A message to the crypto community | Bitcoin Private, BTC, ZCL
Have you no honor? Did you lose track of the objective? Are you blinded by greed?
The last few days have been disappointing to say the least. A large part of the community has forgotten the very essence of our mission and is seduced by alluring riches at its expense. This is what I will allude to in this post, but before I do that I have a short message for the people who have not lost sight: Step out of the shadows! The community needs your voice; there are way too few voices of reason in these dire times.
Bitcoin was created with the ambition of freeing us from the death grip of the corrupt governments and banks. It was created to be our weapon and our refuge, and had the great advantage of being able to stay under the radar during its vulnerable childhood—which will never happen again. We must capitalize on this momentum now that we no longer are underground. The clock is ticking.
What worries me is the implication of the recent dip of the crypto market and the general excessive focus on becoming crypto-millionaires, which are the two things giving rise to this post.
Yesterday's Bitcoin-dip to $9,000 after news of several governments cracking down on crypto-currencies reflects the issue perfectly. Opposition from governments was always expected: this is precisely what Bitcoin was designed for! If one invested in Bitcoins not anticipating resistance from governments one clearly did not understand what Bitcoin is all about, and evidently this space is riddled with a lot of these people—dreamers who want nothing but to get rich quick.
Bitcoin was the first crypto-currency and is a great one. Its success gave rise to an immense increase in fruitful cryptography-research; the latest discoveries in the zk-SNARK field are extraordinary and should not be overlooked. There are teams of developers working tirelessly on great projects—the most notable one being Bitcoin Private—but a large part of the crypto community is regrettably fixated with "moons" and "lamborghinis". This behavior is highly destructive because regardless of how great a project is it needs a strong community to flourish—especially among all this misinformation and manipulation. The Bitcoin Private project has a large team of volunteers working on forking Bitcoin to include zk-SNARK, but is currently pestered by people merely looking to capitalize on the imminent fork. Projects like this should have the rest of us stepping forward and supporting them. There is no longer any time for passivity.
Thank you for emphasizing on what the crypto community is about! While lambos are being associated with Bitcoin, thats far from what our community is looking to achieve. Great article!
Wow. Nice post. I've been working to publish an article about bitcoin private. Now upon reading this i may have to reevaluate everything ive written before going live. Crypto is not meant to be a get rich quick measure but address certain problrms and provide them into solutions. In fact as Ivan the programmer once said in his videos: the money should be the least interesting thing about it. My work is novice with rudimentary understanding. And I fear readers too may misinterpret the content with greed when in reality, bitcoin private's implementation of 'zero knowledge proof' is intended for ensuring privacy from such institutional entities. I hope posts like this will remind people what we should be fighting for instead of our own personal gains.
You are wrong to demonize those motivated by profit motive in the way that you have. The 'buzz' around cryptocurrencies, the thrill of potential riches, and the excitement that profit creates are perfectly natural forces bringing new hands into bitcoin on a daily basis. I can elaborate on the details of how it works and why it's a good thing if you do not understand. I think you will understand so I will continue instead.
You mention the 'essence of the mission' of those of us who wholeheartedly believe in bitcoin.. The BTC/ETH/alt markets are comprised of willing buyers and sellers. Revisit the fundamentals of free market operation, and you may not be so quick to demonize those driven by profit motive. After-all, you yourself are driven by it, and nobody (with a brain) is questioning your honor for it.
The market will ultimately decide whether or not bitcoin private is valuable. Not you. You may think price does not match it's value at some point - but if your valuation is correct - the market will prove you correct, of course.
For the projects that you have faith in... Have some damn faith, then! Is your faith based in accurate information? I assume that at least you think so. If your ideas are valid, and you are correct, you will be rewarded for having those ideas before others. Congratulations. (Notice how in this way you are not at all far removed from the 'lambo' buyers that you foolishly demonized moments ago).
It is my opinion that you're right, and bitcoin private will have at least a few legitimate use cases or solve some problems for some people. I think it will be traded for some time. Other, more useless shitforks are still traded, after all. At the very least - if bitcoin private is just a little bit better than useless, it will be around for a while.
Ultimately, I think your intentions are good but you betray ignorance by shitting on those participating in a free market. Additionally, your appeals for bitocin private are far too emotional. I don't think you are trying to deceive, to be sure, but I think more logical and factual appeals will win more people over to your favorite coin. If bitcoin private is what you say it is, I think you are doing it something of a disservice. Your post is whiny, and your your attempts to appeal to emotion outnumber and outweigh those which are logical and factual. Your quickness to question the honor of and demonize traders doesn't lend to your message in the slightest.
Perhaps I expressed myself poorly; you misunderstood me. I do not oppose being motivated by profits, but I oppose doing harm to a good project. In the specific case of Bitcoin Private, a lot of people are giving Rhett (the lead developer) lots of shit for being honest and casual instead of being silver-tongued for the short-term pump. If you are willing to sacrifice the long-term success of something as important as Bitcoin Private for a small short-term gain, I would say that you do more harm than good to our cause. First do no harm.
Furthermore, a good product does not necessarily flourish in the free market. Free markets are affected by a number of factors, of which many outweigh the actual utility of the product—especially in a poorly informed market. Free markets are certainly not magical recipes for optimal outcome.
I do not worry about the success of Bitcoin Private, but rather the success of this movement as a whole. The Bitcoin Private situation was merely an example to demonstrate the situation we are in before the first battle has even broken out. This is not a war that will be over any time soon; we must not lose sight of our mission as we go forward (and simultaneously reap the profits of our investments).
I see, I have misunderstood you. I agree with you completely. I apologize
Congratulations @tarecgosa, you have decided to take the next big step with your first post! The Steem Network Team wishes you a great time among this awesome community.
The proven road to boost your personal success in this amazing Steem Network
Do you already know that awesome content will get great profits by following these simple steps, that have been worked out by experts?
Congratulations @tarecgosa! You received a personal award!
Click here to view your Board
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Congratulations @tarecgosa! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!