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#4 - This here post deals with minutes 6:00 through 9:00 of the video. I'm pretty much knee deep in this now; I don't really have a choice but to follow through! But, fortunately for everyone involved, this one is a little bit shorter yet equally interesting in content!
Trust Me: It's All About Trust
The question comes around to whether BCH or BSV is truly the preferred concept, reality, technology. The conversation leans heavily towards a complimentary kudos regarding the philosophy of technicals coming from BSV, and that includes Roger. With BCH, it is said that it has gotten increasingly bogged down as it pertains to how it is designed, While BSV is focused on allowing the miners to define the block-space and providing a smart platform for building businesses. I am reminded of a Scooby phrase "if it weren't for those meddling kids". That can be said for the infamy of Dr. Craig Wright.
So, what is the real hang-up?
It's the figure-heads, and that really is what it comes down to.
Who do you trust?
Let's say you have 300 cryptocurrencies, all built with comparable features and qualities. All of them share the same caliber website, roadmap, white paper, and social media presence and branding. In the end, it would come down to the leadership and personalities that earned people's interest and trust. In many ways, our trust would come from the words spoken by leadership in videos, written on social media, Q&A at conferences.
In this case, we have Roger Ver, a vocal, energetic, driven presence for the Bitcoin Cash project. Then, you have Craig Wright representing BSV, a man who claims to be the true Satoshi Nakamoto, notably going on a lawsuit rampage that has caused BSV to be shunned or delisted from many of the top crypto exchanges, including Kraken and Binance. If we are meant to care less about the 'trusted' 3rd party, then our trust has to reside somewhere. The idea is for this to come from the stability of the blockchain. But, people are weird. Our ideals often don't align with our genetic make-up.
While BSV is designed to prove the validity of larger block sizes, BCH is aimed at stressing the adjustable nature of the block size. Both take intelligent approaches to this, and there are many who can speak to the technicals with a more interesting narrative than myself. BCH and BSV both agree that the actual design of the network benefits from a larger megabyte block than the set-in-stone buffer size found in the original Bitcoin.
One thing I appreciate about Roger Ver is his willingness to speak fairly about what makes a project work, regardless of the disputes that may arise from the actual people. It is rational to understand that inflexibility and aggressive intolerance to contrary thought is a valid reason not to trust protocol, and this leads to fascinating larger concepts I believe are valid to address. In the case for BSV, sadly it is very possible that a superior coin has been designed, because it just isn't possible to get beyond the worrisome nature of its head.
We want to believe that we live in a world where those who embrace the concept of liberty through privacy, sovereignty through personal decision-making in valuable assets, can purchase tokens that represent these values, with a confidence in the technology, privacy and the ability not to have to answer to any government, bank, or authorized authoritarian. The truth is, in a trustless technology platform like blockchain, you are still placing your trust somewhere other than just the tech. You may not be aware of it, yet it exists.
Whether we like it or not, one of the most precious protocols built into Bitcoin Core is that the supply will always be limited to 21,000,000 coins. The code is what protects this truth. But, code can be updated and re-written. Who can decide such things? Ultimately, the code decides, and in turn, it means that the thinking of the person or people who protect, update, clarify, generate and test the code can make changes that lead to a slippery slope no one can truly guarantee. In the end, most of us believe that important groups like Bitcoin Core understand the risks or veering from ideology, but I bring this around to the point that in the recent history of crypto, Binance was hacked for more than 9000 Bitcoins (no user funds were affected), and a representative of Bitcoin Core offered to roll the chain back! That is a massive "no-no". CZ responded by stating that he didn't even know that was a possibility but would consider it. Fortunately, he quickly considered how bad an idea that was. But, the offer was out there. No one seems to bring this up. Do we forget so quickly?
There are brilliant minds at work in the crypto space, and they are able to create, conceptualize and carry out unbelievably smart and complex routines. Developers are a special world to themselves, but they are bridging that gap between finance, philosophy, and futurist economy. We have thousands of variants to consider these days, and though it is just as simple as making something illegal to hamper progress, the truth is that we can have programmable money that is as open or closed a system as we desire. There is a flavor of crypto ice cream for everyone, and the ice cream shop is ripe for business. Choose safety, privacy, complete lack of privacy, and any protocol that fits your ideals. But I warn you, if you go fully down the rabbit hole, start tearing up your bank statements and closing accounts to go all in on your favorite crypto, you want to make sure it not only supports your lifestyle and purchasing needs, but also has leadership that are competent, level-headed, people who play friendly with the rest of the cryptosphere, and have strong contingency plans in case they step away from leadership. If something happens to "A", person "B" or community are already in place to make sure the ship stays on course.
In the end, even Roger is willing to admit BSV could be (or could have been) the better version of 'Bitcoin', but when you have someone who's ideology has shifted so drastically from fairness and intelligence to radical sue-happy rampages, wanting to tax, patent, charge and license every small piece of trackable traceable intellectual property, it goes beyond the issues of trusting the code. Now you have to worry about what programmable changes might be programmed into your favorite programmable money. It is a legitimate concern.
This is the truth for individuals who may look at crypto as more than a store of value, or an item that can be traded or swapped to earn on profits, and it is true for those who see crypto as their new replacement to fiat, and it is just as true for those who wish to build apps and defi programs on top of something like BSV. Just as much as we are learning how important the people behind a crypto project matter in cases like STEEM and hardfork HIVE can be, who's to say that Craig Wright doesn't talk himself into regulatory corners that he can't get out of? Who's to say that if his engineers tick him off, that he doesn't burn his own project to the ground? If it is the case that he has tried to cheat Kleiman out of hundreds of millions of dollars (and I'm not saying I know what the case is, but there is a case and it claims he owes the estate a massive stack!), who's to say he doesn't sell out on BSV to pay for it?
The people who seem to know CSW the best, seem to know to avoid him. That for me, is the best reason not to place anything of significant value into his project.
The larger question remains, and I find it fascinating once again; how do we balance trust in platform and tech versus the people that make it happen? I think the answer is similar to that of fiat and central banks and governments, which play a large role in how many of us arrived here in crypto to begin with! I am going to make a point to include somewhere in each of these posts, that I firmly believe the issues we face ALL come down to human nature.
The common root to all of our issues with money, before they are ideological, political, philosophical, or from one school of principles in economy versus another, is fundamental issues of human nature; fear, greed, lust, power, did I mention greed, and also greed.
When a family line becomes powerful due to underhanded lending practices, and this builds a dynasty infrastructure into fractional reserves, and central banks develop close relationships to governments through unbalanced policies, it is actual people throughout the chain that benefit. Loopholes, incentives, earnings, upcharges, access to borrowing and essentially renting money out to others, are all taking place to the extreme because of the pockets it fills. If there were a balance to hold back the level of greed we see in finance, we would see a much healthier financial market. But, greed grows in the hearts of people, and once they sense the power that wealth can create, they become hungry for more. Often, an innate paranoia develops, that everyone is out to get them, and often it is not just instinct. The fear of missing out, and the fear of making a miscalculation and losing money, or even worse the threat that others will come after their wealth, build an unhealthy circle of building wealth by any means possible, in order to avoid the fear of having less. Power and a lust for control, then become an outset mechanism to outpace the fear of diminishing returns.
We see unhealthy human nature in every aspect of society. So, my warning to you is this; don't assume that an immutable ledger in a peer to peer permissionless smart money system operates without the thinkers behind the code. People are still a major part of the "chain" in blockchain. They make quite the point to KYC, or know your customer, so we must do the same due diligence to know the creators.
I hope you find this of interest. Please watch the video, read the other posts in this series, and follow me so you can continue with me on the journey to #5!
... and for now, Crypto Gordon Freeman out.
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