ichthyoid

Taking a small break from what I usually write about, today's topic is going to be about writer's block, and the approaches I have to overcome it.

I honestly thought this was writer's block when I was young.

Writer's block, the idea in which one suddenly finds him or herself unable to continue writing, typically is something that plagues every writer across time and space. It's even applicable to arenas outside of written media, as the phenomenon occurs for musicians, filmmakers, and other artists as well. It also afflicts writers in all sorts of different ways. For novelists and screenwriters, it prevents them from getting to the next part of their story. For musicians and visual artists, it frustrates their ability to create something new. And for bloggers, we sometimes just have absolutely no idea of what to write on our next post.

Of course, I don't claim to have any definitive answers on the specific way someone is experiencing writer's block. And I don't even claim these solutions are all originally my own. But here are a few key ways that have helped me grapple with and overcome writer's block.

1. Write Down All Ideas, No Matter How Bizarre

One of the most helpful ways that allow me to keep writing is what I call “preparatory writing”. Basically, it means that the majority of what is published on my blog (or otherwise released to public, like videos on my Youtube channel), I've actually prepped beforehand. It helps me make sure I'm writing with my schedule that I've set down,

Along these lines of preparatory writing, I also make sure I write down every idea that I have. No matter how bizarre they may seem, or how outside of my comfort zone or the blog's supposed theme the ideas are, I still write them down. These aren't meant to be full-on writing sessions, but rather just scribbling down thoughts and ideas that enter into my head that feel inspiring or sound decently good.

There are sometimes, of course, when I notice a sort of flow or train of thought that simply spills out as I notate these ideas down. In entering into these flow states, sometimes they last a few minutes, and other times they last for hours. I notice this especially when I'm in a meditative or calm state, and just letting thoughts drift through, and a single one catches on in my mind, and I go to write it down to save for later. But that is often not the norm.

And so, when I don't push away thoughts and ideas, and instead write them down, in the end, when it's time that I sit down to formally write out these thoughts, I actually have a plethora of ideas to write from. Sometimes, I can even combine two different ideas into a single post, because they work really well together. But, had I not taken the initiative to write them down in the first place, I wouldn't have seen the through-line that enabled them to be combined.

2. Do Something New

Oftentimes, simply doing something new would reinvigorate or inspire me to write. There are a few ways I do this. First, since I like to read, reading something new almost always spurs ideas for a post or story idea. This is especially effective when I read on a topic that I'm not very familiar with, or at least haven't had much exposure to in a long time. In doing so, I find that I absorb information much more readily, and since I'm viewing it through a more unfamiliar lens, there's often a unique perspective that I haven't thought of that helps me with my work.

I've also found that getting into a new environment really stimulates my ability to write. Being able to look at things in a fresh way, and being surrounded by an environment that I'm not used to (and so having to pay more attention to it) makes me pay more attention to what's going on around me. By forcing my attention to focus in this way, it becomes pretty easy to actually begin or even continue writing where I had left off.

And then, going along with the idea of preparatory writing, I start jotting down and making note of ideas that I can then add onto or flesh out in the future. None of this preparatory writing is meant to completely flesh out an entire post or chapter or outline. Rather, it helps with the bits and pieces in the various things that I write for or on.

In the same way, I've also found that writing about something new can often spur a lot of inspiration and motivation. I've found this especially true in my musical adventures. Growing up as a classically trained musician, I've always found comfort in rigidity and proper practice or training. But, as I began to explore improvisation and sound synthesis (especially modular synthesis), I became so inspired with such a rush of ideas—that was when I decided to make a Youtube channel.

It's easy to get locked into this mode of what something should be or shouldn't be. For example, lots of helpful blogs and writing sites out there say that blogs should have a theme, or be focused on particular subjects. And while that may be helpful for many, I've found such restrictions unnecessary. After all (at least in my mind), blogs should be a reflection of someone's personal life. And very few of us can summarize our lives down to just one of two simplistic themes. So I've found that, even if I don't eventually post it, having the freedom to write whatever I want, no matter what restrictions should apply, has been the biggest boon to my own ability to put out content.

So, if you don't feel inspired, try doing something new! It may be just the thing that helps you defeat writer's block.

3. Write a Little Bit at a Time Across Different Things

There are times when I just can't focus. Actually, the idea for this post sprang up during a time when I just couldn't focus. Usually, to calm myself and my mind, I go and meditate. And while that sometimes helps, it's certainly not the end-all, be-all.

Instead, I've learned to also harness that inability to focus and just begin to write little bits at a time across different things or (in the case of blogs) different posts. By working on a lot of different things a little bit at a time, I not only take advantage of an inability to focus, but also progress in whatever I do.

For example, sometimes I would be working on editing a post. Then, a sudden thought or idea comes to me about another post that I've been prepping. Rather than quitting the current thing I'm working on, I instead open another window and work on both side by side, going where the inspiration hits me. In this way, I'm no longer fighting my own ideas and inspirations by focusing on only one thing, but rather allowing myself the freedom to work on multiple things at a time to get the same productivity.

This even helps me as a music teacher. I'll be the first to admit, there are times when I'm teaching a private music lesson, and I'm bored out of my mind. Especially in this 'age of coronavirus', where everything must be done online, and since video chat applications are so horrible at detecting the difference between talking, musical instruments, and ambient noises, there's a tendency to just wait while a student practices in front of you during the lesson time (cause there's nothing else to do).

During these times, I begin to apply my multi-tasking abilities I learned in grade-school. Since music and intonation are things I can do in the back of my mind, I actually often work on other things while I teach. It's not that I don't want to apply myself to teaching, but (again) rather that this is another way I've learned to make use of an inability to focus to be more productive.

4. Don't Worry about the Editing

Here's a big one that I've found. A friend and I were once chatting about her various story and world-building ideas that she had. When we typically talk, we often give feedback on each other's work. Most of the time, I focus on presentation and whether the story or characters have logical consistency about them.

However, during one of our conversations, I noticed that she was beginning to question her own works and ideas as well, criticizing them before even putting them into writing. It became such a problem that I had tell her to stop trying to analyze her own work and just go ahead to write it all down.

It's important to understand that writing and editing are actually two very different tasks. Writing is a creative task, meaning that when one writes, he or she is committing to the creation and construction of an idea. Editing, on the other hand, is a critical task, meaning that when one is editing, he or she is attempting to tear down and deconstruct the idea.

In my opinion, a writer should never mix these two things up. It is too easy for a writer to get lost in criticizing their own work. After all, no creative (at least that I know) would ever say there wasn't room for improvement in whatever they're doing. But often, when we mix critical with creative, it's easy to stop creating and just be critical, because it's easier to tear something down than build something up.

This is why we rarely find critics make something that is actually notable or worthwhile. For example, film critics are notorious for tearing down different movies, but are rarely able to make a movie themselves (and the ones that do don't often make something that's very good). As Anton Ego said in Pixar's 2007 film, Ratatouille:

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”

I'm not trying to brush aside criticism, but rather pointing out that these are different tasks. And, as a writer, it is instead better to write and flesh out an idea, and then go through and edit it afterwards. So don't worry about whether the idea is good before it's been written down as a draft. Just write.

5. It's OK to Take a Break

It's important to understand this. In today's world, it's easy to get stressed out over scheduling demands, deadlines, and the need to make money. Especially right now, where many families are dealing with financial issues due to being unable to work in countries where national shutdown is still the norm, it's easy to get caught up in the emotional turmoil of everything that's going on.

But we don't typically make the best decisions when in a “fight-or-flight” mode. When stress gets amped up, and our lives are looking more hectic or dangerous day-by-day, we often make decisions that will alleviate pressure in the short-term, but really hamper our futures long-term.

In industries where creativity is paramount, the fight-or-flight mode that we can get sucked into can hamper our ability to be creative. It is often easier to write a nasty, critical piece, or go with the flow of what everyone else is talking about, rather than striking out and writing something unique and different, but personally us.

But when we sit back, and just take things one step at a time, and even sometimes take a break from everything, we begin to see just how powerful we are in being able to take control of our lives for the better. I read this on Reddit, recently:

The idea is pretty tangible and real. But it's something that we can apply to all of our lives. Rather than always being worried about the next thing, or what's on the news, or scrambling for what we're supposed to write about, it's better to take a step back sometimes, and just take a break from it all.

And there it is! These are all ways that I've found to help me in times when I don't know what or how to write. Even if you're not a writer, I hope they've helped you out, or at least given some ideas you can apply in your own life!

Header Image credit to Pixabay.

It's an exciting time to be in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, especially given how nascent blockchain and cryptocurrency still are. Over the past few weeks, with the listing of MakerDAO's Maker coin on Coinbase, as well as Compound.finance's release of their COMP governance token, DeFi has been an increasingly popular part of the blockchain conversation. Decrypt even reported that a large portion of Bitcoin is now being moved into Ethereum for the purpose of DeFi. There's been such an increase, in fact, that everyone from Forbes to famed Bitcoin maximalist Anthony Pompliano have stepped into the conversation.

Previously, I've talked about MakerDAO, and its multi-collateral DAI coin, an ingenious stablecoin concept that, rather than being backed by unverifiable hard assets, uses code, crypto, and consensus voting to soft-peg DAI to the US Dollar. I believe DAI really is the premiere stablecoin in the space, currently, with its theoretical and practical foundations built on time-tested economic principles as well as being, of course, decentralized in nature.

That doesn't mean, though, that there can't be some improvements over the current system. And over the past few weeks, I've taken notice of a project that has flown quite under-the-radar so far which could give MakerDAO a run for its money.

Pun intended.

Problems with MakerDAO DAI

March 12, 2020 was probably one of the biggest wake-up calls to the entire blockchain space. Not only did the stock market itself have a decently large crash, but the cryptocurrency market followed in its footsteps almost “to a T”. As Bitcoin plunged, taking the rest of the crypto market with it, we got to witness our idea of crypto as “safe haven assets” be completely toppled in less than a day, and then some within the following week.

The Black Thursday Crash (read morehere).

MakerDAO's system was not spared from this tragedy. As the Ethereum and BAT held in CDP vaults plummeted in value, a vast majority of them became severely under-collateralized and, as per protocol, were liquidated. But, due to high-traffic congestion in the Ethereum network, many owners of those CDPs were unable to save their assets, and a single keeper was able to swipe almost all of them for the insanely stupid price of $0.

And thus we come to the first problem with MakerDAO's DAI system. That, because it is built on the Ethereum network, it is captive to whatever problems that network has. If Ethereum has massive network congestion, then so does DAI, and thus moving DAI around or using the CDP protocols are slowed down as well. Even recently, Ethereum apps still struggle with the demand required of the Ethereum network.

But even if the Ethereum network can solve this problem with subsequent versions, we still have another: namely, that being built on Ethereum still limits the collateral that can be accepted to coins or tokens that are built on the network. This means that coins like BAT or 0x or other future ERC20 tokens can be collateralized, but others such as XRP, Tezos, and even Bitcoin cannot be truly adapted into the system.

Pompliano acknowledged this problem in his interview, stating that to integrate Bitcoin with Ethereum would require something called WBTC, or wrapped Bitcoin. But these work arounds all tax the Ethereum system further, making an already difficult-to-scale blockchain even more bloated and slow.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still really like MakerDAO and DAI. But, like all things, it's important to assess both the strengths and weaknesses of a platform you're investing into, so as to know why you're investing into it, and whether it can achieve a certain purpose, or if something else can do it better.

And in this case, there may be a better solution.

Kava: CDP for the Rest of Blockchain?

Kava is a company that is, as far as I can tell, still pretty far under the radar for most of the DeFi space. This is, strangely, despite the fact that they were the first ones to have an Interledger solution in the crypto space, and have been heavily supported and sponsored by some pretty big names in the industry, including Binance, OKChain, Chainlink, Ripple, Arrington Capital, and even our own Coil. And while they've previously been involved with other projects, the one I'm going to focus on is their current creation of a platform that can leverage assets across all blockchains.

It is basically patterned around MakerDAO's system, but built on a different platform. They even admit this in their paper, highlighting the growth and strength of DAI, while pointing out its weaknesses. It then goes on to state the company's goals with the system, and the target market they are aiming for.

From Kava's '(white?) paper'.

In the Kava system, they use their Kava token for governance and staking, similar to MakerDAO's Maker coin. And just like one would put Ethereum or BAT tokens in a CDP vault to mint DAI, Kava plans to allow users to use a multitude of different cryptocurrencies, as pictured above.

And this is possible because Kava's CDP system is built on a number of different technologies, including the Interledger Protocol (ILP), Cosmos and its Tindermint core, and Kava's own proof-of-stake solutions, among others. Whereas MakerDAO is stuck with the network problems of Ethereum (e.g. only 20 transactions per second), Kava can take advantage of multiple different chains and tools, since it is built on cross-chain technologies. For example, Cosmo has a scalable system that can handle thousands of transactions per second. Furthermore, it has the ability to connect different blockchain networks together through its Inter Blockchain Communication, or IBC. Basically each different blockchain occupies a zone that functions within itself. But if they want to communicate and transact with each other, they use the Cosmos blockchain. This allows Kava, which functions as a zone connected to Cosmos, to transact with other chains and use their tokens. In this situation specifically, it would be to put them in a CDP vault and mint stablecoin with it.

Thus, Kava is poised to not only solve the weaknesses of the MakerDAO system quite handily, but be future-proof enough to allow it to function whether independent of whether other blockchains are doing well or not.

The Current Situation

As of now, while Kava's mainnet is alive and kicking, they are still working on ways to improve the system, and so minting USDX has been delayed until later in July. Probably due to their connection with the exchange, the first coin that can be collateralized in the system is Binance's BNB coin. However, as stated above, they have plans to include Bitcoin, XRP, Atmos, and other major crypto assets in the foreseeable future. Even Ethereum can potentially be used in Kava's system.

I've written before about how a stablecoin that collateralizes XRP would be a boon to its community. And really, any cryptocurrency that can be placed into a CDP will benefit. By creating a system that communicates and transacts cross-chain, the team behind Kava have created an opportunity for all current crypto users to not only be rewarded for their early adoption, but encourage the utility of a basic foundation of economics—namely, the ability to create wealth by using an asset in multiple ways.

In the 6th episode of Block Stars, David Schwartz interviews Adam Traidman, the CEO of BRD, a company that desires to give financial freedom and independence to others through financial services and cryptocurrency. Their known for being the first to offer a crypto wallet app for smartphones all the way back in 2014.

Here is a summary and my thoughts on the interview. If you want to read my thoughts on previous or future episodes, please go here.

Episode Summary

Initially an open-source project, BRD (formerly Bread) was at first only of interest to Bitcoin maximalists (people who only invest in Bitcoin). Since then, BRD has grown to include 4 million customers in 170 different countries, with a combined total $6 billion of different cryptocurrencies stored in their BRD wallets today.

The BRD wallet (and other similar crypto wallets) basically function like physical wallets in the real world. In the digital world, it allows you to control and use the cryptocurrencies (think cash) within it as you see fit, just like a physical wallet would. Ideally, you can then use the money in your digital wallet to pay for real world goods and services. For Traidman, it ideally also includes functions that are similar to what we use banks for today, including receiving payment or salaries or paying off a credit card.

In the past, the phrase “not your keys, not your wallet” was a popular mantra to help newcomers in the crypto space understand the importance of having your own wallet that you held the passcode and key phrases for. This is in contrast to the real world, where institutions like banks hold the vast majority of our wealth. Such a difference comes from how the cryptocurrency space began, where the idea of being able to freely do what you want with your money grew due to the 2008 global financial crisis.

The BRD wallet, being an app, deals with both these points by allowing you to hold your crypto on your phone, but also giving users back that money in cases where they lose their phone (though Traidman is quick to point out that the company itself cannot ever gain access to users' wallets). In this way, BRD focuses on making sure the user experience with the wallet is top notch so that anyone can use it, while providing as much security for the wallet as possible. While no one is using crypto to buy coffee at Starbucks regularly yet, that ideal is what the company is striving for.

Here, he points out that customers today aren't very enthusiastic about the libertarian ideals cryptocurrency was founded on, and instead are looking for ways to utilize crypto in their daily lives. And so, BRD strives to provide good value to their users, whatever their ideology might be.

In this way, a good wallet needs to be able to easily send and receive money, just as a normal bank app would. In being able to do so easily, users then need to be able to invest that money in various different coins. This speculative investing is often why people get into crypto in the first place. But others may be interested in coins that have utility (e.g. XRP for remittance), and still others curious about online transacting through crypto.

Another advantage for BRD is that it is so easy to set up, since users don't need to register with any form of ID. He is quick to point out, though, that it's not that the user is necessarily anonymous, and therefore BRD is non-compliant to laws and regulations. Rather, the wallet acts like a physical cash wallet, and users are responsible for their own digital money, rather than a financial institution. This enables people around the world who don't necessarily have bank accounts, but do have a smartphone, to be able to more easily participate in various local markets.

Of course, volatile prices is still a big part of crypto today, but Traidman points to stablecoins as the current remedy.

Here, the conversation shifts to the differences between finance apps that enable individuals to participate in traditional markets (e.g. Robinhood, Fidelity, etc.) and crypto apps. Traidman sees more synergy than competition, as each of these services allow all kinds of individuals to move money to where they want.

Thus, from his perspective, it seems the apps that give the best user experiences as well as the best benefits or rewards are predicted to win out. And so, BRD has implemented things like rewards and points into their wallet. Then, when younger millennials search, download, and use the wallet, they feel instantly rewarded with well-designed user experience. The advantage, as mentioned before, is how quickly one can get into the experience.

There is a bit of overlap between the different services, but there may be a shift coming where value for fiat and crypto are negatively correlated. This is indicated by the fact that there is now billions of dollars in crypto, whereas only a few years ago, it was only a few million.

Transformation in the financial space takes a lot of time, perhaps decades, since no one wants to lose value. But in this time, it may be that a lot of new companies will rise up and overtake older, more traditional companies in financial sectors.

Schwartz and Traidman also mention Blockset, a tool built by BRD targeting enterprise customers. It allows developers to more easily use blockchain solutions in their software. It's a streamlined API that allows developers to access any blockchain, “sort of like an AWS [Amazon Web Services] for blockchains”. They currently have banks and other large software companies using this technology to help grow the entire space. They refer here to the fact that there were years where certain technologies like TCP/IP, DHCP, and even modem/broadband hardware, had to be developed before the Internet really became mainstream. They point out that there is a whole industry that has to be developed (which BRD sees itself part of) that troubleshoots and provides various, niche solutions, so that others can rely on these third-party companies without needing to waste resources developing what's already available.

Is there a utility for blockchain outside of finance? Traidman definitely believes so. He relates that, in the early days of the Internet, people thought that it could only be used for basic text or messaging services. But, of course, today, the Internet is the backbone for almost entire industries. Such is the potential of blockchain. Things like identity verification and authentication, and the fallout of those spheres (including privacy and security), could be majorly impacted by blockchain.

The concern for security and privacy, however, is a tricky one in the crypto space. In the early days, it seemed like crypto offered an alternative to regulatory compliance. Traidman contradicts this, believing that the modern world requires businesses and individuals follow laws in the locale they are involved in. Instead, it's a user experience problem. In other words, apps should not force users to submit private information until it is absolutely required. This is in contrast to traditional services, which require customers to submit personal data no matter what kind of service they offer. In this way, the crypto industry can actually help customers by providing that in-between, so users can feel safe and protected.

The crypto space is in many ways based on real world models. For example, just as crypto can be moved wallet to wallet without a third party, people can move cash around in the same, near-anonymous way. But many countries (e.g. China, India) are starting to clamp down on physical cash, and this trend may come over to the crypto space as well. The ideas of KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) are already seeping into crypto, and it seems inevitable that they will converge. There are Zcash and Monero, but there will probably not be much privacy-centric cryptos moving forward.

In the traditional financial world, there's various insurance companies and guarantees that allow people to feel safe with their bank, brokerage, or other financial institutions. In crypto, these kinds of safeguards are beginning to bloom as well, though not necessarily hooked into government regulations. But, as Traidman sees it, this isn't really an issue that holds customers back. Instead, it's lack of knowledge and confidence in what crypto and digital assets really are, and how to get money into crypto at all. Here, Traidman provides some good business advice, saying that entrepreneurs (and their employees) need to more intimately understand how customers view their products, in order to provide better service.

With the global pandemic (this podcast was recorded in May 2020), there has certainly been an acceleration in countries and businesses around the world moving towards contactless payments, crypto included. Even in the United States, when the stimulus bill was first discussed, it included the idea of a digital dollar. Additionally, many people are checking their finances more due to being locked down. As such, BRD has actually seen an increase in user engagement since it all started.

However, the crypto industry may not yet be ready for mass adoption. Even BRD doesn't have support for on-boarding fiat currencies directly. But development in this direction can be accelerated so that customers can receive something like a stimulus check directly in their digital wallet, and then go use it at a local store. But really, according to Traidman, the general population still needs to shift their mindset in how digital money works in order for adoption to happen.

Many had an expectation that the global pandemic would have pushed many people into crypto. But this “safe haven” idea changed when crypto basically fell along with other financial assets around the world. There has been a small resurgence, perhaps due to the Bitcoin halving. On the other side, crypto still suffered less volatility than some other commodity markets, so there may be a little bit of hope there.

In the next few years, Traidman sees an acceleration from physical to digital currencies, especially with China developing their digital RMB. As governments around the world catch up, the current crypto companies that are developing foundational technologies will have provided a platform for blockchain to flourish, just as Amazon and PayPal did for the Internet decades ago.

My Thoughts

There's lots to unpack here, but because this post is already a bit overlong, I'll try to keep my thoughts short.

CBDCs and Crypto

Mentioned in spatters throughout the interview, and then lots at the end, is the idea that governments will eventually develop their own CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency). This is compounded by the fact that China is already testing a digital version of their fiat (called RMB, or RenMinBi).

There are a couple dangers, I feel, to this. First, of course, given that the current government in China is pretty much the definition of an oppressive authoritarian regime, the idea of that government gaining first mover status in government crypto is certainly frightening. Such a transition would make China not just immune to sanctions designed to keep them accountable for heinous acts, it could position the RMB as the replacement for USD as the global reserve currency. This is definitively NOT GOOD for the rest of the world.

The creation of a CBDC of the USD is probably inevitable (even if a bit slow). However, what's more fascinating to me is the fact that, because of how free business enterprises are, technically, a digital version of the US dollar already exists. In fact, several of them exist, in the form of stablecoins. From the likes of USDC, DAI, TUSD, and even USDT, if anyone wants a digital version of the dollar, they can already obtain it.

So what would be the difference between those and the CBDC that is officially developed by the United States' government? For one, it would allow things like stimulus bills to be paid directly to citizens without much hassle. It could potentially quicken the payment rails of banks transferring money within the nation. And it could help people and businesses adjust far more quickly to contactless payments.

But here's the thing. All of this already technically exists. Just the other day, I was transferring XRP from my Uphold wallet to another wallet app. And by the time I had finished clicking the “confirm” button and migrated over to the page of the other app, the money was already there. It was insanely fast. Being able to move money that quickly, and the potential to be able to do it globally, really gave me a taste of the future.

I think this is perhaps why there are those at Ripple (and other companies) who want regulatory clarity rather than simply more regulation (especially limiting ones). We don't actually need any more regulation in crypto. Spaces outside of China, including other Southeast Asian nations like Japan and Korea, are developing crypto far faster than any government ever could. More regulation is not needed to stay competitive (except in a small case I mentioned in a previous post). Instead, clarity that this development will not be hindered or stopped, and instead all crypto problems will be investigated on a case-by-case basis, will be far better.

Wallets and the Current Crypto Ecosystem

I was a bit surprised that BRD doesn't have a direct way for users to buy crypto in their wallet. In their wallet, users must first buy bitcoin, and then convert it to another coin. There are other wallets (like Argent, which I use) that directly support purchasing a variety of coins, including stablecoins.

However, currently, the whole crypto ecosystem is still a bit cumbersome for most users. First, one typically needs to find an exchange or a wallet that supports the coin they want. Then, he or she needs to go through a variety of methods to register. Then, that person would have to either do a bank transfer or use a credit/debit card to buy a specific coin. After that, if that person wants to use their wallet for normal purchases, they would need to get something like Coinbase Card or Ternio Blockcard. And all of this, of course, requires quite a bit of trust.

Disclaimer: I am not in any way recommending anything that I mention in any posts I make. Everything I write is meant as informational, not advice of any kind.

That's not to say, however, that the current ecosystem doesn't work, or even that it works poorly. In fact, I think if someone educates him or herself, it all works quite well. Yes, I have more than a single wallet, which is quite annoying. But these different wallets all represent a sort of modular experience, where I get to have control over where my money goes, and how it is used. It certainly is possible in this day and age to have more control and freedom over our finances. The libertarian-style dream of crypto is actually reality today.

I'm quite happy that this week's episode of Block Stars was about crypto wallets and mainstream consumers, because for me, it has to do with the idea of un-banking, or becoming your own bank. In my next blog post, I'm going to be covering a company that can potentially open it up for all cryptocurrencies, while keeping the blockchain ideal of decentralization. See you then!

Note: This has been cross-posted to my friend's blog here, where he discusses and contemplates the mystical and spiritual. Definitely check him out!

Coming from a pretty strong Christian home, my immediate family never had a problem with coherence between rationalistic science and religious faith. Rather, we believed that science was simply humanity’s way of discovering God’s creation. And the conflict that seemed to exist at times between the two, we simply believed that somehow, someway, it was all going to eventually make sense.

After all, if light can exist as both waves and particles, then certainly the cognitive dissonance between our experience and values could be solved (eventually).

However, growing up in public school (and exploring on the Internet), there always seemed to be this line between science and faith. It was as if the two were doctrinal dogmas duking it out over which would be the ultimate arbiter of reality. On the one hand, you had a people of tradition standing firm by their roots and hope. One the other, you had the logical dissidents, fighting against the powers that be.

Or at least that’s how I saw it portrayed.

But in reality, the difference between science and faith isn’t so much ideology as genre. One dealt with worldviews and belief systems, while the other dealt with the practicals of living out such belief systems.

This is because science, for all its pomp in academia, is simply a set of values that results in a specific method.

What is Science?

There are four premises on which science rests:

1. Reality exists

2. This reality is consistent

3. The truth of this reality can be understood

4. Non-Truths can be falsified

First, notice that none of these premises can be falsified. We cannot test whether reality exists, since the act of testing presumes that it does. We cannot test consistency, because when we test, we assume that no changes can occur that fundamentally alters both previous and future conclusions. We cannot test understandability, because that would involve the ability to experience something outside of being human. And we can’t test falsifiability since the act itself is assuming its own validity.

Second, notice that all four premises are actually the normal ways that almost everyone would go about their lives. Most people live life as if the world around them is real. Most people live life with the assumption that reality doesn’t change on a day to day basis (i.e. gravity suddenly reverses, the Sun’s heat becomes cold, etc.). Most people live life as if they have some understanding of what they’re doing and how they can interact with the world. And lastly, most people live life as if we can improve upon it, taking out the bad, and making life better (or at least more comfortable).

Furthermore, notice that none of the premises require that we only apply science to the natural world. In fact, there is no definition of the natural world in the foundations of science at all. What is “natural” is simply “testable”. And there is no limit on what’s testable, because we believe that all of what is real can be tested.

And so we come to the method of science, which is simply making a guess about reality (often called an initial hypothesis), coming up with another guess that competes against the first (called an alternative hypothesis), and testing for which one is true.

What is Spirituality?

This one is difficult to define. The word means something different to different people. For some, it identifies with their whole life as related to their walk of faith. For others, it has to do with the esoteric or mysterious, yet personal parts of life. And still to others, it’s an unknowable, and therefore unquantifiable, superstition. I’ll ignore the last one.

For the purposes of this writing, I’m going to define spirituality as the exploration of meaning and purpose through the lens of personal experience and its interface with a greater reality.

Let’s break that down.

First, understanding meaning and purpose is like trying to understand the why of reality. While much of life is devoted to the who, what, when, where, and how’s of life, the purpose or meaning in someone’s life is the why. I’ve previously talked about the difference between why and how through an analysis of a debate. But in essence, why is almost always related to personal intention, which means that spirituality has a goal of knowing the intention behind life, either personal or in general.

The second part—the lens of personal experience—is an important part of spirituality. Each individual’s life is unique, and so often one’s spiritual walk is as well. That isn’t to say that there can’t be cohesion between spiritual experiences. After all, most people who claim to be religious or spiritual have a community in which they grow and share with, sometimes sharing actual spiritual encounters or experiences. But even in a group environment, there is always uniqueness to how individuals perceive the same event. It would be why everyone’s spirituality is at the very least somewhat dissimilar to others, if not outright completely different at times.

But if everyone’s experience is different, how can we agree on a spiritual reality?

That is where the last part of the definition comes in: its interface with a greater reality.

Originally, I wanted to just say “reality”. But often, there are experiences of a spiritual quality that bumps up against the limits of what we know is the commonly perceived reality (often recognized through the five senses). It’s not that the common reality isn’t real, but that the common reality isn’t all that there is. And so, I’m using the term “greater reality” to help give context to what spirituality engages with.

Why is it important to have this greater reality? Why not just let everyone’s unique personal lens give them meaning and purpose, without requiring conformity?

First, this question is partially due to doubt about whether spiritual realities are, in fact, real. But that’s a completely different discussion, so I won’t address it here.

However, having an agreed upon reality doesn’t necessitate strict conformity. Rather, it’s the basic assumption that our spiritual experiences are a real thing, and that they have real objective things to say about the world around us. The underlying foundation is that the spiritual is objective rather than subjective.

Therefore, having finally arrived at the whole point of this article, the understanding that our spirituality has to do with a greater shared reality allows us to refine, test, and reproduce key factors of experiences so as to benefit everyone around us, and not just our personal selves. We can lead or follow others into spiritual journeys in a tested way that has benefits for everyone. No one has to be left behind.

And this is where the actual exploring part of the definition comes in.

Engaging Spirituality with Science

And so we have come to the crux of the article. But it’s actually quite easy to work out.

To engage scientifically, we simply need to:

1. Make a prediction about a spiritual reality.

2. Create a working method or practice which can test the prediction.

3. Test the method.

4. Review the results of the test.

5. Interpret the results and define what it says about the prediction.

To make sure of your interpretation:

1. Do it again to see if the results are reproducible

2. Or refine the method.

A sequence of this can look like:

1. Prediction: Meditation results in greater spiritual engagement.

2. Method: Get two groups of people: one group that will not meditate, and another which will.

3. Test: Determine the course of time this experiment will happen, as well as control for how often the meditation group will meditate.

4. Results: interview individuals in both groups to learn how they perceive their spirituality during the trial

5. Interpret the results: did the meditating group report greater spiritual engagement?

The above is a simple test, and is a bit generalized, but demonstrates the ability of science to test and refine spirituality.

More importantly, this isn’t actually a new idea. Scholars and scientists have been doing actually been doing this for decades, and spiritual practices like meditation have been shown to both be beneficial for all kinds of people, as well as reproducible for those seeking greater meaning and purpose in life.

Final Thoughts

There’s much more I’d want to say, but I think this post is getting a little long. So here’s some thoughts that I have that don’t really fit above:

First, I’ve found that exploring spirituality is best done with a group or community of people. Having accountability as well as encouragement can create greater benefits for everyone involved. So I always recommend finding a group of people who have similar objectives in terms of spirituality.

Second, since I’ve made the case above that science and spirituality can certainly co-exist, it’s good to change our mode of thinking about the two practically. It’s no longer about science vs. spirituality, but rather about how we can use the scientific method to produce better spirituality. How can we derive or devise a testable practice that can enable us to explore meaning and purpose in our personal lives as it relates to a greater reality?

Third, I haven’t addressed any moral inquiries about the exploration of spirituality. For example: is it right to explore spiritual practices enhanced by the use of organic or synthetic substances? Is it right to use spiritual practices from one religion in another?

It’s difficult to argue that science can directly answer questions of morality, since science is simply a group of principles that result in a method. As such, science is amoral (in the sense that it doesn’t by itself comment on morality). However, I do think it is necessary to realize that what we believe is moral can be tested, as long as we’re willing and humble enough to correct ourselves when we’re shown to be wrong.

And that’s it! Hope you’ve enjoyed this look at science and spirituality. Have a good week!

Header Image credit to Pixabay.

In the fifth episode of Block Stars, David Schwartz interviews Breanne Madigan, the Vice President and Head of Global Institutional Markets at Ripple. As stated in the podcast summary, they talk about “the future of institutional investment in digital assets, including why security token offerings may be the key entry point for traditional finance and whether we’ll eventually tokenize everything from real estate to racehorses.”

Here is the episode summary, and my thoughts on it!

Episode Summary

Prior to working at Ripple, Breanne Madigan has worked in more traditional financial markets, including time at Goldman Sachs. As such, she sees similarities between those and digital assets in areas such as speculation and yield-based products that produce more money from what already exists. She sees differences as well, including how the two markets developed in basically opposite ways. Namely, traditional markets were more institutional before becoming retail (speculative) while crypto markets seem to be the opposite of that.

This may be because cryptocurrency was born out of an almost anarchist, anti-government mindset, due to the government's ability to infinitely print (and thus infinitely devalue) fiat currency. With COVID-19 and the global shutdown in place, people today are realizing even more the importance of assets that can be used as hedges against inflation. In this way, people who are becoming familiar with crypto are realizing the importance of being able to manage and control their own finances without the need for federal institutions.

But this is also valuable for financial institutions. Crypto provides an opportunity for those in these more traditional areas to save on time, fees, and even taxes that are associate with moving physical money around. For example, banks that transfer funds globally normally use antiquated, multi-step processes, including funding and refunding large volume nostro/vostro accounts, which take a lot of time, energy, and money. Crypto allows us to send value across the world the same fast and nearly free way an email is sent around the world. This is, of course, Ripple's bread and butter.

This all has to do with liquidity, which Madigan defines as:

The ease with which you can move an asset and convert it into ready cash without affecting its market price.

From this, she sees that liquidity has four primary attributes.

First is Tightness, which is basically how low transaction costs as measured by bid-ask spreads and fees are on an exchange. The second is Resiliency, which is the speed in which an imbalance can be corrected (for example, how big the daily range is on a trade). The third is Breadth, which relates to the number of trading pairs (e.g. XRP/BTC, XRP/USD, XRP/ETH, etc.) as well as the number of tools you can use to move money around within those pairs. As you increase the number of tools and pairs, the breadth gets larger. The last key attribute is Depth, which she measures by looking at order book volumes of that specific asset. When thinking about the liquidity of an asset, these four attributes help inform on whether the asset has good or bad liquidity, and thus, whether investors may or may not want to risk getting into the asset in the first place.

Of course, since Madigan works at Ripple, this is exactly what their suite of applications under the On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) label is designed to solve for institutional investors. By leveraging the cryptocurrency XRP, they can bypass the need for nostro/vostro accounts as well as high friction and transaction costs of sending payments globally, and almost instantaneously, as long as corridors which allow XRP-to-fiat transactions exist in those various countries. Later, when Madigan once again talks about the uniqueness of XRP, she mentions the events of Black Thursday, and how many investors actually turned towards XRP to transact, due to its extraordinarily quick ledger speed in comparison to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

David Schwartz switches the conversation at this point towards whether cryptocurrencies are safe-haven assets (i.e. can be counted on to retain value when markets are volatile). Madigan doesn't see a definitive answer to this. Today, it seems crypto is still mostly regarded as risky, with the market having correlated with multiple different arenas, including gold, equities, and even emerging markets, depending on the frame of time you were looking at them. Bitcoin may be the closest, since its value has gone up nearly 40% year-to-date even while gold only increased 13% (at the time of recording). With its halvening having happened recently, many expect that its historic precedents of price inflation will continue, which bodes well for the entire crypto market in general. As per Coinbase, many previously Bitcoin-only investors are beginning to move into alt-coins (non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies) now in order to diversify their crypto portfolio.

What is the key to stability for crypto? The way Madigan sees it, it requires both regulatory consistency as well as more institutional investors. In regulation, there is positive movement around the world. But those approaches are not necessarily consistent with each other, which leads to confusion from developers and lack of adoption from investors. The best regulatory framework, according to her, is one which allows flexibility and adaptation to new products and innovations, while protecting markets and market participants. This kind of broad-stroke regulation would allow for more consistency, and thus, more investors.

The United States, for example, hasn't been clear in giving even a framework for how crypto can function within its borders. Regulators have certainly been open to talking to people in the crypto industry. But the problem may be that different crypto products are related to different industries. Some are used like commodities, others have completely unique functions. This calls for broad regulation that is adaptable as the industry grows.

But even with the lack in clarity, institutions are moving towards crypto. Both Coinbase and Gemini are now backed by JP Morgan Chase. Big investor names like Paul Tutor Jones are beginning to back Bitcoin. Grayscale Investments, a large cryptocurrency asset manager, reported that a large portion of its portfolio is supported by institutional investors. And even they are starting to say that digital assets (especially Bitcoin) can certainly be a hedge against the mass printing of fiat from the federal reserve.

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are also becoming more popular (at least in rumor, if not in actual existence). But, for the most part, they are still in concept stage. There are many questions surrounding them, such as how do central banks think about CBDC liquidity, how would they use them with certain countries don't have them, or how to interoperate between different CBDCs. It's exciting to see that, even a year or two ago, many of these big institutions didn't really think much about cryptocurrencies, but now, most banks are getting more and more exposure to it. No longer do they believe the whole industry is a scam, but instead, they are slowly but surely following digital assets and companies that have clear utility within the blockchain technology space.

That being said, there are still a few hurdles that Madigan sees before full-on mainstream adoption takes place. Security, especially on exchanges, needs to be dealt with. Also, a better, perhaps more unified, infrastructure for trade, valuation, and leverage needs to be in place. But as the world buckles under the COVID-19 pandemic, institutional investors may flock even faster to crypto in order to stay afloat economically.

After all, blockchain actually offers many solutions to traditional industries that have not been really thought of before. For example, Security Token Offerings (STOs) may have solutions for stock and investment markets that allow traditional markets to get their foot in the door of blockchain technology. STO adoption may even be able to solve severely illiquid markets like Real Estate, and allow smaller investors to participate in a traditionally much more expensive market. And thus, this may lead to a future in which everything is tokenized.

To end the podcast, Schwartz asked Madigan how she sees the next few years for crypto. She felt that STOs are going to be much more significantly developed in the near future. Also, many Bitcoin-only investors will probably shift to other coins as those coins gain more and more utility. And as utility grows in the space, institutional investors will begin to circle the wagon that is crypto. And around the world, we will hopefully see more consistency in regulatory frameworks around cryptocurrency as a whole.

My Thoughts
To be honest, I was a little flustered at this episode. Perhaps it's because I've been following Ripple for a while now, and am familiar with XRP and Ripple's company goals. So a lot of the information wasn't really new. Also, there seemed to be a lot more cutting and pasting of audio bits here and there. Or at least, ones that were obvious. There were times when Breanne Madigan was cut off before finishing or starting a thought.

Regardless, here are a few tidbits that I picked up on which I wanted to discuss.

**Institutional Investors: Do we need them?
**Perhaps it's because of how Ripple as a company is targeting the enterprise and institutional markets with their products, but from how I see it, the desire for institutional investors (and regulation) seems like a red herring for most people involved in crypto, both now and in the future. Let me explain.

The idea that we need institutional investors to prop up the crypto space seems like a catch-22. There seems to be (in this interview and in previous ones) this desire for big investors to come and make mass adoption happen in the space. But regulatory clarity is needed to make institutional investors feel safe to jump in. But regulatory clarity won't come unless there is a large amount of investment already involved. It's a circular problem that isn't particularly helpful, because of the belief that institutional investors are necessary.

But institutional investors will always follow where big money can be made. From precious metals to real estate to insurance and even the Internet, no matter what the regulations are or were, institutional investors have always come (whether early or late) to a place where markets thrive and can make a profit.

So the problem is profit. Or rather, can cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology behind it be profitable? It seems like the answer is yes. Early investors of almost all the top coins have made significant profit. Ripple's ODL software has been reported to reduce costs of cross-border payment, thus increasing the profits and competitive advantage of its adopters. And many who now use loan and un-banking crypto services like Celsius Network and Nexo are finding they are making more money through interest than a traditional bank could ever give them.

Most institutional investors are risk-averse. They often hang onto traditions because they are inherently less risky (for a time). But in being so, they often miss out on the early days of incredible, world-changing innovations. Like Blockbuster with Netflix. Or Microsoft and smartphones. Or even Warren Buffett and almost any Internet or tech company (until recently). But I think they will eventually and inevitably follow. The problem, I believe, isn't getting them to come, but rather to help them see how crypto can build competitive and profitable advantages now and into the future.

**Regulation
**I've talked about regulation before when commenting on this podcast, so I'll try not to repeat myself much here. But in summary, I believe that regulation isn't required for mass adoption.

I've also come to believe that blockchain is a unique technology that cannot really be regulated. It is basically Web 3.0 before the predicted Web 3.0 wave (i.e. AI-enhanced Internet) really got off the ground. To try to regulate it too much is to commit your country to suicide (i.e. North Korea, Iran, etc.). To have basically no regulations on it is to allow innovation and freedom to drive your competitive edge and keep it technologically advanced. The only exception to this rule is China, and that's because most of the less oppressive states somehow decided to allow that tyrannical government free access to steal and use their technologies.

So in a very real way, more regulation is not required. In fact, the infamous Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is already regulating the Internet, on which blockchain entirely depends.

In a cynical way, the only way to ensure regulations (at least, in the United States) are beneficial to blockchain is to lobby for it (which Ripple is probably already doing). If government officials can personally benefit from blockchain, they won't try to harm it.

That being said, there is one area that I believe regulation needs to come in and limit, even though I don't really know how.

**Printing Money
**As stated in the episode, and a few podcast episodes before, one of the reasons people are becoming more interested in cryptocurrency is the idea that it is a safe-haven asset that can be used as a hedge against inflation.

There are a couple problems with this line of thought, mostly to do currently with speculation, and how it's probably not utility of a coin that drives its growth in price, but the speculation surrounding it. It is also (highly) possible that current market conditions for crypto are heavily manipulated.

But a massive problem that I see has to do with the printing of money. Because in crypto, and especially in stablecoins, the printing of money is a very tangible reality.

Just look at Tether (USDT). From the beginning of the year until March, the people behind USDT have increased its volume by more than $600 million. And not a single person was there to verify that the new money had a real physical dollar to back it up. In other words, they literally made themselves almost half a billion dollars richer for nothing. If this isn't money printing, then certainly we can't blame the feds.

Furthermore, if this kind of thing keeps going, what's to stop anyone from just creating a “stablecoin”, claim it is backed by something, and issuing it out? The vast majority of the masses (including institutional investors) will have absolutely no idea the difference between all these stablecoins. So they could buy in, without knowing that such a coin could be completely worthless as soon as whatever exchange system suddenly deems it not worth its peg.

Even if that doesn't happen, the mass printing of stablecoins could result in even more increased inflation. Because stablecoins don't have to be actual representatives of physical fiat (e.g. US Dollar), but are simply pegged, this kind of inflation could get really ugly, really fast, with almost irreparable damage due to the cryptographic security of blockchain technology.

In a way, I'm not sure the world is ready for trust-less, decentralized finance. But I do hope we fix this problem soon. Because blockchain is absolutely the technology which I'm most excited about in changing the world for the better.

Like many, over the past couple weeks, I've watched as society in the United States began to crumble under the weight of a global pandemic and the traumatic tragedy that befell George Floyd with the protests and riots that have continued since. I've watched news and alternative news commentary on both, and because I believe it's important to listen to dissent, I've been keeping track of how the two sides of the issues present their cases. I've watched how they argue for what they believe in, or try to dismantle the arguments of the other side.

The problem that I see which keeps recurring, and probably has always been occurring, is the use of logical fallacies as supplements or even in place of actual arguments. And the use of logical fallacies often derail the conversation to the point where it doesn't really benefit the issue at hand.

But, because I'm more of a Man in the Mirror type guy, I've been using this opportunity to dissect my own thinking, to see if I've also used these fallacies in support of my own views. So, with that in mind, I wanted to share on some of these logical fallacies, and to help us all correct ourselves to avoid these ways of thinking.

But first...

What Is a Logical Fallacy?

A logical fallacy is simply a line of reasoning with a flaw that, even if the premise of the argument were true, the conclusion through the use of that flaw is rendered false. There are two different categories of logical fallacies (informal and formal), but for the simple scope I'm writing for, there's not much of a need to define them.

Instead, it's important to understand that logical fallacies do not and cannot be used to support an argument. At least, not in a way that deductively makes a conclusion true. The fallacy itself may actually be true, but cannot necessarily render the conclusion true, because its relationship to the premise is faulty or non-sequitur.

In order to demonstrate the flaw of the logical fallacies' I'm writing about, I'm going to use a simple, neutral statement that (almost?) everyone can agree on in order see how logical fallacies work (or rather, don't work). The simple statement is:

The color of the morning sky is blue.

Pretty neutral, right? There are really only two sides (Yes, the color of the morning sky is blue vs. no, the color of the morning sky is not blue). With this in mind, onward we go!

1. Ad Hominem

An Ad Hominem fallacy is the attempt to use the character, personality, or history of a person in order to substantiate or denounce an argument.

The Ad Hominem is probably the most popular fallacy I see when reading the news cycle today. It goes something like this:

“[Insert person] is a greedy, self-righteous bigot, associated with other greedy, self-righteous bigots. Therefore, we shouldn't pay attention to what they're saying because it's obviously false.”

Within the argument, the person using this ad hominem fallacy may also construct a negative history of the person being attacked. By doing so, they often persuade their audience to be so disgusted by him or her, that they don't consider anything that person has to say, and thus disengage with the actual argument being made.

Now, to be sure, there may be truth to whether that person has negative personality traits or some kind of corrupted history. But these attributes have very little to do with whether an argument is valid. Take, for instance, our argument. Let's say the person being attacked is making the argument, “The color of the morning sky is blue.” Even if that person were to be the most evil human being on the planet, it wouldn't change whether the color of the morning sky is actually blue.

I think this is something that we need to internalize for ourselves, to measure how we listen to others. The question we should often ask ourselves is, “Am I listening to this person because they're making a good argument, or because I really like the person?” Or, perhaps in reverse, “Am I discounting what this person is saying because their argument is faulty, or because I really dislike this person?” Being able to answer this question ourselves will help us see whether we're committing the fallacy of Ad Hominem in our own thoughts.

2. Straw Man Argument

The Straw Man argument is simply setting up a similar second argument in place of the original being presented, and then adding fallacious things to it that the original did not intend, in order to make that position look weaker than it actually is.

The Straw Man argument is very similar to the ad hominem, and in fact, people often mix the two up. It is also often used in conjunction with ad hominem to completely discredit an opponent, or at the very least, make one's own arguments sound more solid than they actually are. In the end, while the Straw Man argument may seem to have been defeated, what was defeated wasn't the original argument, and thus, and the conclusion drawn is fallacious as it pertains to that original argument.

Let's take a look at our original statement, “The color of the morning sky is blue.” Someone using a Straw Man argument may say something like this:

“[Person's name]'s argument is that someone got a paint brush and somehow filled the sky with the color blue, which we know is impossible because the sky isn't a physical canvas we can paint on. Therefore, this argument is false.”

As mentioned before, the person arguing against our statement made a fallacious assumption that we were definitively not saying. But, of course, it's easy to argue against the idea that the sky is a physical canvas. But as we can see, not only has a fake argument been set up, but the conclusion has little to do with the original argument.

The easiest way to identify whether we believe in a straw man is to look at an argument and, without adding any outside assumptions to it, see whether it stands on its own evidence. Is there contrary evidence to the claim being made? Is the contrary evidence that I see actually disagreeing with this argument, or is it disagreeing with something that I believe surrounds the argument being made?

3. The Genetic Fallacy

The Genetic Fallacy is a common fallacy that, for most who don't know about it, is easy to fall into. But once we understand what it is, it is extremely easy to identify.

The Genetic Fallacy is discounting an argument or line of reasoning because of knowledge about the origin or history of the argument being made, or the evidence within that argument. In other words, just because I know the how the statement came to be does not discount whether the statement is true.

Again, let's look at our example statement. Someone using the Genetic Fallacy might say something like:

“Everyone might see that the color of the morning sky is blue. But, we know what see is simply the activity of light particles bouncing off of objects and coming in through our eyes, and being interpreted by our brains. Since this is just an interpretation by our brains, there is no determining whether the sky has any real color, let alone it being blue.”

That argument may sound really smart, and even as I typed it, I started to wonder if it could be true. But again, what is being argued by the opponent is not whether the sky is blue, but because we know how our brains can interpret what we see, therefore we can discount the argument. This is not engaging the argument, but simply using knowledge about it to discount it.

A way to identify whether we are using the genetic fallacy ourselves is to ask ourselves the question, “Am I discounting or approving a certain argument because of my knowledge of how that argument came to be? Is it the associated history that convinces me about this argument, or the actual evidence being presented by the argument?”

4. Appeal to Authority

The Appeal to Authority legitimizes or delegitimizes an argument because a perceived authority figure said so. This is obviously false. Just because a person says something is true doesn't necessitate that it is.

However, while this seems pretty easy to pick out, in reality, it's a bit tricky to deal with. After all, good research often cites sources, which seem to be the same as the definition of this fallacy. But the correct citing of sources doesn't appeal to an authority based on the person of that authority. Instead, it cites its sources based on the evidence being presented by the authority.

So things like, “[Scientist's Name], who has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Mathematics said the sky is blue, how can you not believe them?” is an appeal to authority. But instead, the argument should be something like, “According to this research conducted by [Scientist's Name], 100% of the people in this study perceive the sky to be blue, which helps to make the case that the sky is blue”. You don't cite what the person said, but rather the evidence their research has resulted in.

An easy way to see whether we're committing this fallacy is to ask ourselves, “Am I agreeing/disagreeing with this argument because of the person who said it, or the evidence being presented by them?”

5. False Dilemma

The False Dilemma is the presentation of two seemingly opposing options as if they were the only choices available.

Like the Appeal to Authority, False Dilemma is sometimes tricky to identify as well. This is because it often involves two concepts or ideas that seem contradictory on the surface, but in reality can either co-exist, or there is an external solution that solves the dilemma handily.

Taking our example statement, a true dilemma would result in something like, “Either the color of the morning sky is blue, or it is not blue.” This is a true or false statement, because the first obviously contradicts the second. Yes, there are certain shades of blue, and some people differ on what a morning is, but that is a problem of definition rather a false dilemma. As long as we define “blue” or “morning” or even “sky”, and the parties agree on these definitions, then the dilemma Is or Is Not remains true.

An actual false dilemma would be, “Either the color of the morning sky is blue, or it is raining this morning.” This may seem true on the surface. After all, often rain comes with heavy gray clouds that certainly turn the sky into a dark shade. But there are times when rain comes, and the sky is still clear. It just depends on the atmosphere.

What we can ask ourselves when presented with a dilemma is, “Are there other options outside of the ones being presented?” Or “Are these two options necessarily mutually exclusive?”

6. Red Herring

Ah, the Red Herring. My favorite. Probably because of this. But regardless of whether it can cut down a tree, the Red Herring fallacy is used quite often, even in formal debates.

A Red Herring fallacy is a deviation from the topic of the argument and instead focusing on an off-topic point. It is often not easy to identify. This is because, especially when someone is new to an argument, they may not know how different ideas and concepts connect, or whether they connect at all. And for those who are experienced in a topic or idea, many arguments presented by the other side may seem like Red Herrings when presented poorly.

In our example, a Red Herring may look like this,

“The color of the morning sky is blue. Two days ago, in the morning, I was painting a scene of the sea, and it included the sky. The majority of the colors I used to match what I saw was blue.”

The evidence being used seems to have nothing to do with the topic. After all, painting a scene and reality can certainly contradict each other. However, a Red Herring may be rescued in a sense by re-stating an argument:

“The color of the morning sky is blue. Two days ago, in the morning, I was painting a scene which included the sky. The color I used to match the sky I was seeing was blue.”

This is a better argument (although not but much, certainly), and it no longer uses a Red Herring because it's more directly connected to the original statement.

How do we detect Red Herrings ourselves? We can ask ourselves, “Does the evidence being presented have a direct connection to the argument?” Or “How does this evidence connect with the argument?”

7. Appeal to Majority

An Appeal to Majority is the attempt to validate or invalidate an argument because a majority group believe it is true. It is sometimes called the Bandwagon fallacy.

This one is almost exactly like the appeal to authority, and is easily debunked. Obviously, just because more people believe something is true doesn't make it actually true. In our example, if we ever found a large majority of people who believe that the sky is green, that would not necessarily make it so.

But appeal to majority seems to also be the most used tactic in many arguments, often in combination with the others. For example, saying that a large percentage of scientists believe in something is often used to substantiate a point of view. After all, scientists are supposed to be a reputable community. If a majority of them believe it, is it not true?

The obvious answer would be 'no'. After all, there may have been a time when a majority of experts believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. Clearly those experts would have been wrong.

What Appeal to Majority (and a lot of other fallacies mentioned) seems to do the most is shortcut an argument. If I can get you to believe that a majority of reputable people believe in something, then I don't need to show the evidence for it. And by doing so, I haven't actually engaged the argument, but circumvented it.

The Appeal to Majority is easy to identify. But it is not easy to let go of for many of us. Something that we can all ask ourselves is, “Do I believe/disbelieve this because a large group of people that I admire/dislike do as well? Or have I looked at the actual evidence and made up my own mind about it?”

Header Image credit to Pixabay.

One of the main topics that I talk about here on Coil is this concept of decentralization—the idea that any human endeavor is best accomplished by distributed authority rather than a central or single one. In economic terms, a free capitalistic marketplace best represents this. In technological terms, the rise of blockchain today epitomizes this idea.

But what about politically? Historically, we've been taught that the decentralization of authority rests in democracy in contrast to monarchy or authoritarianism. But when we simply take a moment and think about it, we know this isn't true. Tyranny by a majority is really no better than tyranny at the hands of one. It is, in many ways, much worse. So how would we solve this problem politically?

I don't pretend to know the answer. But, after reading Walter Scheidel's book, Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, I've found a fascinating analysis of western civilization that traces its history, not in the democratic roots of the Ancient Greeks or the imperial rule of Rome, but to the gradual but effective disunity of post-Roman Europe.

And this, I believe, is a key in unlocking why western civilizations in history were successful, and seeing a pathway for political decentralization.

A Summary of the Book

First, let me give a small summary of the book, since it is pretty dense and covers a lot of ground.

Scheidel opens the book by summarizing his position: that the Roman Empire, for all the pomp and circumstance we give it today, was an unlikely anomaly that grew and fell in Mediterranean Europe, and its oft lamented destruction actually paved the way for the rise of modern Western Civilization. He then goes through each part of said summary and explains it.

First, it's important to recognize the uniqueness of the Roman Empire. Unlike the empires which rose and fell and then rose again in other parts of the world, the Roman Empire is not only the biggest imperial polity which arose in Europe, it can be argued that it is the only one to do so. While a few, large polities have come before it (e.g. the Mycenaeans, Greeks), and a few tried to imitate it afterwards (e.g. Carolingian Empire, Napoleon's Empire, etc.), none of these other attempts could really be classified in the same way as the Roman one. And while other parts of the world can claim for cycles of rising and falling empires that were just as great or expansive (e.g. Chinese, the Indus valley, Arabian and Persian empires), Rome is unique in the world that none like it came before, and none like it came after in the same area.

There are a number of factors contributing to this. Geographically, Europe is quite varied in and of itself. Unlike the landscapes and climates of the Fertile Crescent, the Indus River valley, and eastern China, which all tended to be similar or focused around long chain of rivers and fertile land, Europe has many distinct features which make it difficult to unite. There are also many different kinds of people groups and cultures which exist that developed distinctly and separately from one another.

Thus, the rise of the Romans, as Scheidel argues, seems to be the result of pure coincidence. As a people who started in Italy, they were a more homogenous group that developed to protect the Italian peninsula. They took advantage of weakened neighbors that were still experiencing the disastrous consequences of the Bronze Age collapse. And their knife's-edge victory in the Punic Wars helped solidify their naval position, allowing them to dominate the Mediterranean Sea as no other civilization could have (at the time).

But just as a number of factors allowed the Romans to rule over most of Western Europe, parts of the Middle East, and Northern Africa, it also quickly disappeared. And the coinciding of those different factors never happened again, resulting in a Europe that would be forever fragmented.

But this fragmentation would, in the end, be the main cause of the first and second Great Divergences which allowed Europe to overtake and completely eclipse the progress of other empires around the world. It allowed an ever increasing number of nations states to compete against each other in a contest of ideas and invention. Whether in war, political strife and philosophies, or other kinds of technologies, the multiplicity of polities in Europe each vied for supremacy. None of them were really able to gain much advantage over the other, but the resultant, intense progress due to the competition allowed Europe as a whole to surpass the rest of the world.

Even Christianity, the mainstay religion of the European West, contributed to this, since, even though it was near universal, its western development had roots of separation between state and religion, which allowed various states to justify separation from others without needing to necessarily dominate them.

One of the ideas Scheidel mentions that I was absolutely fascinated by was how the European colonization in both the Old and New World was just another facet of this competition. As each state competed for resources, the smaller ones such as the Dutch and British were forced to begin looking outside their own locales to keep up with the competition of French and German powers. Thus, colonialism grew as an offshoot of these competitions. Imperialistic ambition was soon checked by rebelling colonies, and new powers like the United States rose as a result, and participated in the West's competitive nature.

And thus, when we take a step back and look at the big picture, we see that the fragmentation of the Roman Empire into smaller polities was actually a catalyst to progress and invention. We see that advancement and improvement comes when there are more autonomous groups, rather than less. And when we compare that to the rest of the world, we see that a diversity of polities eventually (and then overwhelmingly) win out against unitary empires all around the world.

My Thoughts

The above was, of course, not a comprehensive overview of the book. There were lots of areas that I didn't touch on, such as Scheidel's especial comparison between Europe and China in a large portion of the book, or how and why the Roman Empire was stagnant, or the various counterfactuals that still would not allow earlier and later nation states to rise to the level of the Roman Empire.

I think that the premise (and thus, the conclusion) of the book is so intriguing: that progress and prosperity are often hindered or halted by large centralized polities, and it is small polities in competition with each other that drives the world to a better place. It's the basic definition of decentralization, and arguably proved through a historical lens, as well as an economic and technological one.

The idea of decentralization is actually pretty simple: dissent is a fundamental keg that allows human society to work well. We might cloak this idea as “freedom of speech” or “human rights”, but the main crux behind it is simply dissent. It means we understand that human beings aren't perfect, and we don't have the whole picture. And so, it is essential that we allow those who disagree with us have the ability to voice that dissent, just in case their idea, however offensively it may be incased, is actually better than ours.

People like to work together. And working together often brings greater benefits than each individual could. But often, the bigger the organization, the slower it is to move and respond, and the more difficult it is to innovate within that larger organization. How some companies like Google have dealt with this problem is to divide their company into different parts that are under their own management, so that the ability to innovate isn't lost. But even then these aren't always on the cutting edge (as has been demonstrated in the case of crypto and blockchain).

More importantly, a corporate body's decision often affects more people. What at first was meant to be generous and helpful may actually harm instead in practice. When a small organization does this, it hurts less people. When a larger one does this, its impacts are sometimes exponentially more harmful.

And so, we come back to decentralization. The ability for people to voice and practice their dissent so that improvements can be made is essential. And while it's almost inevitable that bad ideas will also crop up, if everyone is able to dissent, then good ideas will at the very least also exist, if not win out against the bad ones.

I think it's amazing that this is a lens with which we can now look at history. Where smaller polities were allowed or forced to compete with each other, progress is made. It's another piece of the puzzle of decentralization that is still being played out, today. And one that can, I feel, become a guiding principle with which we forge our future.

Header Image credit to Pixabay.

In the fourth episode of Block Stars, David Schwartz interviews Fabian Eberle and Paolo Gasti, co-founders of Keyless, which is a cybersecurity company that wants to enable a seamless authentication experience in the digital world through cryptography and biometrics.

As with previous posts, first follows a summary, then my thoughts on the episode as a whole. There is A LOT of information, much of which was unfamiliar to me, as I listened. So in my thoughts below, I will also attempt to further explain some things that will hopefully bring a little more clarity into the wonderful information given in this episode.

Episode Summary

Keyless is “a deeptech cybersecurity company innovating and shaking up the authentication and digital identity space”. The company strives to preserve the privacy of users even while using their biometrics and identity to verify and access various accounts digitally. To do this, they have spent a decade of research into biometrics and cryptography and believe they have a good solution to the problem of how we manage and authenticate our identities.

There are several problems with the current methods we use to prove and handle our identities in the digital world today. The first problem is that, since digital accounts are accessed through passwords, if users want to be safe with their multiple accounts (PC, email, social media, etc.), they need to create a different password for each of those accounts. This multitude of passwords must then be memorized by users, and tracked by central servers. These central servers are always in an uphill battle against malicious hackers and scammers who want access to their databases.

The second problem is a layer added on top of the first. As companies seek to ease their user's password management experience, they use biometrics (e.g. facial recognition or fingerprint scanning) or multi-factor authentication methods developed in-house that can't be interchanged with those of other companies (e.g. my Apple ID can't be used to log into my Gmail account). But this, in some ways, just compounds the problem, adding more and more things to need to remember in trying to manage our identities in the digital space.

There are also problems from the perspective of businesses and companies that manage these identities. The daily cost of service is really quite high, as they have to deal with problems from customer service to exploitive attacks (e.g. phishing). Furthermore, it's difficult for companies to migrate to another system, because that migration would often break the current one they are dependent on.

But, if the password problem could be solved, then everything else becomes much easier. From asset management and protection to digital signatures, everything which requires securely identifying a person in order to grant access becomes much easier to deal with.

As Eberle points out, historically, there was and evolution to the way that identity management online was handled. First, there was the “siloed identity”, which means having a username and password for each account. Then, as social media developed, we started using our social media accounts to sign into various platforms. But, of course, while this drastically eased user experience, it came at the cost of privacy and security breaches.

Thus, what Keyless brings to the table is a way for privacy to be preserved while giving users easy access to their various digital identities.

There are still a few hurdles to overcome for mass adoption. If you don't have a good user experience, no matter how secure, then the majority of people just won't use it. The system also needs to be flexible and applicable to any (or ideally all) use-cases, so that users don't need to search for another system, which just adds to the problem. It's also important that users have full control over who has access to their identities, in order for privacy to be protected.

Even professionals in the space, as David Schwartz points out (i.e. himself), are prone to privacy risks when creating and managing identities online. He points out that online users basically pay for online services by giving their information to third-parties (rather than with currency). Everyone says that they care about their privacy, but this care doesn't seem to be reflected in their forays online.

There is some push-back against this, especially recently, as various nations around the world are pushing more into regulating corporations' use of their user data. However, most of the time, these regulations simply add another layer of friction. As an example, Eberle points out that banks that require their customers to authenticate are basically just adding 2-factor authentication on top of username and password, where users have to go from app to app to get access to what they want.

Keyless' approach is different than the above methods. By using a decentralized network of nodes to store user information, there is an inherent guarantee the data could be protected. Because this data is so protected, users can then use any device with access to Keyless' network to authenticate their identity on any service that accepts it. This gives Keyless an advantage in user experience as well, as they no longer require users to hop between many different apps or services.

Paolo Gasti, however, disagrees with Schwartz' implied premise that users have a choice in selling their data in order to access the various parts of the Internet. After all, if a user wants to browse and buy something on Amazon, they have literally no choice but to give their information to Amazon and let Amazon sell that data. While there are certain services like Tor that allow users to have some semblance of privacy, the vast majority of people don't have access to or understand these privacy-centric products.

Furthermore, working with others on upgrading their security and privacy seems to draw out different reactions, depending on whether they've been personally exposed to these problems. In their experience, those who have been hacked or scammed are always and immediately willing to upgrade their systems, while those who haven't don't often see the point.

The conversation then shifts to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on how business is being conducted today. There has been, in fact, a dramatic increase of phishing and scamming attacks. People are thus becoming more and more aware of a need for paradigm shifts in the way enterprises and business work in the context of identity and access from remote locations (like home). In this way, this global situation has actually accelerated the use of digital technologies in the world. From Microsoft's own earning's call, as paraphrased by Fabian Eberle:

Two years of digital transformations have happened in the past two weeks

In this environment, secure authentication services which grant such access essentially fill this role. An example would be freelancers, and the kind of access their work requires. Usually, freelancers outsource their work to a lot of different companies. All these companies need to be able to authenticate these workers, “as if that person was on the same room with you”. If you could do this without compromising privacy or security, while again providing a great user experience, it seems like it would be the best solution for everyone.

There are some that are skeptical of the whole concept of using biometric data. After all, if my fingerprint gets stolen, that can do almost irreparable damage to my digital identity. Much of this skepticism is user perception, however. And because of that, trust of the solution (or lack thereof) is essential in helping users acclimate to this new technology.

Keyless solves the security problem through real-time cryptographic protection. Nothing private is ever shared with anyone. It uses a cryptographic technique called zero-knowledge proofs, which is the idea that a person or piece of software needs to be able to prove their knowledge of something without revealing it. As Schwartz puts it:

“If you prove you know the password by revealing the password, then you're constantly revealing the password. If you could prove you knew the password without revealing the password, you don't have to make that painful tradeoff between privacy and security.”

Solution providers have historically either relied on a centralized cloud or a local device to store sensitive data. There are strengths to these separate ideas. In the first, the user experience is more seemless and integrated, less dependent on differences between local devices. In the second, security and privacy is much easier to substantiate.

Keyless combines these strengths through secure multiparty computation. It's complicated (I'll give a slight explanation in my thoughts below), but in all practicality, it means that all information being obtained on a local device isn't stored, and all the information in the cloud can't really be accessed illicitly.

This kind of ease of access will help in all kinds of user experiences, even with cryptocurrency. Currently, crypto wallet holders have the same password problem as anyone else. A system like Keyless allows users to securely access those wallets simply with their biometrics without worrying about privacy and data breaches. In Gasti's words:

The barrier to entry is much lower, the ease of use is much higher, the reliability of a system like this is much higher...all this without compromising in terms of privacy or security because no one can still see you keys, no one can still see your biometrics.

What do we do about scammers? While education and awareness is good for everyone, Eberle offers that Keyless can help with scams as well, since the person who is using their service is never revealing their private information (i.e. passwords) in the exchange. They're simply looking into a camera.

It can even help with crypto exchanges. For example, since users of these exchanges often have more than they're trading with (for conveniency sake), a service like Keyless would really help those users regain control over their non-active finances on the exchange. This changes how much that could be stolen from exchanges, as well as whether if stealing is even worth it or not. These cases won't trump having and actual secure exchange, but it would definitely help.

As the podcast winds down, Schwartz asks both where they see the future going.

Paolo Gasti, in looking at the consumer side of things, sees how privacy and security scandals in recent days have fired up users of those platforms to push for more democratized or decentralized platforms and technologies that are more secure and private. There is potential for this kind of technology to change and speed up the way we sign up for driver's licenses, bank accounts, and other similar things, because they secure our information so well. He even sees governments pushing consumers toward this as well.

For Fabian Eberle, he sees a world where security, privacy, and convenience are no longer at odds with each other. Instead, having all of it as high as possible would be the norm. Giving people control over their own data will not only be required, but enable them to do better business with others. This is Keyless' vision, to help the world towards this better future.

**My Thoughts
**Ok, having written all that: wow, that was a lot. And as I was listening and writing, I realized that there were lots of things I had to go look up to try to understand some of the concepts they talked about. So I'm going to try to explain some of it as well as provide some opinions on it.

**Secure Multiparty Computation
**This links with zero-knowledge proofs that David Schwartz was talking about earlier in the episode, but I think this concept is where it all comes together. If you want a more thorough explanation of how Keyless implements this concept, they wrote an article on Medium discussing it. But here's a simple way to think about it:

As Schwartz explained, when something is secured behind a password, the current way to do so is to reveal that password. And so zero-knowledge proofs is this idea of proving that you know the password without actually revealing it. Secure Multiparty Computation (sMPC) is a way to do this.

Let's think of a scenario: there are four of us in a room, each with a different number. One of us wants to find out what the others have, so they put their number down, scramble it with a random number, and pass it along. Each other person adds in their number, and passes it down until it gets back to the original person. The original person then subtracts the random number from the total, and then gets an average of everyone's number. That average is then shared, so that each party knows whether they're below or above average.

What does this accomplish? By doing this, each person knows how they stack up to the average, and then make a decision based on it. In other words, this allows multiple people (or in the case of sMPC, nodes) to make decisions based on combined data. And by doing so, you've enabled multiple parties (hence multiparty) to compute based on the same set of values without revealing their own secrets.

**The Second Step
**A step they mentioned (but weren't explicit as a secondary part of the whole process) is that Keyless distributes a user's information (e.g. biometric data) across a large, decentralized network. While I assume it is similar to a blockchain, the material I've read hasn't made any definite indications as to how they've decentralized it.

More importantly though, each user's data is completely fragmented so that it's unrecognizable to anyone except each node in the network. So, when a user initiates authentication, that user's biometric scan (i.e. facial scan) is also sent to these nodes so that the nodes can then determine if their little tiny piece matches with the one sent from the user. And if the nodes (I assume at least a large majority) say yes, then the system authenticates the user.

In this way, the network is basically comparing a current biometric scan of a user with a previous biometric scan that the user has already stored on Keyless's network. But critically, each node never reveals the piece they are storing. Any attacker that tries to get the original scan through the transfer can't, because the information is never revealed. And if they try to access each node, then all they'll get is really scrambled information.

**Final Thoughts
**Listening to this episode and learning about all this information was extremely fascinating. I love the clear articulation of the problem of passwords and how Keyless (as a company) intended to solve it. While they repeat the mantra of usability and user experience a lot, I think it shows just how key (yup, pun intended) it is to helping the public into a more private and secure future.

Personally, having gone through multiple password resets, dealing with customer service, dealing with transferring information for multi-factor authentication, if Keyless could offer me a solution that is as easy as signing in with a Facebook account without requiring me to sell my own data to advertisers, all the while being more secure than any other competition, I'll definitely sign up, day one.

And since the United States Congress is deciding to continue to violate privacy laws, I feel a little more hopeful knowing that there are people out there building a future where these violations will be continually out of reach of those who wish to harmfully exploit others in the name of public security.

I was watching this video where Milton Friedman (the late libertarian economist) supposedly predicted Bitcoin (he gets pretty close). The crux of his talk was based on the Internet, and the freedom it was potentially affording to everyone with access the ability to freely speak and trade.

But, as we look at the Internet landscape today, centralization has become the norm. From social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, to online storefronts, like Amazon and Shopify, large companies with control over information and access are almost ubiquitous. And, unfortunately, we have seen these large companies target and censor others without much cause.

This issue of centralization is pretty big, and one that blockchain purportedly can help solve. But today I want to take a look at an older tech that was invented early on as the Internet became more widely used, which actually solved the centralization problem pretty handily. So handily, that it's still relevant and used today.

That tech is called BitTorrent.

The Internet Today

Despite its evolution, the Internet today basically runs on the same client/server concept since its inception. It's a simple idea: creators or companies host content (i.e. websites, music, videos, etc.) on a server or set of server computers, while those who want to access the content download or stream that content to their 'client' computers.

There are lots of advantages for this approach. Most importantly, this gives the client more flexibility and freedom, while shouldering the burden of speed and storage mainly on the hosts. In other words, if I want to have a social media profile, I don't need to create, design, and then host that profile on my own computer, and then allow access for the public to that profile from the Internet. Instead, I allow a company (e.g. Facebook) to design a website, platform, and template on which I can put information that I want, and let that company share it to the world for me. After I put the information in, I don't need to really worry about anything else.

The client server model works for nearly everything we use the Internet for today. But even though our uses haven't changed much, there are still disadvantage to it.

If the servers shut down, then no one can access content hosted on it. Server companies are also responsible for making sure a multitude of clients can access hosted content speedily. And most importantly, because the server owners host all the content, they are able to curate what they do and don't want on their platform.

But once upon a time, there was a model invented that solved these disadvantages quite nicely.

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent, sometimes simply called torrents or torrent, is a decentralized peer-to-peer protocol that has actually existed for a long time. It gained infamy in 1999 through Napster, a client-side software that allowed people to share music with each other before broadband and wireless Internet really took off. And because of these piracy-related issues, it was dragged in the mud, and subsequently became a less preferred solution.

So how does it work?

Rather than relying on a single server (or set of servers) to deliver or stream content to clients, people who connect to torrent-enabled browsers or apps 'swarm' together to help transfer data to each other. Basically, when a file is uploaded by one, and then three others are downloading from that one, each of them download a small piece of the file, and then send those pieces to the others to complete the others' downloads.

By doing this, all who participate in this swarm are uploading the data at the same time they are downloading. Because each person contributes some bandwidth for uploading, as long as multiple people are in the same swarm, the speed of download never really slows down.

And by doing so, it solves every single problem mentioned above with centralized server/client systems.

There are weaknesses to this system, of course. Since it relies on a group of peers to maintain a torrent file, if there is no one uploading that file, then it no longer exists for anyone to access. If there are only a few people in the swarm, then the speed for download won't be as fast. And because there is no real way to censor anything that is being uploaded, piracy and all sorts of other problems arise with using the technology.

This knack for issues like piracy has always been the Achilles heel for the technology.

What Would a BitTorrent-Powered Web Look Like?

The good news is that this tech is already being used in a variety of ways. Even now, WebTorrent, a javascript torrent client that works inside a web browser, is becoming more and more popular. It is natively supported in Brave, and approved to work in Apple's Safari.

And so, from game companies like Blizzard, which uses torrent tech to update its games, to entire websites like BitChute and Dtube, which rely on WebTorrent, there are many places on the web that function primarily using BitTorrent's peer-to-peer protocols. There's even BitTorrent Now, an ad-supported streaming service created by the people behind BitTorrent.

All of these still rely on a centralized service which gives people access to this content through something like a website or an application. But could a fully decentralized web exist with torrent technology behind it?

Here's some speculation:

I think it would require a remaking of the web, in many ways. For example, right now, Amazon is a single company which actually controls a lot of content. From Netflix to even Facebook until recently, their AWS service provided the server space for a lot of other web service providers. And of course, Amazon has a massive storefront with which many online and local businesses sell their products.

But if BitTorrent protocols were used, then instead there would need to be companies which curate the vast amount of information and content being uploaded. This content could never be erased or censored completely, since the providers can't just simply take it off the Internet. Instead, there would be second layer on top of the content made of a plethora of companies that act almost like different channels on broadcast television. These channels would curate all the videos for their audience.

Why wouldn't these channels censor their content?

Actually, they would. But other channels would not. And that is the point. Because all human systems are made by or run by humans, it's almost inevitable that some form of censuring will happen, no matter what. But relying on the BitTorrent protocol allows all content to always exist in some accessible form. If there is too much or even too little censoring from a certain platform, those channels will be abandoned for others which do more of what a demographic or audience wants.

This would be the perfect way to break up the monopolies of Internet giants, which rely on audiences using their centralized services. And it doesn't require any governmental or political authorities to step in (which almost always ends up in disaster). All it requires is people who use the Internet to gradually shift away from these services and set up new companies online that offer specific audiences what they want, while relying on better technology (which already exists) built on top of BitTorrent.

Header Image credit to Wikimedia Commons.

Over the past week as I've been summarizing and giving my thoughts on David Schwartz' new podcast, Block Stars, I've been thinking about how and whether or not blockchain will ever be a ubiquitous standard for the digital age. After all, the current global economy hasn't yet required blockchain to function, and most of the crypto market is still quite niche.

Under the hood of all this, however, Ripple has been slowly but steadily building a network of partners around the world—financial institutions which are eager to get ahead of the competition, especially with regards to global remittances. Every week, it seems, a new company or bank signs up on RippleNet, and begins to make use of their technologies.

Then, I got an email from Coinbase saying that there was a chance to earn a new coin on the exchange, called Orchid, as part of their educational series that helps customers learn about different digital currencies while earning it for free. Obviously, since it was basically like getting free money, I decided to go ahead and watch. But, as I was watching, the idea of interoperability and cryptocurrency finally clicked.

The Origins of Money

Let's go back to the origins of money. All the way back, when civilization first dawned, and trade began, humanity faced an interesting problem. As people began to produce a surplus of food, they realized they could trade and barter it for other goods that would make their lives easier. In order to trade, however, there was an issue of how to quantify the goods. After all, how many fish is a stool worth? How do you quantify an expiring good versus something that lasts for months or even years?

And so, the idea of money was created—a medium by which people could interoperate between different goods based on an agreed upon value. Whether using conch shells or gold, everyone could now become part of an exchange, even when their goods have qualities that weren't comparable to others.

But, of course, the creation of a new technology to solve any problem will almost always result in brand new problems that need to be dealt with.

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Problems

The first problem is that human government became the bedrock on which these currencies were defined. Even before the idea of a “central bank” or “federal reserve” was created, ancient societies like the Roman Empire and Bronze Age Egypt controlled money through the auspices of a single, imperial polity. Even when democratic and republican governments became the norm in the 'western world', central authorities were still given the ability to tell people what money was, and how to spend it, justified by ideas like security and safety.

And second problem was that, because people of different creeds and cultures have their own preferences in who they trust and who they want to deal with, thousands of different currencies began to develop. While a gold standard did become more widespread in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that was abandoned, and it is unlikely that it will ever come back as such in the future.

These two problems compound on each other. Since governments can define what is money for their citizens, and because it is difficult for the average person to freely exchange their value to others not within their immediate locale, the often unwise monetary decisions made by such central authorities have devastating effects on a population. Examples today can be seen in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and other countries in which their governments basically destroy their own society by over-inflating the supply of valueless currency, and then prevent their citizens from trading with the wider world in order to keep their wealth.

Interoperability and Blockchain Services

I want to go back to what I was talking about in the beginning. I think Orchid, and its cryptocurrency OXT, is a great example of how interoperability could be a key to a new, and better, economy.

Orchid is a service that behaves much like your basic Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. VPN's have lots of different uses. They can mask your IP Address to give you a bit more privacy from both public wi-fi and even your home ISP. They allow you to access parts of the Internet that may not be available to normal geo-locales (e.g. browsing Youtube in China). They can even be used to get less expensive services, like flight tickets, which usually go up in price each time you check them without purchasing.

Usually, you have to pay for a third-party VPN service. This is because free ones actually sell your internet usage to advertisers and other companies, which basically defeats the purpose of having a VPN in the first place (for most people).

Orchid hosts its VPN service, and receives payment for it in the form of its OXT currency. So when you want to use their service, you basically go into their app, sign into their VPN using their coin, and away you go.

Hundreds or perhaps thousands of services like this exist in the real world. From VPNs to Vending machines, from fast food restaurants to grocery supermarkets, from gaming services to the film industry, each of these has its own incomparable qualities and value. Each of these industries have the potential to, themselves, develop niche currencies to use.

This already happens in the real world. I can go to the grocery store and browse through their gift card section, and find hundreds of cards, ranging from Starbucks to Red Lobster, to even a blank Visa debit card. But, importantly, none of these cards are interoperable.

I often have $0.17 left on a Starbucks gift card, about $1 left on a restaurant one, and a few others at other points. What if I could take all that value, put it on a single card, and spend it at a business of my discretion?

This, I believe, is the promise of blockchain interoperability.

Bringing Interoperability to a New Level

Again, since blockchain and cryptocurrency has been around for some time now, some of this exists already. For example, I can currently take my OXT and convert it into BAT, send it to my BAT wallet inside my Brave Browser, and tip and support Wikipedia, or my favorite Youtube creator that has BAT tipping enabled. That creator can then take the BAT, convert it into a gift card for Starbucks, and go buy himself a coffee.

Think about that for a second. That's already pretty insane.

But there's a next level service layer that can exist that, as far as I can see it, will be the next area of fierce competition after the current DeFi craze has settled down.

This is because, as given above, there's so many little steps that I need to take in order to do what's described. I need to take my local fiat, convert it to cryptocurrency, and then send it to another wallet, and then use that wallet's service to send it to someone else's wallet. That's a lot of steps, and not a friendly user-experience.

But what if there was a service that could do all of that for you, at the press of a button, without needing to constantly sign into multiple services across lots of different apps and websites? China's WeChat super-app is pretty close to this, but we all know how invasive and oppressive that has been. Instead, a service like this built on decentralized blockchain technology is not only censorship-resistant, but would enable everyone around the world to exchange value, no matter what venue or service they start from.

Whoever or whichever company is able to achieve this level of integration and interoperability with their services will likely be the next Amazon.