So, the other day I learned that the cool lingo is coins. I’ve rummaged through the depths for a bit and came across the most plain and straightforward breakdown of the cryptocurrency ecosystem ever written. Impossible! Most everything else is like deciphering a marketing slate.

The analysis on economies of scale within peer–to–peer networks and this answer on merkle trees vs blockchains are worth the read too.

It’s hard to “peek into” other knowledge domains successfully. The reason; marketing fuzz.

TL;DR: Blockchain data–structure is designed only for Bitcoin’s rules. Large deviations from Bitcoin go nowhere. Ethereum appears to be the only protocol with minor deviations from Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies are blockchain protocols — laws (protocols) on permanent appendable excel sheets (blockchains). Bitcoin is not the only protocol. Various cryptocurrencies have differing rules but..

Blockchain’s implicit permanency favours Bitcoin’s rules and use cases. Economically, that’d suggest noncompatible use–cases/cryptocurrencies/forks become irrelevant.

Or more specifically, the difference between a merkle tree and a blockchain. So, no plausible technical predictions on coinage–but perhaps the government’s broken clock is right twice a day? Bahamians need permission to “officially invest” in crypto–stock “currency”.

Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.

Many suns ago, local events “piqued” my curiosity into cryptocurrency hype. Praise be to the king–no really! Anyway, reading the leaves and decrypting the crypto–babble made bits of sense.. at least superficially.

The point: there’s plausibility that one or many powerful democratic government(s) designed/orchestrated the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Yes, hard to prove but.. the architecture is an uncanny 1:1 copy of government communication. Even abuse/failure modes are 1:1 (see sybil, a 51% attack: similar to democracy’s extra fun “limbo” mode).

..if it wasn’t for this guy visiting my country. I am now “enlightened”. Spoiler: Blockchain protocols computationally formalize/describe a government’s high power restraints within democracy. In civics (social studies), democracy is decentralized power (no/many kings) and therefore implicitly inefficient.

Democratic governments (in perfect world) communicate/act/bank;

1. In public (freedom of information)
2. With immutability (no deleting things)
3. With consensus (majority vote)
4. With inefficiency (to weaken bad actors)

Citizens and other low power (centralized) entities can do some of the above (federation), but mostly (wisely) communicate/act/bank;

5. In private (freedom of association)
6. With mutability (to protect privacy)
7. Without consensus (freedom of expression)
8. With efficiency (to build–up fast actors)

Individually, (5-8 > 1-4) no? But (1-4 > 5-8) in dictatorships (5-8)? Blockchain governments for maximal oversight? Not happening :)