Do we know who invented Bitcoin? Well,Yes and NO...
It is Satoshi Nakamoto, the "person" who first published the white paper and source code for BTC, interacted with the very early Bitcoin community in 2009-2010, and then disappeared. We have absolutely no idea about who actually is. We have no idea about his image, his real name, whether it is a man, woman, organization, or even a government! All we know is "he" completely disappeared and left his great contribution to humanity without even letting us say "thank you" to him...
In 2018, Vitalik Buterin, the legend guy behind Ethereum, made the headlines by stating that his creation would not attain the desired success unless he takes a step back sooner or later. And although he emphasized that he wouldn't suddenly abandon ETH, the fact that there were several updates and forks without him involved was interesting, to say the least...
This begs the question of why two of the greatest minds that have pretty much shaped the crypto world choose to live behind the scenes. Wouldn't it be better if they continued being the guiding light for their projects??
Decentralization is the way to go...
I think we're all aware that the motive which drove Satoshi Nakamoto to completely disappear was the great desire for decentralization. He simply wanted BTC to be independent and untied from any single party, even himself. To that end, he was willing to sacrifice some of the short-term gains in order to achieve the broader goal. In fact, the reason why there are so many people, institutions, and even governments considering adding BTC to their balance sheets is its neutrality and independence from anything else.
They feel they are getting involved in something isolated from outsider effects. Imagine if Bitcoin creator was known and something bad happened to him, wouldn't that impact Bitcoin massively in a negative manner? of course, it would...
On a parallel side, Vitalik seems to be trying to carry Ethereum to the same place as Bitcoin. A place that is completely neutral and isolated. That's why he is slowly but surely getting away from Ethereum, letting others pick up where he will inevitably leave off. I think this is exactly why Ethereum has the largest ever developer community in the crypto market.
source
sourceSo, if Vitalik resigned, stepped down, or even (god forbid) died, this might affect Ethereum in the short term but would most likely fade in the long term.
Another factor that assures decentralization beats centralization is the very recent SEC's crackdown on several cryptocurrencies that it considered securities...According to the SEC, any token with a team, company, or a third party whom investors rely on to expect profits should be considered a security. Funnily enough, it seems that Vitalik's partial divorce from Ethereum might be one of the main reasons which spare it from the clutches of the SEC so far. And this might have something to do with the fact that former SEC director, Bill Hinman, stated in 2018 that "Ethereum is not a security because it is sufficiently decentralized"
Back to the entire crypto market though, it is a bit scaring to note that over 99% of cryptos are at risk from the SEC attack because they all have official teams, companies or personalities which promise investors profits in some way or another...Well, I guess Hive might be one of the 1% survivors in that sense...
What do you guys think? I'm keen to read your opinions and thoughts...