It’s true that the first mover often fails, but I also think it’s clear that there seems to be a window of opportunity early on which gets harder to get through over time. For example, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon were all around before the dotcom bust. And while Facebook wasn’t the first social network, it seems to have gotten to such strong network effects that it’s likely to crush any challenger (as it’s currently successfully doing to Snapchat). Surely most of the current blockchains will fail (I mean there’s over 1000 of them), but it’s very possible someone has already built an improved version that can be mainstreamed.
It’s true that the first mover often fails, but I also think it’s clear that there seems to be a window of opportunity early on which gets harder to get through over time. For example, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon were all around before the dotcom bust. And while Facebook wasn’t the first social network, it seems to have gotten to such strong network effects that it’s likely to crush any challenger (as it’s currently successfully doing to Snapchat). Surely most of the current blockchains will fail (I mean there’s over 1000 of them), but it’s very possible someone has already built an improved version that can be mainstreamed.