Bitcoin. A short dip
Lately, I have read more than necessary about Bitcoin. Perhaps, I should imitate most and only settle for how easy it is to use it. So I hope that one day it will reach mass adoption while holding in my wallet what I can.
While watching and reading content, I discovered a plot and controversy behind Bitcoin, worthy of a film saga when it originally represented a revolutionary innovation that sparked much hope.
For starters, a genius or team that after a decade still maintains anonymity under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Source: Image by Tumisu on Pixabay
In a short, nine-page whitepaper, he spelled out Bitcoin a word made up of two phonemes: "Bit" (the smallest unit of digital information in a computer) and "Coin"; that is, Bitcoin is a special kind of binary currency.
Nakamoto masterfully defined it in the title of the document: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Well! If you search in cyberspace, you will find even conspiracy theories about the origin and the connoted purpose of Bitcoin. Here at read.cash, you'll also find some great articles about it.
I'll be honest with you. I consider not ruling out such theories no matter how implausible they may seem.
Excuse me if I bore you with these initial ideas. I think they are necessary for the perspective that I wish to present to you below.
Many of the readers and authors here, not so well versed in the world of blockchain, will have appreciated the harsh narrative in the Bitcoin developer community, a disagreement that led to other lines of development of the original protocol in hard forks.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is an emblematic example of the conflict, an option with great potential for the future of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Cash (ticker symbol: BCH) is a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system as outlined in the Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto that has fast, secure, reliable, and low fee transactions running on a permissionless and immutable blockchain network. Bitcoin Cash is the upgraded version of Bitcoin which carries the same genesis block that was started with Bitcoin in January 2009.
However, the Bitcoin Maximalists; who believe that there should only be a single digital currency, and this is the one that bears the acronym of BTC. But over time, we only hear that it is a store of value, a digital gold. So I wonder, where did the peer use go, and why does Bitcoin BTC dominate the capitalization market?
Source: Image by Sulayman Sanyang on Pixabay
It is here where the story of suspense and intrigue begins.
Is Bitcoin still a revolutionary innovation today?
If you did not know, the conditions for the emergence of Bitcoin, as we know it today, it was ready around the year 2000, but it did not manifest itself until the real estate crisis of 2008, which shook the global financial system.
In this sense, the proposal was revolutionary from the integrated perspective of the cypherpunk current and the anarchist ideas that for centuries were taking shape until they penetrated the minds of the developers of the digital world.
The pernicious event was conducive to introducing the idea of draining the wealth concentrated in the coffers of the banks, which were mainly responsible for the financial crisis, towards the people, who are the ones who generate wealth with their efforts. It can be said that a system like Bitcoin is an act of justice based on:
P2P digital money.
Without an intermediary, that is, without banking entities.
Decentralized governance.
Distributed registry.
Anti-censorship.
In this sense, Bitcoin embodied in the digital clothing the sentiment against the elites and a threat to collapse the structures of the established power, so it is illusory to think that a counteroffensive would not arise in those who directly or indirectly declared themselves in enemies of Bitcoin.
Who are the enemies of Bitcoin?
Someone will say, «a stupid question with an obvious answer. The elite, the power of the world».
Source: Image by Thomas Breher on Pixabay
You are right. Although, I think most of us will never know who they are since they have been moving in the shadows for a long time.
We even think that they are the politicians; who govern and the big corporations; who finance them. The truth is that we do not know who they are.
Well, as an approximation, let's give a visible face to the tip of the iceberg: The enemy is large corporations and state cooperation. And we know this from how they attack Bitcoin since its inception.
How do they attack Bitcoin?
I believe that each action to sink hopes in Bitcoin would deserve an in-depth study, but as this article is simply rambling, I will approach it without methodological rigor.
So I will only list the attacks and strategies against Bitcoin that have been most apparent to me in the readings I reviewed so far.
Thinking aloud, a brief paragraph in the course of the ideas presented so far, to ask yourself two questions:
What supports Bitcoin?
Can Bitcoin work outside the system?
Although interesting, and relevant I will leave them open for your consideration. I invite you to do your research (DYOR).
Returning to the strategies and actions against Bitcoin, consider the following:
Centralizing mining.
Limiting ASICS import & export for the miner.
Contracting with the government for massive energy production.
Regulating exchanges, their bank accounts are closed.
They buy mutual funds that decide which exchanges grow.
Close legal and credit card channels to institutions that do not follow the recommendations of the FATF.
Stimulate custody models for companies, making the opposite illegal, the models do not custodial.
Establish agreements with the most important exchanges so that they can collect taxes automatically.
Creating securities that are traded instead of Bitcoin and that are not paid in Bitcoin that press the market.
Cryptocurrency money laundering propaganda.
Project the fake image to stop the adoption.
Crypto ecosystem creation with a smokescreen of Ponzis.
Attack the development or release of code from a decentralized exchange.
Create a Stablecoin that has a fraction of leverage in fiat papers.
Source: image by Лечение Наркомании on Pixabay
But the most effective thing is to attack the core and most vulnerable point of the system. I think you guessed it. To the men behind the Bitcoin protocol. To the development team.
This in itself explains Satoshi Nakamoto's abandonment of the project in 2012 and his disappearance from the scene with more than a million bitcoin, and that today has doubled with the fork that gave rise to Bitcoin Cash. The funny thing is that these remain immobile. Perhaps they have been burned forever.
I see the dark hand behind the hostilities that led to the controversial hard forks. If you think about it, a radical code update doesn't necessarily imply a community split.
This also explains, the strong epithets and legal disputes to keep the name of the project with its corresponding effects.
Men can be forced to break their will, by force, deception, or simply bribed.
It's not up to me to judge them. I think history will take care of this. A characteristic of Bitcoin is the immutability of its records, so this time the winners will not be able to rewrite history.
Although, maybe I'm wrong?
A philosophical error accompanied by a flaw in the architecture.
I think decentralization was not the main goal of the Bitcoin project. Moreover, I think it was only and still is a necessary condition for the liberation of pervertible intermediaries.
I also believe that decentralization is a catalyst for something more profound and sublime: resistance to censorship.
In the case of Bitcoin, decentralization guarantees that no one will prohibit your transaction, nor that unscrupulous individuals manipulate the protocol to produce coins at their convenience.
Decentralization implies that the system's governance has to be done by consensus and is guaranteed, by design, through the restrictions derived from the distributed architecture of nodes. A genius idea.
However, the initial algorithm had its Achilles heel in terms of scalability. A temporary problem that can be corrected. A block size that today is not sustainable by 5G technologies.
It seems trivial, but it is from here that the forces of the status quo have leveraged their efforts to convert a potential currency for trade that spans the entire spectrum, from retail to large investments, into a supposed digital asset. A store of value that they have called digital gold.
Now, the philosophical error is to dismiss Bitcoin as an instrument to avoid censorship, after all, people do not care about censorship, they only want to buy and sell, and they forget that censorship implies that someone decides what goods and services you can consume, restricting your freedom.
Another weakness that Bitcoin has is privacy. Sure, you say, isn't bitcoin anonymous? Stop to think, why Satoshi Nakamoto has not yet been revealed.
I think if Satoshi had used his funds, we would already know who is. You understood so that Bitcoin can receive the transfer of value that Fiat money represents, it needs centralized exchanges to be able to track you on the Blockchain, the fact that you cannot, does not mean that state agencies cannot.
So if someone tells you that Bitcoin is ideal for financing illicit activities. Is lying to you.
Source: Image by Sammy-Williams on Pixabay
Final thoughts
I have rambled more than necessary, and many ideas have been left out. Well, that's the danger of the rambler and the fortune of improvisation.
I don't pretend to show you the way, I just share my concerns with you.
You may have noticed that today I did not make much effort to promote Bitcoin Cash, since the audience, in particular, is very select here at read.cash and enthusiastic about BCH.
I hope that the foreign reader finds objectivity in the arguments. If he is an expert, give us rich feedback that can be eaten at the first bite, and if you are a novice, I hope to have given lights on the way.
Regarding the title question, I think I don't have to explicitly answer it. Draw your conclusions.
I do not want to end these ramblings, without saying that any anti-system attempt has to run the risks of operating from within the system. Whoever reads, understand. Follow the trail of money that funds the hardware and software infrastructure where you are and see where they take you.
Bitcoin in its philosophical essence has taken that course. An experiment that does not presuppose the denial of future projects that return to the objective. What will the project be? Time will tell.
If instead, you want to leave the system. You will have to emigrate to a remote region where technology is not necessary to survive.
In the end, it is you who decides while you can or they leave you.
An original article @Jnavedan
