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“There was no bright moment in the light bulb story.”
— Stephen Johnson, How we got to now
The light bulb has become associated with serendipitous flashes of inspiration, the moment when a completed idea flashes into an inventor’s head, leading to a cry of “Eureka!
But this is not how the light bulb itself was invented.
Widely credited to Thomas Edison, the light bulb was actually the product of a century of trial and error by dozens of inventors around the world.
Electric light was first demonstrated by Humphry Davy in 1802.
The closed bulb mechanism was developed by Warren de la Rue in 1840.
Thomas Edison was born in 1847.
Many people contributed before and after 1847, such as historian Arthur Bright Lists About twenty individuals were involved in the invention of the light bulb, with Edison’s work representing its culmination, not its origin.
“Edison’s light bulb was not so much a single invention as a collection of small improvements,” Stephen Johnson wrote in his article. How we got to now.
Edison’s primary contribution to this bricolage was the invention of charred bamboo filaments in the late 1870s that made light bulbs longer lasting, safe for indoor use, and commercially viable.
But even then, the patent courts forced Edison to share credit with Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, whose version of the lamp is famous for being the first to illuminate a private home (his) and a public building (the Savoy Theater).
Hence the name “Edisoane incandescent lamp” which was offered to consumers around 1880.
This shared custody of the light bulb does not diminish Edison’s accomplishments as an inventor.
Quite the contrary, because Edison did something bigger than bringing artificial lighting to the masses: he industrialized the process of invention.
“Edison didn’t just invent technology, he invented an entire system of invention, a system that would come to dominate industry in the 20th century,” Johnson explains.
This system has inspired the proliferation of corporate R&D labs: teams of diverse specialists who collaborate to solve problems, share the financial upside, absorb outside ideas, and build freely on each other’s work – a kind of “networked innovation” that is infinitely more powerful than the popular image of the lone genius inventor.
Johnson says this is the real lesson to be learned from the light bulb story:
“If we believe that creativity comes from a single genius inventing a new technology from scratch, this model naturally points us toward certain policy decisions, such as stronger patent protection. But if we believe that creativity comes from collaborative networks, we want to support different policies and organizational forms: less stringent patent laws, open standards, employee participation in equity plans, and cross-disciplinary communication.”
And maybe cryptocurrencies too?
Cryptocurrencies are primarily a way to stimulate the kind of open, composable innovation that builds strong networks.
Edison demonstrated that cooperation overcame isolation, but his company model continued to rely on patents to retain control of ownership.
By contrast, the most transformative networks in history—Roman roads, standardized shipping containers, the Internet, GPS—worked differently: they were open, permissionless infrastructure that anyone could build on.
Christian Catalini defends cryptocurrencies Narrate history Of these open source networks: “Money,” he says, “is the last closed network.”
And cryptocurrencies are the way to open it up for the benefit of everyone: “Permissionless innovation will always create exponentially more value than a closed system,” he concludes.
At the end of a disappointing year for open source cryptocurrencies, it’s worth remembering how powerful these networks are.
There was no lightbulb moment in the lightbulb story — and there probably won’t be a single moment when cryptocurrencies “arrive” either.
Both are products of networked innovation that only achieve their full potential when they become networks themselves – a light bulb was just a glass ornament until it was connected to an electrical grid.
Crypto is building that network for the digital economy – an open, permissionless infrastructure waiting to be plugged and lit up by the next great idea.
Let’s hope that happens in 2026.
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