

Well, I had not been involved in cryptocurrency development at all until Bitcoin Cash. I had a pre-existing relationship with Amaury Séchet who designed all the Bitcoin Cash protocol changes; and was asked for my help. There was a lot I didn't understand at the time.

Many details about how cryptocurrencies function -- in practice; as opposed to the dogma -- that aren't obvious until you're working on the node software itself and you start having to interact with industrial miners, exchanges, and the user base.

But yes, I think the technology is worthwhile and I still work on it heavily in my free time -- just not Bitcoin Cash. I have a couple projects I am slowly working on, but it's not my intent of my post to advertise them -- if you want to know ask and I'll tell you about them.

There are technical problems with cryptocurrency, but most of those are fixable. The biggest problem with cryptocurrency is people. My current projects are an attempt to address both sets of issues.

The following might be off-putting, but some of the unintuitive things I learned:

1. People en-masse almost always follow economic incentives. 2. People rationalize their behavior and will tell you reasonably sounding explanations; but they are really following incentives and are quite predictable. Not on an individual level, but on a group level. 3. People often are not able to understand counterfactual thinking regarding economics. They will explain how something makes economic sense -- but it only makes in the absence of considering alternative futures from the one under consideration. 4. Most people are not able to understand the economic incentives of other individuals. They lack "empathy" in this regard. 5. Money attracts sociopaths like moths to a flame. I have never seen so much toxicity in one "place" until I started working on Bitcoin Cash. I do not believe it is unique to that "community." 6. This is probably the most controversial thing: if you look at the core groups shilling any particular cryptocurrency, they are attracted to that cryptocurrency because the economic incentives align with their value system. Ultimately the value of cryptocurrency comes from how people value it, and that comes from a value system (or a belief system). They are best understood as pseudo-religious cults.

With 6 said, the relationship between the value system and the cryptocurrency is bi-directional. When you hitch your financial future to the success of a coin it has a way of perverting the beliefs of the individuals invested in them.

Money is now being issued by pseudo-religions for the benefit of the members. Imagine what would happen if Scientology had its own cryptocurrency? It would obtain "superpowers" as now there's an economic incentive to join. You get "paid" to join, and you have a large incentive to bring in new members due to the impact of Metcalfe's law (network value increases quadratically with number of users). Right now, these "communities" are coalescing organically, but eventually things like Scientology will "catch up". You can already see it with Bitcoin SV and it's personality cult around Craig Wright (who I met many times) backed by Calvin Ayre.

I was raised in a very problematic religious cult and managed to escape -- and I find this very troubling. I also think it is an inevitability.

Thanks a lot for putting these "unintuitive things". I'd really love to see a longer-form writing from you elaborating on them.

Sure, I can do that. If you want to talk about what kind of long-form information you'd like to see you let's talk on telegram? https://t.me/micropresident

Great to hear your perspective on things, thank you!
