[stevenleeg]

A notably omitted section: “use cases.”

Seriously, the whole blockchain industry reeks of technologists who don’t understand business needs and business people who don’t understand the technology. Having worked in the industry myself for long enough to hit this realization I’d highly recommmend others to steer clear and not try to base their career on this stuff.

Conflictingy, I do think it’s worth most programmers’ time to at least read up on how blockchains work, as it is certainly an interesting and worthwhile academic experience in applied cryptography.

[jraedisch]

What about the Bitcoin ecosystem? Same recommendation?

[olalonde]

I wouldn't say so. With all its warts, Bitcoin is an actual legitimate use case for "blockchain technology" (also worked and had a startup in the space). I'd personally recommend staying away from anything blockchain apart from the few cryptocurrencies that legitimately attempt to compete with Bitcoin (e.g. Ethereum).

[vertex-four]

Bitcoin at least technically solves a problem. It's also an ecological disaster, suffers from miner centralisation, and it's a hotbed for scams. You probably don't want to assume it'll continue to exist in future.