Looking at 2017's crypto frenzy through the lens of Carlota Perez's tech life cycles: blockchain is likely in the “gestation” stage and more bubbles are coming
Why another bubble is likely and what the blockchain space should focus on now — In the aftermath … Tweets: @pegasyseng , @consensys , @aridavidpaul , and @ethereumjoseph Tweets: PegaSys / @pegasyseng : PegaSys cofounder @HeymanDaniel on blockchain, enterprise and the adoption curve “The 2018 ICO bubble happened [too] early in blockchain technology's life-cycle....[because] the financial assets became liquid before the underlying technology matured.” http://hackernoon.com/... @consensys : “History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme” Mark Twain once said. It sure does. @PegaSysEng Program Director, @HeymanDaniel, compares #blockchain with the 2001 internet craze — but points out some interesting differences. #Consensys http://hackernoon.com/... Ari Paul / @aridavidpaul : Great essay. http://hackernoon.com/... Joseph Lubin / @ethereumjoseph : A fresh piece on @hackernoon from @HeymanDaniel of @PegaSysEng. It compares the current trajectory of #blockchain adoption with traditional technology life cycles. He argues we should continue to work with legacy enterprises and invest in infrastructure. http://hackernoon.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Writing after the 2018 crash, this piece gives theoretical spine to what was then an intuition: Bloomberg had already framed Bitcoin and ICOs as a 1999-like bubble whose crash would still yield durable companies. PegaSys cofounder Daniel Heyman supplies the framework — Carlota Perez's technology life cycles — arguing the financial assets became liquid before the underlying technology matured, which is why the bubble arrived during blockchain's 'gestation' stage rather than its deployment phase.
The prescription follows from the diagnosis: Heyman recommends working with legacy enterprises and investing in infrastructure instead of chasing token liquidity — the same 'think small, build viable applications' counsel TechCrunch was giving startups at the time. Later coverage kept validating the frame: Andreessen Horowitz's ten years of funding data documented repeated boom-and-'crypto winter' cycles, and O'Reilly argued Web3's real shape won't be legible until the next bubble pops.
First-order effects
- Enterprise-focused blockchain firms like PegaSys and ConsenSys get a strategic mandate: sell infrastructure and legacy-enterprise integration now, while speculative capital sits out the winter.
- ICO-era projects holding liquid tokens on immature technology face the core mismatch Heyman identifies — their tradable assets outrun what the product can actually deliver.
Second-order effects
- Investors who funded the token mania — the dynamic Stephen Diehl later criticized as VCs dumping tokens on an unregulated public — face pressure to shift toward equity-style bets on infrastructure and enterprise deployments.
- A credible 'gestation stage' narrative gives enterprises cover to run pilots without touching tokens, pulling talent and budgets away from consumer crypto apps toward B2B rails.
Third-order effects
- If the Perez pattern holds, the next mania will fund the deployment phase — the plumbing enterprises actually use — meaning today's infrastructure builders are positioned as tomorrow's incumbents, though which chain or stack wins stays genuinely open.
- Repeated asset-before-technology bubbles invite regulators to treat token launches as securities events by default, hardening the legitimacy gap between crypto finance and crypto utility.
The trend: Crypto keeps lurching through Perez-style gestation bubbles — liquid assets ahead of mature technology — with each winter pushing capital from speculation toward enterprise infrastructure until the next cycle tests whether the foundation holds.