Is BlockChain Delivering?
Blockchain has long held some interesting potential and promises. Is blockchain delivering on them? Certainly, it is clear that BitCoin, in it's most basic form works. It has been almost 10 years since it came out and certainly there is a lot of talk about blockchain and bitcoin in the media. Bitcoin hit almost $20,000 in December 2017 but now is trading down towards the $6,000-7,000 range.
That said, I have to admit I have a love hate relationship with these technologies. There are times I love them. There are times I hate them.
Working Projects
Recently, there was an article that stated only 37 of the top 100 crypto currencies had a "working project."
https://www.investinblockchain.com/top-cryptocurrencies-working-products/
That means that 60% of these projects do not have working projects.
Now, I understand that good projects take time. I understand there are issues to getting to delivering the projects and I understand a whole host of new generation projects are in development. One could also ask at what speed one should reasonable expect this technology to be implemented.
I think an argument could be made that blockchain is lacking here.
Scams and Frauds
Bitcoin and BlockChain promised and open and public accountability. However, it has become the place for all the scams, lies and frauds. This is tiring. This drains energy and this is distracting.
There is a saying keep your "Friends close and your Enemies closer." That is to say one needs to know who your enemies are and be smart enough to outsmart them. Having been in Crypto for a while, I know some of the scams, and scammers, one can identify who they are, and what they are promoting. I know how to do my own research.
But this is also wasted effort.
So when one is researching a project, it is so easy to get exciting as you read all this great marketing literature. You start to think that this project has a huge potential.You go through the whitepaper, you start thinking about possibilities, you check out telegram forums or various web sites. And then. Bam. It hits you. Proof it is not what it claims to be. It might be in numbers that the project has no users and no use, it might be a forum where bots are faking user activity, it might be in the blockchain where all the activity is worthless transactions. (An example of this is Komodo, #56 on Coin Market Cap; I got all excited over Atomic Swaps, then I went to the exchange are realized there is only a few <20 transactions a day.
Komodo Block Explorer
https://www.dexstats.info/tradevolume.php
At least it is Better than Cybex.io which is a fraud/fake/scam website that has fake volume of several million dollar a day.
https://steemit.com/cybex/@cryptick/cybex-an-all-fake-crypto-exchange
And it was SkyCoin
That failed the smell test with bots on the the user forum.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptick/re-qholloi-belated-due-diligence-confirms-skycoin-is-not-a-scam-20180801t224901149z
That said, These are just a few recent examples. It is said, that 80% of all cryptocurrency volume is fake wash trading.
And it can even be said that SteemIt is not living up to it's promises on delivering fair rewards without massive self-promotion and lots of rich friends.
All of this is exhausting...
I was reading 2 Chronicles 7 in the Bible. As Solomon finishes the temple to the Lord there is a blessing and a curse.
Solomon was blessed by God and he was very rich.
He has 153,000 foreigners working for him (2 Chron 2:17)
He offered up 22,000 oxen as a sacrifice (2 Chron 7:4)
He got 25 tons of gold each year. (2 Chron 9:13...Worth about $96 Million US Dollars today)
(That is worth 13,000 BTC at todays prices...)
Yet, when people left God, their temple was destroyed and they were carried off into slavery. This happened repeatedly in the Old Testament.
I do believe God blesses and curses people today, based on what they do.
God hates a liar.
We as a community have a choice. Are we going to stop the scams, and clearly help the legitimate projects so that Blockchain can have a good reputation, or are we going to lets scams, frauds and lies overrun this space.
I think it can go either way...
I for one am frustrated by the scams, name calling and childish behavior. It is annoying.
I think blockchain can bring huge potential to the world. We are dealing with a technology that can bring banks to the unbanked people around the world, stop dishonest government monetary policies and bring accountability everywhere.
I also think that good people will leave the space, it can be thought of a coin of drug dealers and not something anyone wants to be part of.
We as a community have a choice to make.
To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:
Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.
So a little foolishness can ruin a good reputation. A little bad can ruin a lot of good. We all know how it take take years to build a house, but only one match and a few minutes to burn it down. These decentralized projects, have an inherent problem. Without police men, some bad people can run rampant. Without a way to control the bad, the work of the good can quickly and easily be destroyed. Without the right rewards in the system, the good will get discouraged and leave.
We all know and avoid certain areas of town. We know the good and the bad areas. It only takes a certain amount of "crime" to make an area of town "bad," crypto as a whole needs to needs to clean up its act.
It has been a month since this post and my feelings have not changed. Unfortunately, some block chain projects are run be developers and not businessmen. There is a big difference between developing a project and running a business. It may be rare where those skills overlap. I also think that there can be good rules and a lack of implementation. Within a system, there can be many parts that help make something succeed. It can be important to get all of those parts.
To illustrate that just a little better, one can ask what does an effective school take. Well it can take a good curriculum (aka text books)and it can take good teachers and a good school. Now one can have good books and bad teachers (For example a teacher sexually abusing students), one can have good books, good teachers and bad schools... (rats in the schools, hungry students, poor nutrition in schools, fighting among students). One can have good teachers, good environments and bad curriculum. (This might happen in a communist/muslim/Hindu country with propaganda. The students have a supportive family environments, teachers who care, yet the school books are teaching things that just don't work or are false.) So there is a complex balance one needs to have. Getting this balance right is difficult. Even in this illustrative example, really there are probably about 20 plus factors that go into the perfect combination. (personal security of the students, family support, teacher support, access to technology, natural disasters, ect).
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