The host of The Bitcoin Knowledge podcast, Trace Mayer, proposed a new initiative to the Bitcoin community which seems to have gained a lot of support. Mayer said that BTC holders, in celebrating of the Bitcoin Genesis Block creation, should run a proof of keys. Mayer believes that friendly activism is the best way to mark this celebration. This should be done by withdrawing all their BTC funds that are held in exchanges or any other platform that don’t give users full control over their private keys.
If You Don’t Have Control Of Your Keys You Don’t Have Control Of Your Bitcoins
Mayer was the one who started the “not your keys, not your Bitcoins.” campaign some time ago. Since then, he has been a core advocate of this movement. He believes that if all Bitcoin holders make this move in unison, they will be able to raise awareness about the true nature of cryptocurrencies. They will also educate the public on the dangers of giving control of their private keys to third parties even if these bodies promise to provide security and convenience.
On the 9th of December, Mayer posted a tweet about welcoming thousands of people to his movement on the 3rd of January 2019. There will also be a network consensus on that day. He urges all Bitcoin holders to oblige and repeat the action every year until it becomes a tradition. The tweet was as follows:
“Let us all start a new Bitcoin tradition. To celebrate the consensus for proof-of-keys on the 3rd of January, we would declare monetary sovereignty by withdrawing all the Bitcoins with third parties to trusted private keys in consensus.”
Mayers and other creators of this initiative are of the opinion that services that don’t allow users to have full control over their private keys don’t represent the original vision of Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto, he said that the value or solidness of Bitcoin lies in its centralized nature. You will not need any third party to control your funds. However, the use of centralized exchanges changes everything. In Nakamoto’s words:
“What we need is an electronic payment system that is based on cryptographic proof rather than trust. It should allow two parties to perform transactions directly without trusting any third party.”
Many known figures in the cryptocurrency industry have joined the campaign. People like Stacy Herbert, Tuur Demeester, and the official AtomicWallet.io account made comments about the initiative. However, third party service providers in the industry are yet to release any statement about the initiative. They have not talked about the impact of these measures on the industry or their businesses.
Will The Price Of BTC be Affected By This Traditional?
If the BTC owners were converting their cryptocurrencies to cash, the price of BTC would have dropped significantly since that would be a sell-off. However, since they would be transferring them to private addresses, the price may not be affected by the movement.
Right now, BTC is trading at $3,274.39. This means it is up by 1.46% against the USD. The trading volume over a 24 hour period is $3,855,287,568 and the market capitalization is $57,058,116,418. The cryptocurrency is struggling to stay above $3200 but some analysts believe that it will reach bottom at $3000.
