"Well, I guess we got kind of sidetracked by all those MAD GAINZ, BRO!"

"Wealth-distribution... decentralization... free, borderless and open trade... dismantling traditional financial systems... liberalism, voluntarinism and minimalization of government overreach..."

In my eyes, Bitcoin stood for one thing, and was meant to serve one purpose, and one purpose only:

"Sound money" - money without central issuance; allowing key players to control the system.

"A peer-to-peer electronic cash system", to quote the Satoshi whitepaper, if we want to be exact.

All in order to get away from the regulation, government control, and commercial interests that affect our every day lives, more than most people care to think about, or admit.

Today it is SO much more... for better or for worse...
First came NameCoin... And Litecoin... Vertcoin... XCoin/Dark coin/DASH...
And that turned out only being the beginning of what we now know as "the crypto space".

When Ethereum took it to a whole new level, we started seeing thousands of crypto currencies, coins and tokens;
10's - if not 100's - of crypto exchanges all around the world;
ICOs, pyramid and ponzi schemes, and of course - plain con-artists and out right scams.

And here we are today.

This post has been sitting as a draft in my SteemIt account for a while, since I have been working on other projects, but it isn't a coincidence, that I have been able to quickly see it's relevance now, after reading and seeing some of the feedback and criticism, that the annual Consensus Summit in New York, held in the past few days has brought about, from the "crypto OG" community and different media-outlets*.

Personally I was not there, and can't speak directly to all of the criticism, but have to be honest and say that my gut feeling is, that the conference wasn't a great affair for the space overall in the short term.

* I have NO opinion on the projects depicted above - they are simply there for making a point, and I cannot speak to their individual validity, goal or anything else relating to them - I can recommend watching the YouTube clip of Tone Vays interviewing this absolutely clueless "token" actor, depicted in the final image if you want a good laugh though :)

The Good, The Bad, and the... ?

Regulatory entities and commercial companies, adapting to and thank god - to some extent - even adopting this new technology - but in some cases perhaps a bit unnecesarily.

Private companies and ICOs ranging from genuine to outright scammy, that are taking up more and more of this space, and _*maybe*_ just as bad or, even worse; derivatives markets, possible upcoming ETF's and speculative maneuvering in the existing derivatives space.

Basically enabling the system we wanted to escape to participate at arms length, and affect "our" liberal economic experiment (for lack of better wording).

One could even argue, that a decentralized technology - created, developed and brought to where it is today, by "we the people" - is being hijacked by the very people we wanted to take the central control away from in the first place.

Never the less - this is where we are at.

Instead of "simply" carrying out the experiment of "sound money", we have thrown ourselves in to the clutches of the established system - or maybe they just grabbed us, and we never had a choice - it's hard to tell at this point.

But was this really the goal?

Was this really the path carved out by Satoshi, when he sat down and thought up the concept, and put it in the whitepaper? What is he/she/they thinking, if they are even still around?

Maybe it was - maybe it wasn't...

Maybe no one thought it would ever get this far...

Maybe this was all just a thought experiment that got way beyond its intention...

At this point, we will most probably never know, if what is happening right now is good or bad in the short term - provided we get through them unscatched in the long term, which I am sure we will.
Since this is just how it is right now, that isn't something we can go back and A/B test again from a future standpoint - if we succeed with the overall goal, we can't necessarily, objectively say whether this was a good or a bad thing.

Pandoras box is now open, and closing it doesn't seem an option - again...

And to be completely frank with you, I'm glad that I don't have the answer to any of my questions yet, since it allows me to maintain hope, that the initial intentions and results of this monetary, and since then social (r)evolution, has become.

So I do still carry that hope, and will continue to "fight for that part of the cause" - even if it only by sharing my thoughts, or stimulating thoughts in others at best.

In the end, I actually believe that "We the people", stand a strong, and perhaps 'finally' evendible chance, to move on to the next step of the socio-/philosophical-/anthropoligal- ladder, without anyone being able to hold us back, for better or for worse.

But despite having to see a lot of opportunistic abuse of something I believe in, basically since it's inception - I believe in it none-the-less...

And we can hopefully not be brought to a standstill as a global society any longer, while we can also be able to set forth our own terms on how we avoid just that, by choosing how we each help to forward the space as a whole, in any way we can.

*CryptoTicker.io - Consensus 2018: A Blatant Rent-Seeking Operation?
*SlugeFeed.com - Consensus 2018: How Not to Host a Blockchain Summit

Brevity is the soul of wit - and longevity the soul of the contemplative!

#0.0 - Who am I, and how did I get here? [intro]
#0.1 - Who am I, and how did I get here? [pt. II]

#1.0 - How the DeepWeb made me a HODL'er
#1.1 - The power of addiction...

#2.0 - If something seems too good to be true...
#2.1 - Is Bitcoin the exception to the rule..?

#3.0 - The revolution that never came... [Pt. I]
#3.1 - The revolution that never came... Or did it? [Pt. II]

#4.0 - Is Bitcoin doing its job?
#4.1 - Is Bitcoin working... and are you putting it to work?

#5.0 - Why you should spend Bitcoin NOW, no matter what the price is...
#5.1 - The reasons for spending your bitcoin, constantly
#5.2 - Getting the most out of buying bitcoin by spending them - HODL'er edition

#6.1 - Crypto Currency; from anarchism to socio-capitalism..?