Robots Are Taking Your (Barista’s) Job...

TL;DR

• A fully-automated robot is at Token2049 serving coffee and sprinkled ice cream, backed by a fully decentralized crypto payments system.

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There’s this saying coined by Peter Thiel that underlines the tech world’s knack of over promising and under delivering:

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters” (referencing Twitter’s original 140 character limit).

Another favorite of ours comes from Elon Musk’s son, Saxon, when he poised the question:

“Why doesn’t the future look like the future?”

We’re optimists by default — but we can empathize!

Cause sometimes tech can be so…meh.

Which is why weird combinations/applications of new technology like this grab our attention:

Right now, there’s a fully-automated robot serving coffee and sprinkle-topped ice cream at the Token2049 Conference.

And it’s all backed by a fully decentralized crypto payments system.

Ok, ok, it might not be as awe-inspiring as flying cars…and it might not be solving a big, glaring, society-level problem…

But it’s pretty damn cool (and a solid step forward from ‘text threads online,’ no?)

What’s the hidden takeaway here?

Crypto payment rails are quickly becoming faster/easier to implement than traditional payment systems.

It isn’t the sexiest use-case…but its finding product-market-fit, and that’s what matters in the race for adoption.