Is the transparency we seek in the crypto-world going to be the cause of its own destruction?
This question has been bothering me ever since the recent fake news of Vitalik Buterin's death. Should this hoax be a wake up call or warning signal for other cryptocurrency developers as well?
Everyone in the cryptocurrency community knows that Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of Bitcoin, but no one knows his/her/their real identity. Several people had claimed that they were Nakamoto in the past but none of them had substantial evidence. If people knew his/her true identity, they certainly would have tried to spread fake news. We have already seen what Vitalik's fake death news did to the Ethereum Market. Similarly, fake news about Satoshi Nakamoto may affect more than just the Bitcoin market.
Well, since Satoshi Nakamoto is anonymous we shouldn't quite worry about the fate of Bitcoin if such fake rumors were to be spread. But what about the other cryptocurrencies and their developers. As of 28/6/17, (sorry Americans, I prefer this system) of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap on coinmarketcap, we know the real creator/s of 5 cryptocurrencies.
Note: Ethereum Classic is a hard-fork of Ethereum, but is maintained by the community. So we only know 4 real creator/s.
So this could imply that fake news about any of these creators could possibly affect the 4-5/10 of the coins with the highest market cap. Now obviously I am making a hasty generalization over here but, what about @ned and @dan , the creators of steemit and STEEM? The steemit blockchain and market could also be adversely affected due to fake news of either of the two.
But would the anonymity of crypto developers hamper the growth and widespread use of cryptocurrencies? For example, if Vitalik was anonymous, would Microsoft and JP Morgan take an interest in Ethereum? If the company behind Ripple was anonymous, would banks have implemented the Ripple Protocol?
Am I worrying too much about this issue? Should crypto-developers be anonymous? Let me know what you think in the comments.
I think it is not possible to keep a team away from the lights. I would never invest in an ICO where the team is not public and people can't do their own due diligence.
A fake news at the end still a fake news, the market always recover from that, which shouldn't be a big problem for investors. On the other side, the entire crypto market still quite small. I think with a bigger size and more experience from investors (maybe verify that the news is real before joining the general panic???) we will not see downgrade like the one of 2 days ago.
me neither, dev team is most important factor to buy or not to buy an ico
Well ICOs are a different story, but I do understand that investors (small or big) require some trust before investing and that can also be applied to ICOs, cloud mining sites, and literally anything that involves money. What do you think would happen if a developing team or developer left the project like DOGE coin?
I'm not too sure ICOs are a different story.... ETH started with an ICO as well.
I think when a project has reached a specific size the entire team is responsible for changes. So even if one person leave the project, the ecosystem can survive.
Bitcoin is not anymore what it was when Satoshi invented it, i think it wouldnt really matter if his (or the groups) identity was revealed.
Yes, I agree with you, because Bitcoin hasn't been able to keep up with other currencies in terms of technology. But what do you think about other currencies like STEEM, Litecoin, or even DOGE coin?