Monetization (in the sense of creating a widely accepted monetary standard) is a very different process than taking a company to profitability.
The State has enjoyed a monopoly over monetization throughout our lives. Therefore, most entrepreneurs have no experience here.
The State has enjoyed a monopoly over monetization throughout our lives. Therefore, most entrepreneurs have no experience here.
When faced with novel challenges, people tend to fall back on familiar habits. Starving for adequate analogies, superficial resemblances are taken as fundamental. For instance, equity markets are far more familiar to investors and entrepreneurs.
In an equity market, people own shares of means of production. A modern economy has many industries that specialize in different areas. This allows society to scale and become more efficient. But having many monetary standards does the opposite.
Even more importantly, the incentive structure of stock markets is completely different than that for money. Company officers who are also large shareholders are incentivized to maximize shareholder value. And in a competitive market, this makes sense.
But in the case of money, this creates perverse incentives to just print more of it, effectively transfering wealth from current holders to issuers of new supply. And this transfer happens almost invisibly.
I do not believe most entrepreneurs are quite ready for this challenge. If nothing else comes out of cryptocurrency, at least we might relearn skills lost as we became more and more dependent on the State to issue, regulate, and tax the use of currency.
