Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, an interactive keynote speaker at South by SouthWest (SXSW), made a significant statement about the growth of Ethereum, saying that it would expand by 1,000x in the next 2 years, the kind of statement in keeping with his optimism about cryptocurrencies.
That's a wrap for #ConsenSysSXSW! A massive thank you to @SXSW for having me. Blown away by the size of the crowd and the interest in #blockchain around Austin this year. My outlook on #Ethereum for 2019? Yeehaw 🤠 pic.twitter.com/7zN4qPaB0b
— Joseph Lubin (@ethereumJoseph) March 14, 2019
Lubin, who is also the founder of blockchain company Consensys, spoke of how early the days of Ethereum development were, and the plans to make Ethereum even bigger than what it is now:
Ethereum 2.0 is coming…We have 8 teams building it and we are currently in Phase 0 of the four phases of the roadmap. We continue to build the base layer of the Layer 2 expansion solution, which will be in the next 18- At least 1000 times in 24 months. After that, Ethereum will continue to expand.
Lubin also emphasized the need to take a long-term view, and the expansion that has been cemented since the early days of Ethereum:
Since the start of the ecosystem and since 2009, we’ve seen many incredible rises in the price of these tokens followed by very significant corrections. So the most significant correction took us back one year, which was 5,000-times more valuable than when ETH was initially launched. In that context, it’s not so horrifying.
Blockchain is indeed in its early days, and large scale implementation could be years away, maybe even decades.
But when that time comes, Lubin believes blockchain will have a big role to play in the global economy:
When the blockchain fully ramifies and in 10-20 years the economy will probably be 10x as large. The blockchain will probably be the majority part of that; in dollar terms, a lot.
Ethereum has suffered quite a bit during the crypto winter and now languishes at around the $140 region, down from its 4-figure highs of the bull run of 2017.
However, with major upgrades like Casper and Sharding arriving, long-term investors are generally optimistic about Ethereum cementing its place in the future of digital economies.
