Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
December 17, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Time and time
again, it has seemed as if the bulk of the blockchain industry’s
news updates this year have focused on roadblocks and generally
negative events. With is in mind, it is easy to see how much of an
influence the yearly news cycle can have on the pricing of a
financial market, especially one that is so new.
As we are still in this cycle as
well, most of our updates have naturally come in the same vein.
Despite this, certain benefits can be realized from a quick
analysis of even the most negative pieces.
Recently, CoinDesk has been
continuously publishing a series of articles with expert opinions
on the most important takeaways from 2018. Until today, all these
posts appear to have been from venture capitalists and fund
managers, as well as other similarly experienced professionals.
While these people are experienced with cryptocurrency trading and
analysis, they are typically missing one key element in their
background that could lead to a more well-rounded stance on the
industry.
In short, most of these posts were
heavily influenced by these people’s need for the market to
rebound. For this reason, as well, today’s is different.
According to CoinDesk, back in
October, they published an opinion piece by Timothy May, a famous
cryptographer and cypherpunk, on just how for Bitcoin has come from
its’ inception to now. What they ended up with was May’s 30-page
critique on everything that has gone wrong since Satoshi’s original
white paper was released. What was supposed to be a sort of
celebratory piece for Bitcoin’s 10-year anniversary, ended up being
quite the opposite.
Today’s post is a unique
re-formatting of May’s effective paper into the form of an
interview that never happened to bring his conclusions to light. It
is also important to note that this stands as a tribute to his
legacy since he just passed away this month.
Overall, after a detailed look at
the piece, four points rise to the forefront. First, May believes
Bitcoin is taking the path it was meant to take. To this, he
suggests that it represents the only successfully implemented use
case of a cryptocurrency so far since it works for all sorts of
payments.
Second, on the other side of
things, May appears to add that most other projects are too far
ahead of their time or completely misguided in what they are
working on. Inside of this, he mentions the idea of reputation
tokens, which could relate directly to a project like Augur that
rewards those who submit predictions that turn out to be accurate
in this fashion.
Next, he spends a considerable
amount of time talking about the media cycle that has surrounded
the rise of the blockchain space, particularly from 2017-2018. What
is most interesting here is what May concludes about all of it,
including blockchain conferences and ICOs. According to him, white
paper releases, conferences, and general news updates inundate us
with constant industry updates to the point that no one can
reliably keep up with these developments. In other words, the
mental tax is just too great, and something needs to change in this
regard.
Finally, over the course of the
piece, one theme seems to be constant. If you fall into May’s camp,
then you fall into the camp that will continue to fight against
banks and governments being involved in crypto at all. Time and
time again, he makes it clear that we need to stand firm against
their involvement as well as even powerful industry involvement to
an extent.
Once this is known, the cries of
the need for all blockchain professionals, including investors, to
come together for the industry to succeed seem even more difficult
to answer. Perhaps, to achieve this, we need to move away from our
hype machine and back towards an emphasis on the technology that
makes the space so special.
In honor of Timothy May and his
contribution to everything that surrounds the crypto space, check
out his seminal work here.
By: BGN Editorial Staff