Resisting the Threat of Blockchain Recentralization

I think most can agree that it's been a hell of a long year, in crypto and in general.

The greatest way to reflect back on the year may be to review our expectations as we entered it; to this end, I'd highly recommend a revisitation of the "95 Crypto Theses" post by Ryan Selkis.

My biggest takeaway from 2018 was this: recentralist tricks were in full swing as the year kicked off, and even as opportunists fled the crashing market, we're still surrounded by those who seek to undermine the core principles of our presumed revolution.

For most of the year, I ignored prices - as the market dipped again in June, I was busy bringing the absurdist conference of my dreams to life, and we danced through the streets of Vancouver without a thought or word about money.

Even my punk ass got served by the brutal spiral at the end of this year, losing both my job in the industry and a massive chunk of my savings' worth in fiat.

Halfway through the year, Vlad Zamfir began to solidly document a conversation he's instigated for quite some time: how we can define and understand blockchain governance.

The community rallied to successfully subverted this takeover but it's a cold lesson to close out the year.

I focus on this as a case study because I fear it's the logical conclusion to the year's power struggles, and a sign of more struggles to come.

It would be easy to build a new world that looks much like the old one, but I think we have enough collective chutzpah, and diverse enough opinions, within the cryptocurrency ecosystem to push through the temptation to just elevate new leaders to rule over us in old ways.

Though it's exhausting work, it's way more rewarding than a shiny new set of upgraded shackles.