Imagine
One and a half months ago I started working for coinranking.com and the first question they asked me was: “What do you know about cryptocurrencies?” My answer was short and simple minded: “Cryptocurrencies are digital money.” Thanks to the enthusiasm of my colleagues I soon came to the realization that this financial aspect was just the most shallow description of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has this great character trait, that made me believe in the future of it.
Within a month time I realized two things: enthusiasm truly is contagious and the blockchain technology that made cryptocurrency possible, can also make various idealistic dreams possible. A future where prosperity can be achieved by everyone in the world. My vision transformed from skeptical and uninterested to optimistic and enthusiastic. The best way to describe my newborn trust in a system, that I completely neglected up until a month ago, is to compare it with arguably one of the most idealistic text ever written: The lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine.
“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky, Imagine all the people living for today”
The ideas of heaven and hell make us accept that bad things happen to us and dreams might always stay dreams. If somebody behaves he’ll go to heaven, even when he never receives the appreciation he deserves. Somebody who will never face judgement, will be punished in hell. These ideas are incentives for social behavior, but also make people numb for the active shaping of their own lives and environments. People aren’t living for today, but for a promise after death. This idea started already to be partially renounced in the nineteenth century, but cryptocurrency is purely created out of the idea that people can take matters in their own hands. The transactions are transparent and therefore easy to check and control.
There are those who still get away with schemes, scams and criminality also in the world of cryptocurrency, but blockchain technology is still young and evolving and I do read that various projects are trying to prevent criminality. There is a token that has the aim to protect people against identity theft. There are tokens that are merely there to make other tokens are safe. There are tokens that are meant to be a reflection of reputation in order to make a service or something similar more trustworthy. Just to name a few examples. In general there are numerous projects that really try to establish a world where people can live today without distrust and don’t have to wait for the retribution in the afterlife.
“Imagine there are no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for and no religion too, imagine all the people living life in peace”
Cryptocurrency is a global phenomenon transcending borders and has offered a solution where computers can help in the making of decisions. With the consensus algorithms that select the leader, tokens that can be used as votes, the transparency of blockchain and the protection by immutable codes, it at least has the potential of being fair. It is also anonymous, so exclusion on religious or ethnic aspects are out of the picture. People can find the right platform for their ideas and insights thanks to the blockchain technology.
It doesn’t matter whether someone is raised Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhistic, Hinduistic, nationalistic, atheistic, et cetera. Anyone can be part of the same community without politics or ideology playing a significant role. I wouldn’t say that blockchain technology has the power to end wars of religious disputes, but within the world of cryptocurrency those phenomenons don’t play a part. A peaceful society on the internet thanks to transparency and anonymity can be achieved, where arguments and disagreements are solved with the help of democracy and algorithms instead of weapons and prayers.
“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed and hunger, a brotherhood of man, imagine all the people sharing all the world”
The content of this verse seems to be the hardest one to link to cryptocurrency, since cryptocurrency is all about possession and a lot of people are joining the blockchain community to become filthy rich in an easy way. That is true if you just see cryptocurrency as digital money, but like I said cryptocurrency is or can be so much more. A farmer in Africa with a cellphone and connection to the internet can already be part of the blockchain ecosystem just as easy as a stockbroker in New York.
The goal of blockchain technology is decentralizing and in that way everybody will get equal chances. Technology, ideas and money can be shared in a secure way all over the world without the use of a third party. This is that second layer of blockchain technology that got me hooked. With the help of blockchain technology an equal world can be achieved, where the world is a peer-to-peer network and for every need and desire there is a platform. I can’t stress enough how wonderful and important that second layer of cryptocurrency can be. However the emphasis in the sentences above lies on can.
“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and world can be as one.”
I know that I’m a dreamer and I expect or even assume that blockchain technology has or will have its own issues. Blockchain might not even achieve its true potential. But then again all of this potential has made me dream about the future and being able to dream of or imagine a fair world is enough for me. I hope more people dream this way and realize the potential cryptocurrency has. This dream of a fair world is not new of course, neither for me nor for the world, but the vision and the enthusiasm of my colleagues at Coinranking about cryptocurrencies made me hopeful for the first time that this dream might become a reality.
My personal goal at Coinranking is to make the world of cryptocurrency accessible and understandable for everyone. Seeing projects sharing that same goal and the enthusiastic perspective on blockchain technology of my colleagues encourage me to try to achieve this goal. That beautiful second layer of blockchain technology is hidden away under the financial layer and the sometimes incomprehensible blockchain jargon. That’s why I enjoy answering all blockchain related questions, discussing cryptocurrencies with my colleagues and friends, publishing articles about the meaning of blockchain terms and describing as many blockchain projects and their goals as possible. In doing so I really hope more people will join this revolutionary idea and see the same potential of that second layer. Blockchain didn’t make the world a better place yet and it might even fail in doing so. But it made me imagine that it could.
