What Are Your Biggest Cryptocurrency/Blockchain Fears?

Steem (via steemit) was my first introduction to cryptocurrencies and blockchains. I've been here for 6 months now, and the learning never stops. The concept of the blockchain fascinates me, and I can't believe it took me this long to discover it. So many potential applications. And, consequently, so many altcoins to choose from.

About two weeks ago I took my first steps into the altcoin world outside of STEEM. I grabbed some Litecoin with some steem profits and last week I bought some Bitshares. The Bitshare blockchain... what a fantastic idea (like the Steem blockchain) and something that is clearly needed in the crypto world, and probably the rest of the world! The upside seems limitless.

Yet there's one obvious thing that bothers me about the potential of any crypto/blockchain world, that is - it's just sitting there available to any giant corporation and/or government to fork, copy and dominate. From the looks of it, Vice (porn Vice, not news Vice) is going to fork the Steem blockchain very soon and launch their own corporate version of it, with a porn token in place of STEEM. One of the selling points of SMTs on Steem is that it will allow anyone to launch their own token to support their own communities, all on top of the Steem blockchain and powered by STEEM. Great, in principle. In practice, though, is Vice just the first in a long line of corporations that are going to literally copy/paste the Steem blockchain and call it something else? And most likely centralise it as well?

I read a kooky conspiracy theory from someone today which alleged that Mark Zuckerberg already owns a shitload of STEEM and is actually the whale @berniesanders, and his mission here is to destabilise the platform to the benefit of Facebook. :D

Whether Zuckerberg knows about Steem or not, I don't know. But, putting aside the specific kooky theory, the potential for a Facebook/Medium/Google/whoever to buy into the Steem blockchain and go about destroying it from the inside is a real possibility. As far as I can tell, there's literally nothing that would stop them. The only barrier to entry is money, something corporations (and governments, potentially via loans/printing) have plenty of.

The final thing that I fear, besides the general volatility and uncharted territory of the crypto world, is government regulation. To be clear, I'm not opposed to regulation. I'm not an anarcho-capitalist. But I am opposed to regulation that props up cronyism and corruption. There is no doubt that governments will regulate cryptocurrencies and blockchains, for the purposes of hamstringing them, when they pose a real threat to "the system". I don't see how this can be denied as a giant threat. I wonder if many in the crypto world are burying their heads in the sand on this issue.

I think this is the biggest threat there is. I see it a bit like the UBER battle that is going on. There seemed to be endless exuberance (and hubris) regarding UBER and its free(ish) market approach that would take down the "protected" taxi industry and usher in a new age of the "sharing" economy. Similar dynamics could be translated across to AirBnB perhaps. Yet the reality is that governments are proving exceptionally hard to push out of the way. This isn't the slightest bit surprising to me. And I'd hope that it isn't for most other people here as well.

So what are your fears for the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchains? Or are you fearlessly running headlong into the digital future..? :)

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