Bitcoin Enlightenment
The Buddhists describe enlightenment as “a final blessed state marked by the absence of desire or suffering”. Yesterday was a day of Bitcoin Enlightenment for myself. After coming to the realization that the segwit2x efforts were likely dying quickly, I laid out my thoughts in a post last week without any outside noise offering up feedback. It got an amazing response from those who wanted segwit2x to die. All my “credibility” came back. Not from the hard work and products I’ve helped deliver over the last few years, but because I capitulated and gave the loud crowd what they wanted.
And you know what? I don’t really care. Because I’m way more interested in working on powerful software that fulfills it’s original goals than bickering with a group of people who clearly don’t want the same thing. If all of the Bitcoin eggs are in the layer 2 basket for scaling then so be it. I’ve been enlightened.
Going forward I will be working very hard with OpenBazaar and OB1 to find better, additional ways for users to transact that also prioritize reasonable speed and costs. We have spent a lot of time focusing primarily on Bitcoin to try and figure out how to best optimize these factors along with security, privacy and freedom, but it’s not having the dramatic impact we expected it to have. Our team was one of the first groups to implement segwit in production and while it did help some it’s not nearly enough. Our users still consistently complain about the costs and beg us to consider alternatives. I realize it’s still early as segwit adoption seems to be going in the wrong direction until other larger groups get on board so I am willing to back off this if we see a change. Keep reading.
OpenBazaar developers are constantly having to figure out clever and informative ways to explain to users why they can’t withdraw money from their wallets or why it takes forever to receive it (yes, we have fee priorities). We have to explain how escrow services meant to protect them actually double the cost of doing business in Bitcoin due to larger transaction size and two transactions being required. It’s a burden on our meager resources to have to answer support tickets (for an open source project) to justify why we don’t consider other payment mechanisms.
So is this a rage quit post?
Hardly. I still think Bitcoin is great for all the reasons others do. I hold Bitcoin and will continue to do so. I will still continue to stress that we offer Bitcoin as an option within OpenBazaar and hope to be able to incorporate any future scaling implementations that eventually come to fruition if it helps our users whether it be lightning or something different.
What’s different then?
OpenBazaar will no longer be dedicated to Bitcoin exclusively. We will spend the next few weeks to months to bring additional payment methods onto the network. Users will be free to choose the one they feel meets the needs of their customers and themselves. We have already begun the planning process and there are now individuals from several different projects contributing and working towards this reality. Fluffypony has offered up pony rides in exchange for Monero support, but I have not taken him up on this yet.
Which ones will you support?
I see this as an ongoing expansion while we figure out the best way to incorporate them. We don’t want the network to splinter off into separate segregated networks by currency and this process will take some time to get right. We will probably start with a small subset of ones we feel are most viable immediately.
Hopefully this gives a short explanation of where my head is at in respect to the current situation with Bitcoin and the future of OpenBazaar and gets you excited for what’s to come. I think by making this shift in strategy we will no longer attempt actions perceived as standing in the way of those who want Bitcoin to be digital gold, but we will be doing everything in our power to deliver a product that is cost effective and useful for our over 14,000 OpenBazaar 2.0 users.
It’s time to stop suffering. It’s time to stop wishing for things to change and take control of our own destiny!
P.S. Oh and here’s something so the people who hate me or this article can still feel warm and fuzzy highlighting on Medium.
