People
Layne Hartsell

Knows something about cryptocurrencies / digital assets

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Layne Hartsell

Next, Bitcoin is a peer to peer commons as far as the code goes, and was supposed be a system where people could send money easily and cheaply, and also create money using their own computers. In the real world. It has scarcity built-in, and the key point is the cryptography that links blocks of transactions together. This solves a couple problems for verification of wealth or value and thus the Nakamoto blockchain was the first and is the most popular. The criticism is that miners consolidated into a mining oligarchy and that has not changed. The other major criticism of BTC is energy use, which is too high for what we get. The BTC community, while there are highly skilled engineers and developers in it, has been unable to enact substantial upgrades to the system. Since the code is open sourced, a key point, others are forking or cloning BTC and doing a number of things: 1. to try to get to the original idea of the digital asset, 2. make a quick buck on the name of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is one of the more legitimate forks, and there are perhaps by now, December, there have be about seven forks.

The lack of upgrade has led BTC into being a store of value or commodity like gold, digital gold. It isn't going to be a currency. For the digital currencies, DASH is better. I think analysts at the SEC, World Bank and others are calling this new class not currencies but digital assets, digital commodities and the like. There will be further classifications due to the ERC 20 type 'tokens' or DAPPs that will operate on Ethereum and NEO.

My position on BTC is known and follows that of the P2P Foundation, though I am less inclined to worry too much about the scarcity of BTC. It is one of many good projects out there. My position on ETH and NEO are also favorable due to generalized system as protocol/platform undergirding for the Internet of Verification.

When you quoted me on he Red Pulse link, yes, that is a descriptive comment, not a position. Those kinds of research projects are interesting and are P2P market systems. In that link, Red Pulse is distributing a percentage of its tokens.