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You might be interested in a book called "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage, which supports your line of thinking.

1876 was an interesting year too - the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the invention of the telephone!

The potential for the blockchain protocol has been widely written up but beyond the hype there are some profound problems to overcome. Security and scaleability are still open issues and it is not clear that the cost reduction potential, relative to alternative existing technologies is that clear-cut.  The blockchain hype does reveal two things though - 1) it shows up the inefficiencies of current processes and 2) how easy it is to confuse investment news and PR with genuinely new, tangible and extensive applications.