Читать книгу CryptoDad - J. Christopher Giancarlo - Страница 8

Foreword

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Cryptocurrency, or “crypto” as it is colloquially known, is a pretty big deal. In our opinion, a bigger one than the Internet itself. And we believe it has the potential to have as great an impact on personal freedom as the printing press, the personal computer, and the early, open Internet. Why? Because crypto makes decentralization possible, which is to say its center of gravity is you, the individual.

Prior to the invention of Bitcoin, the idea of a decentralized network, in which unrelated computers around the world could reliably reach agreement with each other on something (e.g. who owns what), was thought to be entirely theoretical. The challenge lies in the possibility that one or more computers in the network could be bad actors trying to confuse the others.

In computer science, this agreement problem is known as The Byzantine Generals' Problem. When Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, published the Bitcoin white paper in 2009, she, he, or they presented the world's first ever solution to this hitherto intractable problem. As described, the Bitcoin mining algorithm ensures that a network of computers that don't know each other will in fact reach agreement with each other in a reliable manner. And that this agreement or consensus—what today, we call a blockchain—would be immutable and verifiable.

Historically, such agreement had to be entrusted to a central party or ended up concentrating toward one. Money has long been the purview of governments and finance the domain of big banks. Tim Berners-Lee's original, utopic vision for the commercial Internet—an open network of interconnected computers—has become a closed, dystopic oligopoly of data cartels. When you log on to the Internet today, you're really logging on to one of five companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, or Google, aka the FAANG companies. Has there ever been a more appropriate acronym?

The problem with centralization of power was captured best by Lord Bryon: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” These sectors are centralized, not because it is the best approach, but because it has been the only approach … until now. Satoshi's breakthrough not only made the decentralization of money possible, but it also provided a blueprint for the decentralization of anything.

We now can envision a future where the Internet, finance, and money will not be controlled by a few, but by the many. Where the value of these social networks (they are all social networks) will not accrue to just a handful of CEOs and companies, but to all of us, their users. Where you no longer need someone's permission to invest, borrow, or build. A level playing field with no inside baseball.

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency as we have come to know them. It has created an entirely new economic sector we now call crypto. This sector, like the Internet, has grown from total obscurity into one that can't be ignored. While today, it still appears to most as a niche technology, tomorrow it will be everything. When Jeff Bezos was first pitching Amazon to potential investors, the first question he was always asked was, “What's the Internet?” Crypto's story arc will be no different.

Crypto is not just a technology; it is a movement. One that offers the possibility of greater choice, independence, and opportunity for all. It can achieve things that our current systems can't even begin to contemplate. It allows our money to work like email. Its barriers to entry are low—requiring only an Internet connection and a smartphone. It has the power to redesign the Internet, the financial system, and money in a way that fosters and protects the rights and dignity of the individual. These are quite awesome possibilities and embody the ethos and founding principles of our country. Crypto is very American.

It would have been hard to predict the sheer economic opportunity of the Internet back in the early 1990s. Not long ago, many of the Internet companies that today are the biggest economic drivers of the global economy were seen as novelties or didn't even exist. The majority of these companies are American and their economic growth and prosperity was captured primarily by Americans. America won the Internet.

This was not a coincidence or the result of a lucky accident. This can be traced entirely back to the pro-entrepreneurial culture that America has long established through its rule of law and thoughtful regulation. These choices that we made gave rise to sophisticated capital and credit markets that provided nourishment to start-ups and solidified America as both the cradle and hotbed of innovation. Entrepreneurs came to America to build because they could do so with a clarity and pace that was impossible to match in any other country in the world. And once this ecosystem was established, it became both self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating.

But while the race for the Internet is more than three decades underway and America's leadership position is firmly entrenched, another one has begun—the race for the Internet of Money. It's still early, but unlike the race for the Internet, the United States is not the leader. To date, the biggest crypto companies are being built offshore. In many cases, they are being built by US citizens who have left America because the regulatory environment is too slow, opaque, or draconian to keep up with the global pace of innovation. And for perhaps the first time ever, US customers are flocking to offshore financial platforms because they simply can't get what they want here, at home.

This sad irony is painful to admit. America is not where the majority of crypto entrepreneurs go to build. The land of the free and the home of the brave, the bastion of democracy and free markets, now, all of a sudden, has an uncertain future as the host country for the greatest technology revolution of the last quarter century. America has been operating under the false pretense that a global, decentralized, permissionless technology movement that transcends borders is going to wait around for America's permission. It won't. America has gotten complacent. It has confused the Internet boom with the crypto boom, assuming that because we won one, we will win the other. Our past success will not be an indicator or causation of our future success.

But alas, all is not lost. It is still early, and our fate rests entirely in our own hands. Our country has leaders like Chris Giancarlo who understand the vast promise of cryptocurrencies. Under his tenure as chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Giancarlo championed crypto throughout the halls of government and left behind a pro-crypto legacy at the CFTC that lives on to this day. His dedication to our country becoming a leader in crypto, as we have been in the Internet, earned him the nickname “CryptoDad” on Twitter and legions of Internet followers. And his sense of duty and patriotism that led him to serve in our government for five years similarly motivates him to make sure America is not left behind. Giancarlo is a true American.

Our sincere hope is that many will read this book and begin to better understand not only the enormity of the opportunity that stands before us, but also that our ability to prosper from it is not guaranteed. Our hope is that this book will give you an insider's view into where we are as a country with respect to our regulatory approach to crypto and where we need to be. Armed with this knowledge, we can then start working together toward a solution. We can build an ecosystem with the proper ingredients and nutrients that will allow crypto to flourish here, on our shores. Together, we can ensure that America becomes the undisputed best place for entrepreneurs to build in crypto. That America remains the land of opportunity where you go to make your dreams come to life.

We hope you will join us and CryptoDad as we fight for this future. We won the space race, we won the Internet. Now, let's go win the fight for the future of money.

Onward and upward,

Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss

July 16, 2021

CryptoDad

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