In the cryptocurrency market, anybody with a laptop, a little coding knowledge and a dream can invent a new asset, programming a financial instrument from their garage, scaring the pants off of regulators like the SEC, and many banks. That's why it's so popular among libertarians - it's liberty money. However, freedom also comes with responsibility. A free market with little oversight and no system of redress leads to widespread scams and other shady projects.
There are many ways to address this issue - for example, asking ICOs to get escrows to hold their funds until they reach key points in their projects, to prevent them taking the money and running. We can also leverage media to exposed poorly-conceived coins. And, as crypto journalist and consultant Juan Galt points out in this interview, we can stick to established projects like Bitcoin.
Watch and listen to the interview at the bottom of the post.
Thinning out the field
In a market of 1500+ coins, many of which were probably started on a whim, it's unlikely that most of them will survive the long term. Many won't ever be widely traded on exchanges, let alone becoming money, being widely used in commerce in any society, and many, such as Ethereum, don't even intend to become currencies. Bitcoin, being the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency, is one of few which have the chance to gain world reserve currency status.
The gap of libertarian thought
Libertarians don't want government oversight in most markets - they believe that commerce can work just fine on its own in many cases. However, it does seem that crypto libertarians are overlooking just how out of control things can be without regulation. Fraud is rampant among crypto projects, and the resources we have to address it are still limited.
Crypto start-ups create fancy presentations, write whitepapers, create flashy but meaningless marketing campaigns on any social media platform that will still allow them, raising thousands or millions of dollars. Then when the campaign ends, the projects have little accountability. The tokens are not contracts, and they make no guarantees of any return on investment. Legally, the creators can walk without consequence.
We can expose bad actors by talking about them on blogs and YouTube channels, shaming them for their actions and encouraging others to withdraw support. Or, as Juan suggests, we can ignore them entirely, and stick with Bitcoin.
If you need help with cryptocurrency, ask Juan on Twitter.
Check out the full Bitcoin maximalist interview with Juan Galt.
The Episode
You can listen to the episode on Anchor and other podcasting services here: Cryptonomics - Why Bitcoin is Still King with Juan Galt. Or watch on YouTube below:
Its still the King, but no King reigns forever!!!!
I don't understand this Bitcoin maximalism thing. Having only one blockchain that does it all seems like a central point of weakness. I may be misunderstanding the argument, but that's what it seems like they're saying from what I've read.
They claim that since any crypto can co-opt code from any other crypto, Bitcoin will eventually cover every crypto use case. But Bitcoin can't possibly cover all use cases, nor will developers be willing to put in the effort for many use cases when the probability of their code being integrated with Bitcoin is extremely low. Sidechains maybe, but I'm not sure how far Bitcoin sidechains can go, Could something like Steem be done on a Bitcoin sidechain?
Even if they're right, and Bitcoin eventually does cover all crypto use cases, how long will that take? 10 years? 100? And how many altcoins with actual utility will grow into behemoths in the meantime?
Yes. I do know people who think like that or who have thought like that. I think if someone wanted to make Steemit on the Bitcoin blockchain or sidechains it would be a whole lot of trouble compared to making a new blockchain.
Juan's case is a bit more measured. Later in the interview he mentioned how most "Bitcoin maximalists" or strong Bitcoin supporters, will normally have a few altcoins that they believe are good projects. The idea is to support the strongest project, avoid dealing with scams for the most part, and encourage other projects to follow Bitcoin's strong example.
Personally, I don't agree. I think the Bitcoin developers are focusing on the wrong things - trying to build an amazing lofty Tower of Babel machine when there are people out there who could benefit from this technology now, if it only had a decent user experience.
I'll have the full interview up in a couple of hours if you want to hear the nuance of Juan's position.
Edit: the full interview
Yeah, he seems reasonable, and encouraging actual projects instead of scams I totally agree with. But that's not really exclusive to Bitcoin maximalism, it's just common sense.
Yes, user experience needs improvement. Sending and receiving with wallets isn't too bad, but acquiring crypto on exchanges, etc. is a big barrier for most people. This is another area where Steem has a major advantage. It's already set up for mainstream adoption in many ways, because there are many ways to earn it without having to deal with exchanges. A total noob can do it as long as they figure out how to build a following and get upvoted, which is something that a lot of content creators have experience with already.
Looking forward to watching the full interview.
Who is Juan Galt? ;P
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Congratulations @cryptonomics1!
You raised your level and are now a Minnow!
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
it will stay king.. because there is psycological factor. the first.. he is grandfather... others are altcoins... some says ethereum is not altcoin btw. :)
Yeah! Bitcoin is still the king!!
still rooting for bitcoin...
no other better choice at the moment, bitcoin is reliable compare altcoin.
Juan?
Juan.
maybe now but who knows what will happen in the future
we have a member of our team who is a longtime miner and holder of Bitcoin, we all think Bitcoin is still King, but Dragon Coin will take over soon. ;)
good tema
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