Blockchain and Crypto: What Are its First Principles?

Especially during times like these, it's important for the crypto industry to remind itself of its first principles that started the whole thing to begin with. Every cycle, when the hype gets too much, people tend to forget - but what keeps the movement alive are the fundamentals of what got people excited to begin with.

"No Debt" - The fact that you cannot go into debt in crypto is something that's understated, even now. Satoshi was originally envisioning a world where 2008 and a debt-based economy was literally not possible - and is much more radical than most people give it credit for.

"Not Your Keys, Not Your Coin" - This phrase went away as exchanges got more popular and people started getting lazy with self-custody, but it's still the only real way to protect yourself from outside forces

"Your Wallet, Your Identity" - the bigger aspirations for crypto wallets was to become an identity platform, that was supposed to replace email by making it more secure and portable. True crypto proponents should be encouraging people to use their wallet addresses to build up history/credibility at all times, otherwise the system just doesn't work.

"Verify, Not Trust" - Permissionless systems only work when trust is not needed. Show, not tell.

"Incentives Are Everything" - Crypto was supposed to be a testing ground for alternative economic models, by offering new and innovative incentive structures to make business models more sustainable and efficient.

The challenge for the industry is that these things need to happen all at the same time, or the system will not work. These big picture issues can't be solved with startups working on one thing in isolation - it needs to be "all or nothing" or you might as well not be doing it at all.

A lot of these ideas got watered down during the hype cycle but I'm hoping that people will come back around to it eventually.

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