Historically, governments are the enemy of the people.
This is the case no matter what the form of government we look at. Ultimately, they all want to gain power. The idea of government shrinking is nothing more than talking point by some politicians. It rarely happens. These entities keep growing in size, swallowing up more of people's lives.
The tendency is for government, or more specifically the people in it, to get upset at things it cannot control. When we look at the present state, we see this with technology. One of the main pieces is cryptocurrency.
We see debate about governments wanting to control this new mechanism. Tokenization is something that, in their view, has to be approved.
Since it is, in the eyes of most, money, the governments treat it similar to the existing monetary laws and regulations.
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Cryptocurrency Is A Technology That Follows Set Rules
Technology is established. It operates according to set rules. This occurs regardless of what governments do. When it gets released into the wild, i.e. the open market, things advance.
It is especially true when we are dealing on a global scale.
With cryptocurrency, we are dealing with something that is spreading worldwide. By this, I am not referring to the usage, although that is part of it. More importantly, it is the development.
Artificial intelligence is teaching us a great deal about this path of technology. We are watching things unfold at an accelerated rate, enabling us to follow the process. It is amazing what a few entities armed with a number of developers can accomplish.
So let us take a look at some of what takes place.
An All Out Race
The first thing we see is an all out race. This is really obvious with chatbots.
We saw the first major release, by OpenAi in November 2022. Hence, we are about 18 months in and each week brings something new.
One day OpenAi has a major release; Google the next. Claude, Grok, and Llama are all training their next generation systems. Then we have the Chinese doing their thing.
This filters down to other levels.
Over time, more entities get involved, focusing upon different areas. The quest to reach the finish line ahead of others is evident.
Spread Out
Chatbots were the first major piece, at least from the end user perspective. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg.
We are seeing the expansion into many different areas.
In addition to LLMs, there are entities working on SLMs. Some are focusing upon chips, with LPUs getting more attention. Availability is on more than just text, with video and image creation advancing at an equally high rate.
AI agents are another wave where the basic model is taken and more specific applications are generated. This allows for greater personalization, something that is necessary in the quest for the personal AI assistant.
We have it appearing in many of the products.
A company like Google is implementing their advancements in all they offer. Microsoft is integrating what OpenAI created. Grok is available on X. Meta incorporates Llama into its applications.
This means users are gaining more exposure, even without changing what they do. This technology is simply showing up in applications they commonly utilize.
Government Is Worried
While there is valid reason to have some concern, the idea that governments are going to protect from AI is ridiculous.
Yet, we see the same political and bureaucratic hacks running their traps about how we, the people, need protection. Honestly, has Gary Gensler protected anyone from the "dangers of crypto"? For all her grandstanding over the last decade, has Elizabeth Warren saved anyone from financial (banking) dangers?
Trump is now pro-crypto which is a reversal of his administration, which wasn't much very friendly to it. Of course, he is just campaigning at the momenr. If he takes office again, he will have his version of Gensler. Remember Mnuchin's stance on Bitcoin?
There is a reason why governments are worried. Contrary to the idea pushed, it is not due to the threat of the populations they supposedly serve. It is because technology can be a threat to their power.
AI is potentially bigger than governments. It could end up creating companies that dwarf them. For example, Sam Altman stated that he believes OpenAI can, one day, become a $100 trillion company. While this seems absurd today, it is not a crazy thought.
The point here is not the value, but the economic might it would wield if this came into being.
And here is the real problem: if we total all the future value of all the companies working on this, it could end up well over $100 trillion.
While this might not be better for humanity, since we are simply switching overlords, it does show the lack of resiliency of government when dealing in the digital realm.
The companies could be exponential; governments are the exact opposite.
The Power Of A Few
Relatively speaking, Silicon Valley is very small.
If we consider the number of people who work in those companies, it is a fraction of, say, retail. There are roughly 250K-300K people employed in Silicon Valley. As a contrast, globally, there are tens of millions in healthcare.
However, the power this one area exerts far outpaces most others of comparable size.
It is where the exponential nature of technology enters. With cryptocurrency, a million developers around the world could far outpace anything the government can do. Simply put, it losses the numbers game.
This takes on even more meaning once we introduce the open source nature of things. AI agents are going to spread like nothing we have seen before since the LLMs can all be connected to. This means developers are going to generation millions of them, many on the market for anyone to utilize.
Cryptocurrency is the same way.
Consider this a "digital uprising". It is not what the average person does as much as those building. They are the major contributors.
The situation, however, changes greatly when the average person realizes, due to technology, he or she can become a major builder. There are a lot of opportunities.
We are going to see cryptocurrency following the same path as other technologies. These are a few of the characteristics which arise. Apply what we are seeing with AI to cryptocurrency and notice the parallels. The pace is much different yet the unfolding is the same.
For this reason, the stopping of it is unlikely. We have seen a lot released with more coming.
This will only accelerate as more people get involved.