Crypto space is at its early stage and many projects are only promises at the moment. When you have so many projects like we have with similar ideas and goals, it is not easy to know whom to believe and who will fulfil their promises.
It is very important at the moment who is behind which project. Like in any part of life, there are scammers in Crypto world but because of lack of regulations for Crypto, number of them is higher over here. If you look at most successful projects now, most of them have well known people in crypto space behind them:
- Ethereum - Vitalik Buterin
- EOS - Dan Larimer
- Cardano - Charles Hoskinson
- NEO - Da Hongfei
- Litecoin - Charlie Lee
- Iota - David Sonstebo
- Ripple - Brad Garlinghouse
- Bitcoin Cash - Roger Ver
- Tron - Justin Sun
I can go on and on with this but I think that you see the point. This is normal of course, because it is easier to believe for example to Dan Larimer, who already made some successful projects than some unknown developer without anything behind him.
This is all normal, like I said but for me it is VERY DANGEROUS for the projects that supporters of these projects are glorifying and iconsizing leaders.
Each of these leaders have its own cult of supporters who thinks that ONLY their leader is the ONE and that he has answer for any question and solution for any problem. It is very funny for me how people react for example on anything that Vitalik Buterin is saying... Yes, Vitalik is genius and he made great successful project but does he knows everything about anything? Of course NO.
Why I think that this is very dangerous for these projects?
First of all, cult supporters will follow all what their leader is doing. We talk about decentralized immutable projects, than Vitalik decide to reverse Ethereum blockchain and then for his blind supporters that is OK. Yea I know that ETH supporters will say that there was consensus for that, but I am sure that deep down even them don't believe in that.
If some project depend so much of one person, it is not safe project. Imagine if for example Vitalik abandone Ethereum project (Instead of Vitalik can be any of these leaders), I am sure that that would have terrible consequences for it. Probably it would survive, like Bitshares has survived Dan's leaving but it won't be successful like it deserve. Bitshares is great project but its development is very slow since that...
This is why I think that BITCOIN is BEST and SAFEST project out there because Satoshi(whoever his is) was smart enough to leave on time.
I really hate when some people pronouncing Satoshi's vision. This is why I don't respect what Roger Ver is doing with Bitcoin Cash. Satoshi has his ideas back then and obviously he was genius but nobody knows what he would think now about things related to Bitcoin. Technology is developing and Bitcoin is developing together with new technologies.
Thomas Edison was great inventor and he invented many great things for the world. He was genius for sure. Even being extremely smart, he was fighting against Nikola Tesla and his AC current. And Nikola Tesla was right, AC current is much better than DC current because it can go on longer distances. Without Nikola Tesla's AC, modern world would be different If we just have followed Thomas Edison.
Wright brothers invented airplane. Imagine if we have followed Wright brothers vision of airplane. Probably we would fly around in wooden airplanes. I think you understand my point and why I hate pronouncing today Satoshi's vision...
Probably it is not possible in so early phase of Crypto development that we don't follow leaders so much. When Crypto space mature, probably would be different. Take Apple for example. When project is well established, business is going fine even without great leader. Apple is great company, even without Steve Jobs it is dominant in its space.
My point is, we shouldn't blindly follow anything and anyone and we should be open for new opinions and ideas, no meter if we are just users or superstar developers.
I would like to hear and discuss your opinions about this.