For those who think they should buy something, I have advice for you — as a person, not an investor — do what you think is wise and always let that guide your decision-making process. If you act on your emotions, be ready to experience the baggage that comes with emotional decisions.
In order to know where we’re going, I’d like to share with you a personal account of where I think we’ve been. I believe most people don’t know how we got here, and thus I hope to provide an opinion on our future.
As someone with an active bitcoin address over 8 years old, I know that Bitcoin was the coolest, most developer-centric project out there when it came to blockchain, because Bitcoin was blockchain. The explosion around bitcoin began because it was the best project in existence. The hype created in the first 12 months of Bitcoin’s release has been steadily echoing as new waves of people discover Bitcoin (pushing towards 2010 etc.).
Imagine yourself in a room the size of Texas, and Satoshi is this crazy DJ wearing a mask in the middle of the room who plays this amazingly loud note to open a song nobody had ever heard before, but there aren’t that many people around him. These people start jamming with the music and the speed of sound (travels really slowly) echoes outward as time passes. To extend this analogy, let’s consider that every 4 years a major boom happens that echoes its way into a new crowd. Note, this is the original genesis block reverberating outward — the other noises have not yet manifested.
Just a couple years into the wave, Satoshi decides to walk into the crowd while still wearing his mask. Think Guy Fawkes.
People underestimate the value of this decision, and the impact it will forever have on Earth’s economy. While it’s generally thought of as a well-conceived notion, it’s not understood if it was simply an accident. Maybe he lost his private keys. Regardless, the moment this DJ stepped into the crowd, it started something which may or may not have been expected — people starting putting on masks and pretending to be the composers of Satoshi’s tune.
The sine waves had their cycles, and after the first time breaking the $1000 BTC wave(late 2013), some of the people realized that the music had a really poor effect on their health if they listened with too many people. They really liked the music, but it was slowly betraying their allegiance. These people clustered into groups and we found ourselves in the scaling debates that emerged in 2014. People like me knew of the cool music Satoshi built, but the market was in a bear cycle and we kind of just checked in every now and then.
This is the moment that cryptocurrency actually became silo’d.
By the time Ethereum’s ICO happened (2015), the original music had maybe only reached a small number of the the total population, thus their initial impact was largely confined to a very small group of individuals under their new community.
Different groups thought of different solutions to the problem, and it didn’t help how quickly the money was surging into various initiatives. This caused small factions and allegiances with new variations on the music, but it just was never the same as what Satoshi had first delivered in the amazing opening performance. It either wasn’t scaling or it wasn’t decentralized.
Ethereum’s launch was silent to people like me; I was doing a startup, improving my skills as a developer and technical manager, and trying to spend less time on reddit. I remember reading about the DAO hack in 2016 as my first exposure to this new open source project. I first gave it attention because of the price (having a billion dollar market cap then was a big deal), but quickly I realized how much talent there was, finding excellent presentations from the first DevCon, reading about the Ethereum Enterprise alliance (oh hello, Microsoft), and finally deciding to mine Ether myself in 2017.
Fast forwarding a bit, the market has done some crazy things and we’ve heard a lot of “ooh-ahh — THE PRICE!” reactionary comments because a lot of people in this space live and die by it.
Very few people in a gold rush decide that it’s the most worthwhile to sell shovels, pans, or railroads (looking at you, Carnegie) but the ones who do consistently come out on top.
Without turning this into some crapshoot piece about why a certain cryptocurrency will be worth 50% more in 32 days because of some lines which may or may not be accurate, I want to pose one question.
What happens when everyone in the room has heard the music, feels their ears hurt, and see a group of folks with unicorn shirts who seem to be enjoying the music without any headphones, free as can be?
The idea of bitcoin maximalism is at a relative high for the first time in a long time, and I truly believe it is because there are so many centralized folks creating too much noise and selling out tickets. A word from the peasant: the money will always run out if value isn’t being generated.
To me, bitcoin maximalism is the direct result of Satoshi’s decision to seep into the crowd. Bitcoin Cash, for example, branched off of Bitcoin and we got into one of the most confusing times — previous BTC owners had a key that worked on two different blockchains that shared a similar history — what “is” bitcoin? Labels became more important (Cash, Gold, SV) — as did names — note that names were never a fundamental part of blockchain. Exchange owners, fork initiators, ICO representatives, you know the drill.
There has been a gradual decline in centralization, from XRP, to XLM, to projects now like Tezos and Eos.io — these projects deceptively wear Satoshi’s mask and claim to be the blockchain solutions the world needs. Most people who got into cryptocurrency early can easily identify it — the sound they produce is not Satoshi’s.
It’s not better, either — it’s like adding a dubstep drop to a Beatle’s song and calling it electronic music.
Some news for the bitcoin family — Bitcoin Cash, BSV, and every project out there —
It’s not just that. It’s not just Ethereum. It’s the power that gets put into the people’s hands when you equip them with the arsenal Ethereum 2.0 provides. It’s the dollars that get transferred from banks (fees etc., pre-blockchain) to corporations (centralized blockchains), to people (decentralized networks). Note, we are in the middle phase (hello, Libra, my old friend) — the blockchain you’re on either doesn’t distribute to you the full value of its network, or the network does not actually generate much value.
Ethereum is famous for being perhaps most decentralized initiative in the world — not just the tokens or nodes on its blockchain, but its upgrade process, the various protocol layers (ERC-20, ERC-721, newly minted ERC-1155), and the vast ocean of offerings under its belt.
These tools are not built to overpower, to undermine, or to usurp value — they are meant to generate it. They equalize parties, they level the playing field, and they enable the community to become kinetic.
It’s 2019 and the doorsteps of 2.0 are upon us. After that, we still have a journey to travel. The best Layer-2 solutions are being unveiled — Loom Network offers a great plasma implementation, OmiseGo’s Plasma network is handling over 1̵5̵,̵0̵0̵0̵ Tx/s (Edit 6/22 1PM EDT: This number is evaluated to be closer to 4,000 Tx/S — apologies on spreading misinformation) and exiting to Ethereum’s network successfully. Progress is being made and the path forward becomes clearer every day.
Production-grade scaling is coming and it’s decentralized. The networks define the value and the demand is rising.
What music will you dance to then?
