With today’s “little” rally in Ethereum’s original blockchain tokens, it’s tempting to reflect that we may just have witnessed one of those milestone moments in cryptocurrency history.
It’s not difficult to identify a basis for the apparent market rebellion’ against the Ethereum hardfork. But is it really a rebellion or is it part of an unconsciously co-ordinated action of mass social intent by all parties concerned ?
An Ambiguous Offering
What was the basis for ‘ethereum-core’ providing the hardfork ? It was to selectively wipe out a piece of blockchain history which the technology was specifically designed to faithfully preserve. However, in doing so, they’ve now replaced it with a much more toxic piece of historical precedent - the loss of authenticity.
According to any reasonable dispassionate appraisal, the DAO hack would have been unlikely to have had any major long term effects given that blockchain did its job perfectly. So perfectly in fact that it threw any “human problems” back out where they belonged - into the realm of socio-technological politics and market economics. Arguments about the hacker controlling large amounts of funds are now moot alongside the much greater catastrophe of loss of consensus across all four stakeholder quadrants - market, miners, developers and holders which has resulted in a disintegrated asset amongst other damage.
The core personnel behind the policy of the hard fork, being a reasonably smart bunch, will have been well aware of these potential outcomes and their high level of likelihood. The question must therefore be asked why ?
The potential answers are well rehearsed throughought all known oratory vehicles in cryptoland. One aspect of these stands out however - the fact that key Ethereum personnel were so tangled up in what was essentially a client application of their technology.
Any person of good conscience in the same position would probably have had little choice therefore but to address the ‘politics’ of the problem with the only tool available to them, even though it drove a stake through the very same authenticity offering that had led to its gargantuan valuation rise in the first place.
Completing the Circle Dance
However, today’s events have shown that we’ve only seen the first two acts and the drama isn’t yet complete. In a toxic act of suicidal governance, the developers have “done the right thing” by the DAO investors and given them an escape route from their own risk-stewed folly. It therefore remains for the market to return the favour and put the value back where it belongs - in the authentic chain. This will provide a bridge for all concerned back to sanity, security and logical integrity with minimum loss of dignity.
Looks like ACT III is already in progress.