Prompt: Crypto Mainstream Adoption, HDR, UHD, 64K
Though I was tired last night and I didn’t feel good, I don’t want to make excuses and so regardless of my physical condition, I still managed to publish a video on 3Speak. The last video I made was five days ago. In that video, I shared what caught my attention so far this week in the crypto space.
As usual, CBDC and SEC caught my attention, and then the talk about crypto mainstream adoption.
CBDC
Based on a Bitcoin.com article, CBDC if implemented will be a serious threat to liberty. That’s the message of two presidential aspirants from the Republican party, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis. The name of the latter is familiar to me, but Vivek is a new name for me. I only came to know him because of my interest in cryptocurrency. I am not sure whether we should be happy or not to hear politicians showing their hostility against CBDC and talking favorable things about crypto. I am tired of these people.
The fact that some legislators in the US want to follow China in this CBDC move tells a lot about the real nature of government. It doesn’t matter whether it’s democratic or totalitarian. Civil government is all about the monopoly of control, power, and regulation. Gone are the days when politicians know that the reason they were put into office is to protect people’s lives, freedom, and property. I don’t know what needs to happen to see a change in people’s view of civil government.
SEC
The next two articles are about the US SEC in relation to XRP and Bitcoin ETF. As for the XRP case, the SEC is filing an appeal regarding the recent court decision ruling that XRP is not a security. Oscar Franklin Tan, a crypto lawyer seems to imply that the SEC’s appeal is irregular for appeals are usually done when the case is finished. Since Ripple’s case is still going on, he adds that the real intent of the SEC in making such an appeal is to influence the momentum of the case.
As for Bitcoin ETF, there seems to be a powerplay here. Reading between the lines, it appears to me that there is a psychological warfare going on here between Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, and the SEC. Though she’s saying that she anticipated such a delay in the approval of their application, what she really wants to communicate is that since all the ongoing applications are basically the same, there is no reason for the SEC to deny their application if the applications of the big guys like BlackRock and Fidelity will be approved.
Anyhow, typical reasons for the delay are mentioned in the article such as to prevent market manipulation and to protect investors. As usual, cryptocurrency has been demonized associating it with criminal activities such as money laundering.
Crypto Mainstream Adoption
The last article is the most educational. Tomer Warschauer Nuni discussed five things that those in the sector must work on if we want to see mainstream adoption. Among the five items, what caught my attention is about building infrastructure. I have been hearing about this so many times from TM and I was wondering what he meant by infrastructure.
Education
The other four include education, regulation, interoperability, and security. As for education, the writer mentioned that it is now a growing trend that universities are offering courses related to blockchain and cryptocurrency. He mentioned Stanford, New York University, and other educational institutions in Europe.
Moreover, he added that even politicians are getting interested in the space. In fact, six members of the US Congress publicly admitted that they traded cryptocurrency in 2021. Politicians in other countries are also voicing out their favorable sentiments. One example is Rishi Sunak, UK’s Prime Minister was a vocal supporter of crypto and blockchain technology.
Regulation
As for the need for a regulatory framework, I think many of us in the crypto space are not buying it though a few would be favorable to it. Until now, they cannot regulate the Eurodollar market after decades of its existence and yet they want to regulate a sector that is just following the footstep of the Eurodollar market except of course from the role of commercial banks.
Interoperability
Interoperability is something commendable. We need communication between chains. The writer identified several names who are working on this project. They include Polkadot, Cosmos, Gear Protocol, Namada, and Anoma.
Security
As for security, yes that’s something that has been exposed in recent years, especially in the FTX case, the vulnerability of centralized wallet providers.
Scalability
This is the section that I find most educational. Scalability is defined as:
. . . the ability of a blockchain network to handle an increasing number of transactions or users without compromising its performance, security, or decentralization (Source).
TM’s talk about infrastructure is now making sense to me as it relates to scalability. Now I realized why the increasing number of users can also affect the speed of transactions if the network has not been properly scaled. As for the connection of lack of scaling to high fees, I think that is not a problem here on Hive for now for our transaction is feeless, or in the case of decentralized exchanges on Hive, the amount is insignificant.
Furthermore, I am glad to know that there are several approaches to scaling:
On-Chain – Changing the blockchain protocol directly.
Off-Chain – Processing transactions outside of the main blockchain.
Layer 2 Solutions – I am wondering if these are similar to the many front-ends we have here on Hive. If this is the case, I am now wondering how the front ends of other blockchain networks work to solve their scaling issues.
Sharding – This is new to me. This is defined as “splitting the blockchain into smaller parts.”
Consensus Algorithm Changes. This is self-explanatory.
Sidechains – These are separate blockchains connected to the main chain. I wonder what’s the difference between sidechains and front ends. Source
My key takeaway about the importance of scalability for mainstream adoption is that it is really necessary for a blockchain network to handle the demands of an increasing user base worldwide. Is Hive ready for such growth? We will see.
Ok, I think that’s it for my short talk on CBDC, SEC, and crypto mainstream adoption.
Grace and peace!
Note: This is the transcript I used in the 3Speak video where I talked about CBDC, SEC, and Crypto Mainstream Adoption.