory has been a bit tarnished by the bursting of its price bubble since late 2017. But enthusiasm for blockchain technology is still going strong, with venture capitalists throwing almost four times as much money at the sector last year as in 2017:

Some of the biggest deals included cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Robinhood Crypto, nonprofit blockchain-based cloud-computing platform Dfinity, peer-to-peer payments company Circle, and China-based crypto services company PINTEC.