Can Peace Last Between Crypto’s Visionary Rivals?

This should worry any proponent of decentralization: the software that’s at the heart of Bitcoin is primarily owned and maintained by a small group of people that are employed and funded by a single company. The potential for conflicts of interest and user-hostile changes by Blockstream is high.

McKenzie is probably right. These two billionaires debating the future of money aren’t exactly in the mix for nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. But Silicon Valley’s motto isn’t “slowly acquire expertise and fix things.” Blockchain is new, and it’s exciting to engineers, so things are going to get broken. Unfortunately for all of... See more

Team BTC (meaning, both actual Bitcoin maximalists and US rightists in general) has some positive values, but their outright hostility to collective action and order means that they are incapable of building anything. 

Early versions of token distributions have led to unsustainable dynamics wherein speculators are rewarded instead of those who are adding consistent value to networks through actual usage.