Dear frontrunners,
Remember the phrase “A decentralized, trustless, permissionless peer-to-peer network?” These words were used in the Bitcoin, then Ethereum, whitepapers published in 2008 and 2014. I think as web3 and the crypto economy continue to advance, the principles which served as crypto’s foundation are unfortunately becoming less relevant. This is true for both builders and crypto consumers. This analysis frames crypto’s original “first principles” against the emerging enterprise blockchain space and Paypal’s recent stablecoin announcement.
To level-set, let’s define the words decentralized, trustless, and permissionless:
- Decentralized = Control & decision making is performed by a distributed network of entities not beholden to a single individual, group or organization.
- Trustless = There is no need to place trust in a third party such as a bank, person, or intermediary.
- Permissionless = No centralized gatekeepers and/or intermediaries throttling access to the network or underlying data
A random walk down blockchain hell.
Enterprise blockchain is a concept I hope never catches on. We do not want a blockchain powered by: Oracle, Microsoft, Google, or heaven forbid Amazon. The unfortunate reality is all of these companies already have some blockchain tech in flight, and as you can imagine, all vendors are permissioned, centralized, and trusted.
