....and reading the blogs of the 2015 Consensus conference i keep thinking 'but, DASH does that!, no! it's already here, wait there is a solution!'.
Seems that the BTC intelligentsia just can't look past their nose or perhaps they are unwilling.
I have an explanation for that.
In creative life, visionaries (Stage 1) tend to surround themselves with followers (Stage 2) and followers tend to be mutually attracted to visionaries. In turn, those 2nd generation followers eventually get challenged by the next wave of visionaries (Stage 3) and the cycle begins again.
Where Are We Going After Satoshi ?In bitcoin, we are now governed by the "2nd tier group" - the followers. However, the people with commit access are the dipolar opposite of the role that Satoshi played in all of this. Good workers, but a
rudderless ship in terms of strategic vision. I'd make an exception for Gavin who seems to be enough of a regular human being to have clung to the original intent behind the invention of the worlds first widely accepted, non-countereitable monetary token. To me, he will end up on the right side of history when this book is written simply for having been so close to Satoshi without falling into the "2nd generation pit" and for having been a worthy caretaker of the original monetary principles of the technology *.
The thing is, money is essentially a sociological phenomenon, not a technical one. At an analytical level, it is an information system and nothing to do with "value". As such, its job is to act as a conduit for markets to transmit information about excess and deficit. If the monetary conduit works efficiently, then goods and services get moved worldwide, from areas of excess to areas of deficit. The ideal properties for such monetary media are
well understood and prevail equally on electronic platforms as physical ones.
This is the appropriate context in which to do a
requirements analysis for a new monetary medium. Not arbitrary ideas about whether bitcoin was a
one off event or whether alt coins do or do not have "value". These outcomes don't factor - they are criteria for monopolists, not monetary analysts.
Without continual recourse to the original monetary principles, no new electronic medium will ever qualify for widespread adoption, absent coercion from national governments.
Commit Access=kareoke StatusReturning to the quote, consider this. There are plenty of kareoke singers around the world who can sing better than the Beatles, it's just that they don't aspire to the state of mind that the Beatles did when they wrote those songs.
So it is with 2nd generation bitcoin developers. Whatever their supreme level of coding ability, it's still
Kareoke, not money. I've watched presentation after presentation and observed them to be as meticulous about technology as they are reckless about the sociological priorities of money **. No surprise there though. It's the historical priorities that will establish the basis for a new decentralised electronic monetary medium, so IMO we'd do well to study what those priorities were because the 2nd generation Bitcoin developers are (understandably) oblivious to them.
We're On Our Own - EveryoneIt's well established that I'm a Bitcoin fan as much as a Dash fan and regard bitcoin as the "mothership". I do not want anything bad to happen to the mother of all cryptocurrencies and the (according to markets) reserve currency by which we are all judged.
At the same time, you've got to accept that bitcoin has now entered the "
Karaoke" phase. After Gavin, there hasn't really been anyone who's not a technical agenda oriented, oblivious geek when it comes to monetary principles. To me, that's ok and Dash itself may have to pass through a similar phase some day, but meanwhile lets just be aware that - as far as Bitcoin goes - ordinary human beings are are in charge, not legends.
* Whatever the merits of his technical solutions, his priorities were informed by the principle of a cryptocurrency open to all, accessible directly without the need for proprietary superstructures. To me, these principles seem consistent with those of Satoshi's original vision for bitcoin.
** Traditionally, a programmer has a customer who tells them what to do. In Bitcoin, nobody tells the programmer what to do so they decide for themselves, hence the advent of spurious ideas such as sidechains and "confidential transactions". What does this do to the fungibility of bitcoin ? It destroys it.
