The Almost Right Word

Rainbow via Frans Van Heerden

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.  — Mark Twain
Language is a funny thing. It's always changing.

25 years ago, Google was a number spelled wrong and today it’s a common verb.

Back in the 90s, people used the term cyberspace to mean the internet. Now it’s outdated.

Cyberspace was a transitional term. It was the best we had to describe something new we didn’t fully understand yet.

Today, some of the words we’ve used to describe blockchain technology are in the process of becoming obsolete or narrowed.

What Is Crypto?

Here’s the problem with the word cryptocurrency. It’s a lot of things and currency is only one of them.

Crypto is technology. It’s software. It’s a platform. It’s a protocol. It’s a store of value. It’s a commodity. It’s a token. It’s a contract. It’s a speculative instrument. And yes, it’s currency.

So generalizing the term cryptocurrency doesn’t capture the full rainbow. 

The word served a critical purpose ten years ago when the world was thinking about Bitcoin as a decentralized currency first and foremost.

Language will continue to evolve and become more specific to delineate more accurately the different structures and functions.

It already is. We now have more specific terms that are becoming more common to delineate, like blockchain technology, crypto-asset, token, non-fungible token, altcoin, stablecoin, Web 3.0, and so on.

Inuits have lots of words for snow. They have a lot of snow.

The dynamics of blockchain technologies are evolving faster than new words can go mainstream and so the language hasn’t caught up yet, but it is catching up as we speak.

In Case You Missed It… 

Osprey Funds Founder and CEO, Greg King appeared on Fox Business and covered some of this plus recent price action.

Investing in ‘crypto,’ it’s almost a useless word at this point because it describes so many things, it’s actually tech investing.

You can watch it here.

To learn more about Osprey Funds single coin products, schedule a time to talk.