Full Disclaimer:
I am invested in and spend a great deal of time working with the VeriCoin/Verium developers, the VeriCoin/Verium Community and the Cryptocurrency Community as a whole. It's become far more than a banal financial investment as I've grown to truly appreciate not only the technology but the ideology that this technology is attempting to emulate.
TL;DR can be found at the bottom of the article.
New, Innovative Blockchain Based Technology? Meh.
"If not... why should I care?"
That's one of the very few questions people initially ask me when I'm approached about all of this Bitcoin/VeriCoin "balderdash." "Why should I care? What's in it for me? Will it make me rich?"
(I'm sure, by now, everyone is already aware of the other, more uninformed yet pointed questions the average person fires away with not long after). Yet here I am. One short paragraph in and I've already digressed.
In almost every financial category you can imagine the phrase "It's who you know" always pops up when talking about business. While that still rings true - that may not completely be the whole story in this particularly volatile, still burgeoning industry. It appears as if what matters the most to people in these parts is, unsurprisingly, money. Shocking. I know but hey, well, that's just how the world works right? At least in this dimension. The undeniable truth is Bitcoin reigns supreme. There is NO dispute that Bitcoin is the on/off ramp for the masses to transition from traditional banking to indulging in, what seems to be, a plethora of other Cryptocurrencies available to them these days.
(Fun Fact: According to http://coinmarketcap.com there are now 775 Cryptocurrencies to choose from).
That said it certainly appears as if early adopters and investors are the arbiter's of how this should all work - which, obviously, leads to questions regarding human imposed centralization in an ideologically driven decentralized technology. No I don't think that every Cryptocurrency should be treated as equals because the majority of them are simply cloned code created with a single, blatantly obvious intention. (I touch on why that is later in this article). Nonetheless, whether centralized or not, reasonable, well thought out judgment calls have to be made in any worthwhile, long term business model.
Should Bitcoin be the ONLY way to purchase other Cryptocurrencies?
I propose a simple, straight forward question. Dismissing all of the "in-fighting" over block size and so forth, does Bitcoin, at its heart, have developers working day in and day out rigorously attempting to improve upon the technology?
Absolutely.
There is no doubt that, whether pro Core or Classic, these are human beings isolating themselves from their families, missing out on important every day life affairs and instead focusing intently on bettering the world in their own small way. Blood, (okay well maybe not Blood), sweat, tears, time and in many instances, (read:most), spending the little money they do have hoping to woo the attention of acclaimed cryptographers, the minds and hearts of the Cryptocurrency community and aspiring for other like-minded individuals to simply appreciate their vision. Most developers I've been fortunate enough to cross paths with do it because they genuinely love solving difficult problems AND it is, sometimes, possible for them to earn a little profit while doing so.
Who doesn't want to do what they love for a living and get paid for it?
Greed trumps integrity and stifles innovation.
However the exact same sentiment applies to a good portion of other, lesser known or even anonymous developers who work with ::gasp:: - projects which are, for the most part, unrelated to either Bitcoin or Ethereum.
I can confirm that these under-represented, under-appreciated developers are not mythical creatures nor are they inherently out to intentionally deceive others just so they can turn a profit. To be fair, there aren't many. I don't know a lot of them but I know enough to know that they do exist. Whether you agree with their idea or wildly different use-case's that their Blockchain related projects, may or may not solve, is really a matter of personal opinion.
The brutal truth is that most of the Cryptocurrencies on these markets are/were created simply so small, yet fairly wealthy and influential "groups" can easily leverage low Market Cap currencies and reap profits from Pump and Dumps ::ahem:: Market Makers in this every person for themselves - Free Market. It is, admittedly, fascinating to watch. It's akin to witnessing a train wreck. Hard to watch but arguably more difficult to dismiss entirely.
Nevertheless because this is still early I like to think of this space as an economical representation of chaos theory. A truly Open and Free Market? Sure. Aside from the scams (and scammers) I personally don't have any issue with it myself. New users really need to realize the amount of risk involved and only invest with what they are completely willing to lose.
However, this Wild West mentality does blur the line of discerning who is who, what is what and the intentions/motives any developers may have. When one factors in the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and/or the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) - it becomes extremely difficult, read:impossible, to weed out SOME of the day traders from the technologists and vice versa. It's quite the quest to unearth authentic, legitimately talented developers/community members/hackers etc, with authentic intentions of improving upon Satoshi's legacy in the best ways they know how.
Welcome to the TL;DR Section. Yay!
The Double Edged Sword
Knock, knock. We're on the same side.
This is an open letter to those who have earned the opportunity to sit around at "round", beautifully handcrafted, (cherry oak perhaps?), "tables" at discrete private resorts. Look - I personally commend Coinbase, (Brian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam, Adam White etc), for slowly but surely slightly opening that door with GDAX for both Ethereum and Litecoin.
Technically it would have been nice to see Ethereum Classic added as well but that's an entirely different topic to tackle.
Competition breeds innovation
Admittedly, right now, it's a double edged sword for any Cryptocurrency NOT named Bitcoin to thrive without massive investments as these entire "Altcoin" markets rely solely on Bitcoin at the moment. Exchanges want/need to make a profit. To make profit from transactional fees they need digital currencies to have liquidity/volume.
And there in lies the rub. Some of the best Cryptocurrencies, technologically speaking, don't have that kind of volume. To get that type of volume they, ironically, need to be listed on prominent Bitcoin exchanges such as BitStamp, BTCC, iTBit, Kraken, bitFlyer etc.
**GDAX is a step in the right direction but if we're talking about a TRULY Free Market - where is VeriCoin (and matched pairing with Verium)? Where is MaidSafe? Where is Monero, NXT and DASH? DeCred? Nexus? Even SuperNET is working hard on Iguana. I mean just look at SteemIt. Arguably one of the best use-cases for decentralized technology there is right now and you still have to go through the long winded Bitcoin process if you wanted to trade it.
Truthfully I won't pretend to know what kind of red tape there is on "your" end. FinCen, AML, KYC and, overall, regulatory bodies are watching as this industry grows. Hell - traditional banking institutions have already hijacked the technology, in some cases, even attempting to patent it etc. Like Doug Pike aka @effectsToCause said "Less overhead will always win".
At the end of the day I can't, (and don't), speak for ALL Cryptocurrencies and their intentions but I can say that, for the most part, we are all in this together. Everyone can build great peer to peer, distributed ledgers and still reap the rewards for doing so. Some of the larger, more prominent movers and shakers in this industry simply need to take a look "down" at some of us "common folk" every now and then.
Adversity spawns ingenuity.
Simply put - I happen to believe it's long overdue to shake things up. Because... why not?
Perhaps I'm a bit impatient. If so - please bear with me and take this article with a grain of salt. I'm always willing to talk, listen and learn.
Regards. More importantly cheers to all of the underdogs in this space. We can relate.
Jay Jay
Twitter: @VeryVeriViral