A plea to educate the masses
The recent resurgence of the cryptocurrency market, led by the new Decentralized Finance (DeFi) movement, is a reminder of how far we’ve veered from the original vision of Bitcoin’s creator(s), Satoshi Nakamoto…
When it comes to investing in crypto, there are a few different mindsets. First you’ve got the Cypherpunk, who we should all thank for making digital cryptographic currencies mainstream. Cypherpunks have been around for decades (Bitcoin is only the first “mainstream” cryptocurrency) and they pride themselves on privacy, cryptographic breakthroughs and sticking it to “The Man.”
Next, you have the Rebels & Revolutionaries. These are the early adopters who saw Bitcoin and crypto as a means to break, change, or evade the system. It hasn’t worked out quite as planned, but more on that later. Lastly, you have the Traders and Profit Seekers. It’s safe to say, the majority of crypto investors who entered the market during and after the explosive rise of Bitcoin in late 2017 fall into this category. Those newcomers also tend to be not so affectionately referred to as “Moonboys” by the earlier investors.
Now I’m not going to pretend I’m an OG Cypherpunk, heck, I’m not even an early investor. In fact, I entered the market around the Moonboy epoch, although I don’t see myself as one of them (and pray no one else does either). Don’t get me wrong, I want to profit off my investments (eventually, “sad face”), but I very much consider myself more of the Revolutionary archetype…
I still remember the excitement I felt when first learning about the potential use cases of blockchain, from its ability to simplify transactions and eliminate the need for expensive middle men (lawyers, bankers, insurers, etc.), to having verifiable ownership over your own creative works, through the use of digital rights authentication. Again, eliminating the need for middle men as well as avoiding the risk of potentially signing away the rights to your own work.
However, my two favorite use cases are the ability to achieve verifiable, immutable voting through the simplicity of a mobile app, and access to a secure decentralized digital identity through which you control who is granted access to information about you. Why are these two of my favorites? Well for one, imagine how many more people will vote if they could do it from their mobile phones. This would also alleviate the controversy currently surrounding our mail-in voting process. Not to mention the potential of having more educated voters, since pertinent and censorship resistant information about the candidates can be made easily accessible through the app. Plus the fact that people may be more likely to look up information on their own prior to voting; you know, since they already have their phones out.
As for a secure digital identity, it might not seem so exciting to some, but in my mind, I envision all the paperwork we will no longer have to fill out every time we go to a new doctors office or apply for a job, a loan, or any number of other life experiences that require redundant questionnaires filled out. We should all look forward to being able to simply utilize a quick biometric scan to log in and grant access to the information needed with the click of a button (medical or financial history, etc.). C’mon, I can’t be the only one exceedingly annoyed by the repetitive nature of that paperwork and the fact that I can never precisely remember the details of mine or my family’s medical history?! When did you lose your first tooth? Lol, but I digress.
The idea that blockchain has the potential to create a complete paradigm shift in socioeconomic and geopolitical power dynamics across the globe is absolutely fascinating to me. If you look back on my early days of Twitter (I didn’t start posting until 2018), almost every other post contained the hashtag #CryptoRevolution. I was genuinely enthralled by the possibilities and wanted the whole world to know of this potential. Unfortunately, as time went on, I learned two disheartening truths:
- As great as the potential is for blockchain to simplify our lives and free us from corruption and oligarchical servitude, the potential is just as great for the powers that be to manipulate the masses into allowing them to gain control of this revolutionary technology.
- That nobody cares.
It’s depressingly surreal to come to the realization that you are both way ahead of your time and yet possibly too late to impact the outcome. The DeFi movement is a perfect example of this. Crypto seems to no longer be about revolutionizing our systems in order to empower individuals and decentralize power and influence, but instead has become a race to replicate the old systems, just with new stakeholders gaining massive amounts of their own power and influence.
Now to be fair, after years of supporting a “break the banks” mentality, I’ve come to realize that centuries of social evolution has allowed us to create some pretty remarkable systems in regard to governance and financial management. So it’s no wonder that even OG crypto fanatics seem caught up with simply cloning the system. Seriously, when you take the time to think about it, you realize the systems themselves are quite sound. It’s the ever growing levels of corruption that have led to the cracks in the foundation (to drive home the point, check out this funny commercial).
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency were supposed to be the solution to this problem. They were supposed to bring an end to corruption! But instead, they risk becoming nothing more than a technological upgrade for the powers that be, one they will use to gain ever-increasing control of us.
Greed, arrogance and tribalism have taken hold of the industry with unnerving vigor since the crypto boom of 2017–18. Scams run rampant and anyone not invested in a project that is gaining notoriety is quick to label it a scam, without a single thought or consideration. So of course anyone not already familiar with crypto is reluctant to show interest in learning about it, let alone entering the market; especially after hearing about all the hacks and their fear of private key management, thanks to many alarming stories about the millions of lost Bitcoin. On top of that, our decentralized dream seems to be gradually slipping away. The fact that this is even possible highlights the flaws in many of these first and second generation blockchains.
To highlight the point of centralized decentralization, in 2010, Bitcoin was mineable on your average laptop computer, whereas today you couldn’t think of mining Bitcoin without very expensive, specialized equipment. Even then, you’d have a tough time competing against the big money mining farms and centralized mining pools. In fact, many of the “second layer solutions” are being provided by centralized, third party entities which could lead to even greater consolidation of network control. Sadly, most people don’t even realize this because all too often those in the know are too narrowly focused on “pumping their bags” and making those “sick gainz” as opposed to spreading education and awareness about the industry in general.
Paradoxically, many of the newer projects being touted as blockchain 3.0 are funded by corporations, governments and venture capitalists. Do you really think any one of these groups would invest in something that would lead to a decentralization of their power and influence? Of course not. This is why it is so vital for us to vehemently educate ourselves and others about the impact potential of blockchain technology and the fundamental shifts it’s creating in the political, economic, and social fabric of our global society.
Luckily there are a handful of projects out there striving to alleviate those fears and working to achieve truly equitable forms of decentralization by providing practical solutions to some of crypto’s most well known challenges (the trilemma, private key mismanagement, & centralized decentralization). More importantly these projects are dedicated to maintaining the original ideals expressed by the now legendary Satoshi Nakamoto. One such project that I have become quite familiar with, to the extent that I was recently invited (and accepted) to join the team as an official Community Ambassador, is Nexus. In the words of Colin Cantrell, the founder of Nexus:
“Nexus is the embodiment of the founding principles of Satoshi Nakamoto, working towards fulfilling the vision that was promised with the creation of Bitcoin.”
- Colin Cantrell, Founder of Nexus
I consider myself lucky to have discovered Nexus back in 2018. That may sound like an odd statement considering the value of my original investment plummeted over the past two and a half years along with the rest of the market. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m more of a Revolutionary, not a Moonboy. The price of a cryptocurrency at any given moment is not nearly as relevant as the technology being built around it. Although Moonboys will tell you otherwise, I’m confident that the majority of smart money investors would genuinely agree.
Now I’m not going to go into details about what Nexus is building, you can dig into that on your own, because that’s not what this article was intended for. Sure the technology most definitely played a role in why I view Nexus as a project worth investing my time and money into, but I’m sure there are a number of quality projects out there people would claim the same for. Some projects may even be building technologies similar to Nexus, and that’s great, because we need more projects focused on preparing for mainstream adoption, while creating decentralized democracies that pave the way for individuals to recognize and embrace the power of their influence.
So what’s the point? I believe we, as a crypto community, have an obligation to set aside our tribalistic instincts in order to educate others on the original values, vision and ethos that was Bitcoin. If like me, you believe the current system of centralized governments & corporate controls have become too powerful and should be dismantled and decentralized, then you should be educating yourself and others about the power of cryptocurrency, PERIOD!
Encourage people to learn about the potential use cases of blockchain and its ability to simplify so many aspects of our lives. Encourage them to learn how it can be used as a tool to empower individuals and bring personal accountability back to the forefront of society. Most importantly, encourage them to learn about the dangerous consequences of remaining ignorant & uneducated on the subjects of #Bitcoin, #Crypto, and #Economics in general.
If we fail to act, crypto will become a tool for authoritarian control and invasive oversight. This can lead to the type of dystopian society only depicted in movies up to this point. The fact is, while the masses sit idly by disregarding blockchain’s impact potential, governments, corporations, and the powers that be are slowly tightening their grip on this revolutionary technology.
