Bitcoin Classic rolls out, and days later there is no word about it in the News Media.
Mike Hearn declares Bitcoin dead and within hours it is in the New York Times.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.htmlMark my words: Bitcoin is getting ready to be in a fight for it's life.On one side are the Blockstream/Core players. Liars, manipulators, shill, not afraid to destroy the fabric of Bitcoin with every bit of FUD they can dredge up - even if it kills bitcoin, but if they can't have total control, no one can.
On the other side you have Mike Hearn w/R3CEV/Hyperledger/Banks
(AND Mainstream Media & Govt backing - don't forget that!)We are at the start of a foot race to see who gets ready forst for the upcoming global financial meltdown.
It's pretty clear that Bitcoin Classic will prevail in the upcoming March Fork given the huge amount of support / concensus for it. But Blockstream seems to wat to make this a do or die fight, and they appear to be willing to destroy the good name of bitcoin if they don't get their way. The looming battle may be the perfect backdrop of confusion and chaos for a Fiat Coin to rise from the shadows, and with the help of Gov't & Media nods - be introduced to the masses.
Fasten your seatbelts kiddies.... this is going to be a wild ride. Right now I am betting 50% on Classic / 50% on Fiat Coin. Current 1mb Blockstream/Core Coin not even worth mentioning in my opinion. I see 0.001%.
When one of the most important people in Bitcoin states something like that you have to listen. I read his entire post a couple times. And I generally agree with his description of what has happened and, more importantly, what has not happened. Im not ready to declare that Bitcoin has failed. But Ive always viewed Bitcoin as an experiment that could fail and I still do. I personally own a material amount of Bitcoin, but in our personal asset allocation it is at the very bottom, below our wine collection. And Im not a wine collector.
In every Bitcoin investment weve made at USV, and weve made four with multiple rounds in one, we have identified the failure of Bitcoin as a core risk element. We havent stopped including that in our risk factors. So we have our eyes wide open about the fragility of Bitcoin. But we also have our eyes wide open about the potential and the importance of this technology.
I personally believe we will see a fork accepted by the mining community at some point this year. And that will come with a new set of core developers and some governance about how decisions are made among that core developer team. But it could well take a massive collapse in the price of Bitcoin, breakdowns in the Bitcoin network, or worse to get there. And all of that could cause the whole house of cards to come crashing down. Anything is possible. Even the return of Satoshi to fix things as an AVC regular suggested to me in an email this morning.
The Bitcoin experiment is six years old. There has been a significant amount of venture capital investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem. There are a number of well funded companies competing to build valuable businesses on top of this technology. We are invested in at least one of them. And the competition between these various companies and their visions has played a part in the stalemate. These companies have a lot to gain or lose if Bitcoin survives or fails. So I expect that there will be some rationality, brought on by capitalist behavior, that will emerge or maybe is already emerging.
Sometimes it takes a crisis to get everyone in a room. Thats how the federal budget has been settled for many years now. And that may be how the blocksize debate gets settled to. So if we are going to have a crisis, lets get on with it. No better time than the present.