Cross post from
https://forum.nemcoin.com/general-discussion/open-letter-to-the-nem-devs/Dear Devs: @Pat, @Gimre, @BloodyRookie, @Makoto, and @Jaguar,
Here are some of my thoughts. Your job is a thankless one. You work hard on a great idea. Those that would support you, most often don’t (yet). But those that will complain, gripe, and insult do.
If I make something and I spend months of work into a project, it often can turn out successful. I can hear praise from 9 out of 10 people saying it is awesome. Then that 1 out of 10 people starts to complain and it stings! Immediately the praise of the group is out and the single complainer’s voice takes over so loud in my head I hear little else but their negativity repeating over and over stuck on a loop.
I just want you to know that I think your work here is great. I really believe in this project (that is why I am here) and I want to tell you why. I think NEM has the fullest potential to be what the blockchain should be. I feel like we are on the right track and I feel like the work that is being done here can be so transformative to society that its full reproductions aren’t yet understood.
I have searched the crypto world. I have in the last year become fascinated with the world of the blockchain. What I have seen has both delighted and disappointed me. Both freed up possibilities of the future but also continually frustrated me. But it is in this world that I see some great potential.
I have seen extreme liberals and extreme conservatives and even extremists of upstart third parties buy into Bitcoin and believe in it. These are people that have little else in common, but when they see the system, it just makes sense. I think this is because on an intuitive level once people get what a blockchain is, it just makes sense, and it is known deep down inside that this is something that solves a fundamental problem, one that is so deeply ingrained in our history and culture, most people are oblivious that it is even a problem. This is the fundamental problem that humans cannot trust each other.
The blockchain is a truly amazing invention and its implications are pretty profound. I have thought about this long and hard. For thousands of years our societies have been built around the fact that humans inherently can't at large trust each other. We have of course at often times trusted those very near to us, those 1-100 people we are close to, but after that the circle of trust breaks apart. It is just too easy for somebody from the next village over or next country over to say "they are not one of us, lets cheat them.” And this narrative has happened all over for thousands of years, sometimes on a small interpersonal level, but sometimes on a global scale. Whole governments and societies are built knowing that this is one of the fundamental constraints of human nature and therefore must be accounted for. But now a global system of trust can be created, where I can literally trust a 65 year old woman in Brazil, and she can in turn trust a 15 year old boy in Africa and so on.
The implications of how society can be restructured knowing now that there is an open and reliable system of trust is so disruptive that nobody is really acknowledging its importance because things have been the way they have been for so long, that this new invention creates a paradigm shift outside of tradition that goes back all the way to the agricultural revolution; a time when a major concern was what to do with the surplus of grain and who should be trusted to manage it.
I am lucky because I lived in one of the poorest places in the world, a poor village in one of the poorest countries in Africa (no running water no electric no telecommunications and so on). I saw how the village’s social structure was arranged around the chief and trust was put in him as a centralized authority to bring order. All societies everywhere arose out of a system nearly identical. And now that fundamental precept that we must have a centralized authority to guarantee trust with all our interactions has been thrown out. This allows so much of what we know of today as society to be rewritten from the ground up. I am saying it here. I believe that the repercussions of the blockchain will be extremely disruptive. A few of the old systems that have long proven to be crucial for maintaining order, just simply are not needed anymore. The rest still are of course, but this has the potential to radically shape our narrative concerning these matters.
And while the blockchain has been given to us as a great invention, it was by no means given to us in its final form, and actually wasn’t even given to us in a good model. It was given to us in the form of proof-of-waste/work championed by Bitcoin. But honestly, we needed PoW, because if PoI was the first version of crypto, it wouldn't have ever caught on. People would have thought of it as Monopoly money and laughed it off. It was the miners that gave some legitimacy to Bitcoin as they were really working/wasting energy to get the BItcoins so therefore in the minds of others they should be worth something. And the system worked because the blockchain was secured. Whoever could work/waste more would ensure that they were devoting their energy towards the correct chain or otherwise they would be operating at a loss.
But the inherent value of the blockchain is not in the work/waste used to produce a Bitcoin, but actually what a Bitcoin can stand for and how it can be used as smart programmable money verses simple dumb paper with symbols and numbers on it. I really think Satoshi knew this all along and pulled a fast one over on everybody. He made a purposely flawed mining system, one that would work very well in the short term at protecting the blockchain but all the while knowing it wouldn't work well in the long run, but would draw a lot of attention to the more important invention of the blockchain. I believe Satoshi didn’t know if Bitcoin would or wouldn’t make it, but that if he could design a system that could just grow large enough and loud enough for the blockchain to gain awareness and support, than his overall project would be a success.
I am talking about the blockchain being a revolution in that it allows trust on a fundamental level that the world doesn’t know. With the blockchain my circle of trust goes from 37 people to 6 billion. With a blockchain a Bitcoin (or NEM) can come not to represent money, but anything of value. The versatility of colored coins, assets, and records being built into the blockchain is what makes it so powerful and the fact that now I can agree on those representations with billions of other people. During the agricultural revolution, I could only trust those from my village and the chief was the final authority and stamp of the law. Later this stamp was written down into constitutions and large governments were formed, but the basic overall structure remained the same. One centralized authority maintains and enforces the trust. With the blockchain, the people can now in a decentralized nature maintain the system of trust, and maybe even someday enforce it too. Smart contracts on the blockchain will go part of the way towards enforcing the trust of unknown parties. This means that a blockchain token is now programmable and will only act in certain ways following certain rule sets, and even can be returned back to the sender if certain conditions aren’t met. There is no need to call the police or the government or lawyer, the blockchain in many instances (not all of course) has removed a need for them to exist in certain manifestations all together.
Some will argue that Bitcoin and/or all other cryptos are doomed to centralize and will fall down into the same trap of centralization; that sooner or later the centralization authority starts to give advantages to itself because it can; that power unchecked always leads to abuse of that power. But in reality if trust is facilitated through a centralized or decentralized institution, it doesn’t really matter; the important thing that exists is that it is open, honest, and transparent. The advantage of the decentralized system is it gives a much higher degree of insurance that it is indeed open, honest, and transparent because open decentralization forces this to a greater magnitude. It essentially acts as a checking system to maintain reputability, but if a centralized system has a different but equally good checking system to ensure the proper outcome, then it too is okay. In the case of Bitcoin becoming centralized, it still to some degree has a checking mechanism built into its core.
Part of that is based off of the belief that Bitcoin is open, honest, and transparent. If there is a way that centralization learns how to cheat Bitcoin, then its purpose has been voided. Now someday Bitcoin might be too big to fail and if it becomes over centralized and actors get an edge because of it, the world might just have to live with it being a mostly good system but still a little flawed. But as it stands today, if Bitcoin ceases to be 100% open, honest, and transparent, then there is always another blockchain and another proof-of-x waiting to take its place.
This is where PoI comes in. In fact, Bitcoin doesn’t even have to become centralized and fail. This is because it wasn’t designed well enough in the first place. Something like PoI can displace it because it is superior tech all around. I believe that PoI is the highest form of blockchain technology as it exists today. Those that maintain the blockchain are rewarded not by how much they can work/waste, and not by how much they have invested in the system (PoS), but how active they are in the system; that basically those using the system stand to gain the most benefits from it. Pumpers and dumpers and manipulators will ultimately have their influence decreased. Inactive whales too will eventually be at a disadvantage. Over the long run, it is those that use the system the most that will be rewarded the most. A whale who sits back and does nothing gains less for their PoI because they are doing nothing within the system; additionally their wealth brings no real world value to themselves other than psychological. Wealth that is buried in the backyard and not ever once touched is ultimately of no use.
PoI is to me how a blockchain should operate. Bitcoin fundamentalist will argue that NEM was all premined and that Bitcoin is better because it is mined. But where the token comes from and how it is created in the long run is irrelevant. Even if Bitcoin was to last 10,000 years, then this short time of mining would be irrelevant. The blockchain is beautiful and elegant not because of how the token is created, but because of how the token can be programmed and all the things it can represent that couldn’t have been represented before. The blockchain is beautiful because of the trust billions of people can now put into it, instead of trust in the chief, the mayor, the government, the president and the prime minister. It is beautiful because it solves a fundamental problem of human nature that goes back to the dawn of the agricultural revolution, that question of how can we make a system of trust to represent and control our surplus so we can be assured it is safe. And NEM is beautiful because of blockchains, it is the most elegant, designed in a way that best promotes long term transparent, open and honest activity; that it is the first time that a blockchain is being invented in a way that isn’t trying to pull a fast one over on everyone, that it is designed from the ground up with fresh code to promote fairness in a way so that all those that participate have a chance no matter where they start out from to make it big.
So I am applauding you and asking you to carry on. The negative voices are loud and they sting. Occasionally they might raise an issue we can learn from and improve upon, but most often they are angry that a fair system is being created in which they will lose privileged position. Please hold the path and keep the long game in mind.
I promise you one thing. Life after launch will be a lot different than life prior to launch. Many voices will wake up and champion you that are now silent. They will help argue against the naysayers, whose numbers too will grow. After launch the next chapter starts.
And when and if NEM gets to the tipping point of adoption, then at that point too life again will change. The praiseworthy voices will become so loud that they will drown out any/most true and good criticism and ultimately will create a false sense of security and greatness. The road will not always be easy, but it should always be easier than after those first critical months after launch.
There will be life after launch, and after that, there will be life after adaption. I tell you this with confidence.
This is a great invention, truly disruptive, truly revolutionary, and truly amazing. Please keep focused and keep it straight.
