I want to preface this post with a few simple statements about my views on Bitcoin. I am long term invested in Bitcoin and have been using Bitcoin for over 6 years at this point. I am appreciative of everything it has accomplished and actually believe in crypto currency as a whole. I am currently 100% in crypto and only convert to fiat to pay bills that cannot be directly paid with crypto. That being said some of the points I am bout to make are going to be viewed as negative. I feel to progress as a platform and continue to reform the global economy, we are going to have to make a few changes to Bitcoin as a platform and continue to evolve over time.
I want to start my analysis on a positive note. Bitcoin is already disrupting the global economy and allowing for opportunities and redistribution of wealth unlike anything ever seen before. When Bitcoin was introduced into the picture it allowed for a new type of value to start being accumulated by anyone with a computer and electricity. It is the closest possible opportunity for a complete global reset of the economy, ideally everyone should have a chance to get on board, but there are places and situations where people don't have access to computers and electricity. There are some interesting options in crypto for people without reliable internet connections and equipment though, mainly through investing, but this is basically the best chance we have to redefine value and wealth as a species. I find this to be the most powerful part of Bitcoin and block-chain technology as a whole.
I want my first real content post to be about Bitcoin, because it is my favorite coin and introduced most of us this new world. I love Bitcoin for all of the great things its' done and the opportunities it has given not only me, but many others, and the chance to free the world of corporate slavery is the real mission in my mind. I grew up dreading the world I was living in, and I had a very bleak outlook on the future as far as ever having potential to be on equal footing with the "global elite." It felt like being born into a world run by an old boy's club, where I would always be playing by their rules and just struggling to get by on a day to day basis. If you really think about the current global economy and the fact that people are basically programmed into the mentality of greed and physical possessions from an early age, it seemed like I would never be able to break the cycle in my own life or see anyone else get free of it. Bitcoin alone changed this outlook for me, so hopefully this will help clarify that I do not under any circumstances want to see Bitcoin fail. We are all connected and fighting the same oppression and should keep that in mind when making decisions on what to invest in or how to mine.
I thought about how to approach this blog for a while, and ultimately I feel that the best use of my time on this platform will be to try to enlighten some people and change their ways of thinking. I know many people only trade or mine crypto to make money, and I can understand that view of things. I believe in something more powerful than gaining fiat currency through crypto. I don't want to sound like a fanatic here, but really think about the big picture of crypto currencies and the potential before you do things that negatively impact the value of coins or risk scaring out new adopters. The profitability of crypto seems amazing right now, and it is, but if you look beyond a year or two and imagine where crypto goes in the next ten or twenty years, you may regret shortsighted decisions and realize that some prudence and a little risk is worth more than a quick few bucks today. I guess I have set the tone with my general outlook on crypto and now for the hard facts about the state of crypto and Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is currently the best gateway coin for anyone wanting to spend government issued fiat money and buy into crypto currency, for whatever intentions, and allows for major profit potential. It is important to always keep in mind that no coin is perfect and there is always risk associated with investing into ideas and concepts. Bitcoin has some basic flaws that are currently hindering the potential for price growth and currently decreasing the market capitalization. Anyone that has sent Bitcoin to or from a desktop wallet, cold storage, or even an exchange (which is less time consuming) in the last several months knows it is taking way too long. On a basic code level the Bitcoin network is only capable of allowing for a seven transactions per second maximum speed. The more people that become involved in Bitcoin, the worse the problem becomes. We are currently depending on some very large companies producing specific equipment to mine at this point, which is fundamentally against the decentralized ideology of Bitcoin. Bitcoin needs drastic and sudden changes to disrupt its' own stagnation or another coin will replace it in the end. Bitcoin and crypto as a whole needs more people that believe in the new economy to continue policing (and to do so for the proper reasons) our world we are creating through crypto. I know people are not going to agree or necessarily like these statements and I am going to attempt to quantify my reasoning.
The current block size issue is killing Bitcoin's progress. I don't want to venture so far as to say it will end up killing Bitcoin entirely, but it is always a possibility given that the market moves where people believe it should. Ultimately the only way to vote on a coin is with value. Many coins value are directly tied to Bitcoin and the underlying infrastructure, and a collapse of Bitcoin would devastate the utopia we are working towards. We must reach a consensus on how to handle the next step of Bitcoin, and we need to do so quickly. I have seen indication that the market is actually being suppressed intentionally at the moment, but that is just my feeling on the current price standstill, and I hope I am wrong. I want to believe in a world where people don't make decisions solely based on greed and the desire to "have more" than others at all times by any means necessary. I think that we have many people in crypto that don't actually buy into the real concept and philosophy behind it, and even if they do see the long term value and want to accumulate at a still absurdly low price, it's creating opportunity for failure by holding the price down. I can also see the dangers of forking and ending up in the same situation that Ethereum is dealing with, but I honestly don't see that as a problem with Bitcoin. I don't think forking to change block size or implementing underlying changes to the infrastructure will have a drastic negative backlash like the fork that Ethereum recently made has had on its' valuation. Bitcoin has a die-hard user base at this point, which can be said about Ethereum, but the difference is that forks were always intended to allow for progression and evolution of a coin, it doesn't change the immutable nature by adopting a fork. When you fork to basically nullify transactions to preserve wealth of anyone involved is where the issues arise. A fork to either increase the block size or segwit is going to happen at some point. There will always be forks in crypto, and if done for the right reasons, is seen as justifiable by the community. I can't imagine anyone with a real vested interest in the future of Bitcoin would argue that a change needs to happen to keep Bitcoin viable and competitive. New users are going to be turned off on the drastically increasing transfer times and ultimately hurt the Bitcoin market and by association the crypto economy as a whole.
Crypto currencies are built on public ledgers for a reason. It is the responsibility of the users and investors to monitor the block chain and protect their investment. The only thing that separates any crypto currency from fiat currency is that there is a publicly audited trail of information to verify transactions. It is imperative to understand how a block chain works and why it is decentralized to hold any real interest or value in the currency. We are already seeing a major evolution of block chain technology and seeing that it can be used for more than currency. It can fight censorship, it can create permanent records, it allows for open access of information without the fear of manipulation. We need more people learning about the technology and how it works to "police" the new chains and know when people are doing things with malicious intentions. It is prudent to protect your own investment. You wouldn't want to save government fiat your whole life to realize that the person issuing it had been manipulating it all along and that what you thought was enough value to get by on, is in fact a pile of breadcrumbs compared to the portion that was being created at will to allow for unearned spending or to bypass the rules of scarcity by over inflating it without your consent. You would feel robbed, and rightfully so, and with block chain technology, you have the ability to prevent this from happening. If you actually believe in crypto and hold a vested interest in it, please realize how important learning about it and how it works is for sustainability.
I will conclude with a hopeful world view for the future. Imagine that you are given the chance to erase inflation and debt from individuals that created a system to keep wealthy people rich, and to enslave the world and make the citizens of your world work and do their bidding. Imagine people doing things they want to do on a daily basis and not having to be afraid of being homeless or not having enough food or water, simply because they were born into poverty due to that system. Think about the quality of life in a world free of that kind of manipulation. Wars would't be fought for profit, people wouldn't be put into prison for profit, and people wouldn't have to make decisions that negatively impact the lives of others for their own gain. The world is full of so many unique individuals with so many different outlooks on life, I would love to see them all have the same chance to flourish and succeed through doing things that generally interest them, and not be locked into the mindset of having to work meaningless jobs that they hate or harming others to feed themselves or buy the newest toys. People just want to live a happy life in the end, and everyone should have the same basic chance to make those decisions based on their own desires and actions instead of being forced to live a life with the illusion of freedom or worse, no freedom at all.
Well said. Sounds like some kind of utopian dreamscape... Maybe out children's children will have it worked out by then. I live in hope.
It will take effort and sacrifice to achieve. I believe it is worth the effort and it is my only goal in life. I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up, or made any life long plans because I don't feel hat slaves really get to make such choices, they are made for them by their masters. I see a way out for all of us, and hopefully one day with enough of us working together we can achieve our dreams.
Thanks for writing out your thoughts. This would have been easier to read with shorter paragraphs, but it's a good post nonetheless. I think the Bitcoin blocksize debate (stalemate) is just a symptom of dysfunctional governance. We are just starting to learn how important governance is to blockchains, and different solutions are being proposed.
Tezos is one interesting take on the problem, and there is an active planning going on in the ETC chain. And I guess everyone, especially Ethereum Foundation, learned a lot from the DAO situation and the resulting fork. These are just growing pains of the whole ecosystem, and good things will ultimately follow.
I do end up writing too much sometimes and I guess it feels like I have to justify my statements to avoid hype/FUD accusations. I will try to keep future coin analysis shorter, but Bitcoin expanded my economic ideology so much that I could probably put out ten times the word count before having to consider topics. I appreciate the feedback and I'll look into Tezos as I must be uninformed about it. Honestly Bitcoin has been feeling so stuck in a stalemate that I haven't been focussed on core changes and research for a while. Ultimately I hope every legit coin or platform finds a place in the future of crypto. Thanks again for the feedback.