Had a guy at a tech meetup tell me blockchain would kill email by 2020

I went to this little tech meetup in Portland back in 2017 (it was at a coffee shop with terrible lighting) and this dude spent 20 minutes explaining how blockchain messaging would make email obsolete within 3 years. He was super confident, had a whole slideshow on his laptop and everything. Said email was a "legacy system" that couldn't compete with decentralized ledgers. I actually bought into it for a bit and started messing around with some encrypted messaging apps. Fast forward to 2025 and I'm still sending emails every single day, getting spam from sketchy stores, and waiting for replies from coworkers. The only thing that changed is I now have three different crypto wallets with like $12 total in them. Anyone else ever fall for a hot take at a local meetup that turned out to be completely wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa_jones2111d ago

Jumped on the "crypto will replace cash" bandwagon back in 2018 after some guy at a bar ranted about it for an hour. Bought $50 worth of some random coin that was supposed to be the next big payment system lol. Still using my debit card to buy coffee every morning and that coin is now worth like $2. The guy had a whole vision board and everything, it was wild how sure he sounded. Bet the email guy is probably still out there giving talks at dim coffee shops.

jessicamiller11d ago

Honestly @lisa_jones21, I gotta ask - did that bar guy ever tell you what his backup plan was when regular cash didn't disappear? Because I met a similar dude at a coffee shop who swore gas stations would start accepting Doge by 2020. Still paying with my phone at the pump.