Blockchain technologies are exploding in popularity, and despite some wild fluctuations in their prices, there’s more interest in Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple and Lumens than ever before.

Even after the recent “corrections,” Bitcoin is up 900% in the past 12 months, while Ethereum is up about 5,000%. Initial coin offerings (ICOs) collectively raised almost $4 billion in 2017. Taken together, it’s hard to avoid the impression that this is an overhyped speculative bubble that’s due for even more deflation.

But behind the irrational exuberance of the speculative market for cryptocurrencies, there are some broadly significant shifts afoot in the financial system. In fact, blockchain technologies are just the latest wave of innovation to upend financial markets.

For example, the widespread adoption of cloud-centric, mobile-first business models has upended the traditional model of finance where a trusted intermediary (a bank for instance) managed every aspect of a transaction, collecting a healthy percentage in return for ensuring the stability and reliability of the market. Instead, we have more decentralized networks operated by companies like Venmo that charge lower fees by eliminating a lot of the traditional banking overhead. That sounds a lot like the promise of Bitcoin, doesn’t it?

Based on my understanding of the crypto landscape, I’m seeing a few emerging themes.

The Future Of Money Will Demand New Models Of Trust

In 20th-century financial markets, trust came from institutions — the banks, brokerage houses, stock exchanges, insurance companies and governments that collectively ensured the reliability of transactions they oversaw.

In the 21st century, however, decentralized exchanges and platforms enable transactions to happen among strangers without the oversight of a central institution. Blockchain advocates like to describe this as a market that operates without the need for trust, but it actually still requires participants to place trust in something. It’s just that they don’t need to trust an institution to ensure the integrity of their transactions.