Author: Ming Guo
Translation: Claire Wu
The author of this article, Ming Guo, is the co-founder of the block chain star project Soteria.
Soteria is developing a holistic solution to solve some of the pressing problems of the current generation of blockchains, such as performance bottlenecks, while providing an adequate feature set for the decentralized economy it envisions, such as BlockDAG-based Scalable throughput and chain data storage, equal mining through memory, private computing and highly expressive non-Turing-complete, non-GAS light chain heavy application smart contracts.
Soteria founder: Why Bitcoin is ahead of our time (1)
Soteria is developing a holistic solution to solve some of the pressing problems of the current generation of blockchains, such as performance bottlenecks, while providing an adequate feature set for the decentralized economy it envisions, such as BlockDAG-based Scalable throughput and chain data storage, equal mining through memory, private computing and highly expressive non-Turing-complete, non-GAS light chain heavy application smart contracts.
Soteria founder: Why Bitcoin is ahead of our time (1)
Since the cryptocurrency market crash of 2018, many people have switched to the idealist camp, that is, Bitcoin should be a revolutionary tool, an aggressive and rebellious tool, not a selfish design by speculators for short-term gain tool. I used to feel that way too.
But now, after I realize how peculiar and multidimensional the idea of Bitcoin is, I've changed my mind.
What Bitcoin has brought us in the past ten years is the projection of a different world on our current turbulent little world. We should humbly and earnestly learn all the experience and enlightenment brought to us by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
I've come to realize that "unethical" uses of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, such as mining for profit, staking, or long-term holding purely for speculative purposes (HODL as it's called in the industry) are at some point In this sense, it is the projection and feedback of the decentralized economy in the centralized economy, because the real decentralized economy has not yet appeared in reality. This filthy projection only reflects the inadequacies of the real world, not Bitcoin itself and the world it represents.
In other words, Bitcoin is an alien technology that is ill-suited for our time.
From another perspective, if Bitcoin was an alien experiment that started a decade ago, what is wrong now?
The answer is almost everything!
The problem is compatibility rather than runaway speculation.
People like to compare Bitcoin to the Internet, and see Bitcoin as the next Internet. This appears to be the root cause of the misuse of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in many places.
Internet-based innovation is to "upgrade" the existing business model, or even completely repair the original loopholes. People copy this model to the commercial implementation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency projects, which eventually leads to speculation out of control.
The out-of-control speculation during the second cryptocurrency boom was not fueled by Bitcoin, but by Ethereum, where issuing coins using smart contracts was as easy as clicking a computer button, just like web browsing is now Internet servers can make doing business online easier than earlier Internet products such as e-mail.
In general, Ethereum and all other existing cryptocurrencies (except for a few privacy coins) are not fundamentally different from Bitcoin.
So far, we have seen hardly any convincing evidence that Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency has real application in our current economic system. Some use cases for Bitcoin do exist and are growing rapidly, such as cheaper international money transfers. But what exactly have cryptocurrencies achieved in the massive revolution of the past decade compared with the rise of Internet companies?
Many might point out that in many parts of the world these days we can pay for coffee and beer in Bitcoin. However, even in the field of digital currencies, Bitcoin pales in comparison to contemporary payment tools such as WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Although WeChat Pay and Alipay are an extremely centralized single system, it has indeed completely changed people's payment habits at the social level.
Other use cases are also very dubious. Many are trying to use blockchain technology in existing business domains such as healthcare, supply chain, and e-commerce, but the rationale behind it is rather weak. If you strip out the password, it's more like a document database with some seemingly clever but unnecessary encrypted attachments, especially in the business area mentioned above. These are cool technologies, but not as revolutionary as they claim.
Of course, it does take time to build entirely new infrastructure for a revolutionary technology, but many of these projects end up being speculative vehicles, implying that their raison d'être is hollow.
what does that mean? I believe that the proliferation of uncontrolled speculation in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is the result and manifestation of the fundamental incompatibility between cryptocurrencies using decentralized technology and our economy.
In short, Bitcoin is no match for our current centralized economic model.
However, please don't take the above conclusions to mean that I am disappointed in Bitcoin. Quite the opposite — it was actually a real relief for us to realize that Bitcoin is not compatible with our current economic model. It can free us from invisible shackles. I didn't realize until now that we could really innovate with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Let's go back to Bitcoin's roadmap.
I have met many people who once had a strong belief in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and the potential they have shown to right the wrongs of the world is inspiring. They have painstakingly tried to eliminate the fundamental features that made Bitcoin great: decentralization, censorship resistance, trustless consensus — to the point of regret.
In reality, for many, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are no longer seen as a great innovation, but as a killer.
We need to stop and rethink!
Why hijack Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and force them to fit into our world? And not the other way around, building a new world compatible with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? Needless to say, the latter must be much more difficult than the former. Relatively speaking, seeking regulation, BTCETF approval and participating in IEOs (Initial Exchange Offerings) seems to be much easier than building something new.
Many believe that trying to build something new after the 2018 crash puts the life of cryptocurrencies on the line. Compromise is necessary for survival.
So, where should we start?
(to be continued)
As mentioned earlier, the key is to explore the rich world behind the concept of decentralization, rethink and examine everything we know, in order to go beyond the technology and cryptocurrency level and delve into the dual world of centralization and decentralization.
