Ethereum “feels” like the banking industry trying to protect themselves from what they see as an existential threat. They have always been of a mind to “protect stakeholders”, so naturally they prefer a system where they can “stake a position”. Work is a four-letter word for them.

I believe your prediction of a unified system will come about in the same sense that the Internet is unified. The Satoshi’s model was a system that is intended to work even if some of those participating are morally weak and attempt to game the system. Rather than being under one roof, I believe it will be more a matter of consensus on key interfaces and an interoperability of nodes. Just as current Bitcoin and derivatives work with nodes running various versions or even own-code wallets, the “web3 world” will (through the process of market consensus) will see much greater interoperability as cryptocurrency is woven into the fabric of human society.

Going on a binge of adding public wallet’s to my personal site (no reason not to make it easy to send me crypto), it struck me that we need a common notation for crypto so that warning you see “make sure you only send XYZ coin to this address…”, and ideally embed that in a standardized crypto QR code format. I am currently using $ notation, not sure if I would recommend a leading $ to reduce CPU cycles parsing and as a way to distinguish from national fiat currencies. This will probably be decided by whomever first creates a node, exchange, or wallet software that popularizes it. If I send you address BCH$1FKHrdLnYjnv8u68RycUpJ4dPcRkrPGjA2 you know to send “Bitcoin Cash” not “Bitcoin”. Especially useful with the visually identical Ethereum spin-offs: ETC$0x8D31935cE0cbe08Da83A44f106d619d5E560afbA (“Ethereum Classic”) etc. Seeing this in print I’d say a trailing $ wouldn’t be bad to ensure we have a complete address, amounts if specified appended, if no hash then you have BTC$$0.0025 notation to specify amounts, good visual/parsing cues to reduce erroneous transactions, allow multiple chains to interoperate in a wildly decentralized world.

The generation that grows up with cryptocurrency will have an easier time with this. I see “proof of stake/proof of work” concept evolving into a broader “proof of stake”, with “proof of work” being a subset (essentially digital “sweat equity), and “providing bandwidth”, “providing cpu cycles”, “providing storage”, “providing traditional assets” being useful types of work to incentivize (the last one being the “stake” which I believe Ethereum advocates are trying to protect).

And while I agree wokeism is a distraction away from satisfying the customer to appeasing some disengaged (apart from outrage) audience, it is just the latest in a string of them.

The threats to organisational performance in order of proximity, it the organisations own self-regard, then attempting to oil-the squeakiest wheels, then following a current fashion ("Content is king" for some carriers). All of this is fine if the organisation is competed or irrelevant, but sadly some dominant monopolists have embraced one or more of these threats and we've got to find our own way out.

Central Banks whose delusions extend beyond even unsnarling supply-chains with interest rate rises, but believe they have tools that will help the environment, racial harmony, social and fiscal equity, exchange rates, employment levels, etc. etc. are a prime example.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for (Human and Mother) Nature cannot be fooled." Richard Feynman

This tech will need to stay decentralized; we need to ensure autonomous zones with decentralized, autonomous options for currency and commerce will always be options for any individual. I hope the likes of Thiel is not a Trojan Horse. We already know others — like Gates — are brazenly against the betterment of the common human. Hopefully there are others with power/influence that at least have the interests of the enterprising individual in mind to allow pursuit of enterprise without overly restrictive centralized/bureaucratic restrictions.

"Monetary integrity=moral integrity" is such an insight…

Always enjoy your posts…

It's refreshing to find out so many smart people ready to embrace the paradigm shift unfolding before our eyes.

I am just curious, I tried to use NAMECOIN in 2014 but it was not flying well. I see you've been watching ENS, HNS. Decentralized DNS is key for censorship resistance and we are still not ready for that. I could say the same for the Internet as such, shortwave would be like returning to the telex. Technology provides us with the tools to bypass censorship. That is now and in the near future.

My question then is: should the fight for our basic freedom persist for years, how fast or how soon can we expect decentralized DNS and Internet to become available?

Thank you.