Scanning through Twitter this morning for crypto news, I was shocked to find out that Blockstream CTO, Greg Maxwell has resigned from Blockstream, the company he co-founded.
I received this news from one of my favorite people on Twitter to follow, Mr. Scatman, a visionary artist and all around interesting person who has been following the Bitcoin split with passion:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bsmith12251960
Read Greg Maxwell's official resignation here, from his Linux blog:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-January/015586.html
I was shocked that Greg Maxwell resigned in November, but Blockstream didn't release the news until today, on their blog. The most obviously bizarre thing in all of this is that Greg is resigning from Blockstream because he wants to focus more on Bitcoin development......WHAT? Well, if you've been noticing, and if you've been paying attention, Blockstream was funded by big corporate investors, and as you know how this goes, they want a return on their investment. If you have not educated yourself about the future of Lightning Network, and what that entails, and how Blockstream intends to create profits from their sidechains, then you have a lot to learn. This resignation points to the cracks in Blockstream's plan, and it shows that they are not really interested in creating a peer-to-peer cash system. Maxwell states this pretty clearly, with the fact that he finds it incompatible to be employed by Blockstream and work on developing Bitcoin at the same time. It's almost an oxymoronic statement, just think about this for a second.
To read further, take a look at the official announcement from Blockstream's Blog:
https://blockstream.com/2018/01/19/blockstream-bids-farewell-to-gregory-maxwell.html
It looks like the cracks are really beginning to form, as we see the true intent of Blockstream: profit at any cost, even destroying the original vision of Bitcoin.
We can see that governance systems are crucial to the long-term health of cryptocurrency. That's why a lot of my focus has been on coins which include governance systems like EOS, Dash and others. Humans are unwieldy, and even though I like the idea of complete freedom, I see the need for some kind of structure that binds us together in a sensible way. I think Steem is really showing signs of growth in the right direction, as more and more people in here form groups that they can help grow and sustain. I'll take a Berniesanders vs. Haejin fight any day over the hell that broke up the Bitcoin chain. Fighting will always be something that exists in Steem, and even though no good solution currently exists to create some harmony there, I think it is not of a nature to break up the blockchain.
There you have it. I wonder who will replace Greg Maxwell? Any guesses?