Laws are created in order to allow society to operate cohesively and with clear guidance on what will work best for the society as a whole. When someone believes that they are bigger or better than society, it causes a disruption that tears at the very fabric that has allowed civilization to reach their advanced stages within succumbing to complete chaos. In many ways, certain cryptocurrency developers are trying to change the Bitcoin ecosystem to one that is completely chaotic and without a civilized purpose, and Dr. Craig Wright explains in a recent Medium post why code can never be law.
Since ten years ago, many groups – Anonymous, WikiLeaks, etc. – have existed and sought to completely turn society upside down. These groups are part of the reason Bitcoin was brought about, an effort to fight the anti-security movement and the criminal groups that have cropped up from the movement.
These groups all believe that individual privacy is paramount to anything society can offer. The members of the groups, due to their own ineptitude, fail to see the bigger picture of what would happen if society didn’t exist. However, there are also others who use the privacy argument just to try and push their own agendas.
Wright asserts, “Greg Maxwell has been a thorn in my side for a long time. Even now, he is seeking to create a Zero Knowledge Contingent Payment system, basically everything Bitcoin isn’t. They will make claims of privacy, but such was never part of what it was designed for. One of the reasons for the Zero Knowledge Contingent Payment system that is in development has been to enable conditional payments for ransomware.”
As Wright points out, ransomware is a big deal. The US economy alone loses more than $1 billion each year to it, and there are plenty of associated risks. “There is no way of provably knowing that it is the attacker who is shaking you down for money or even if they haven’t lost it. Right now, if any of such scammers create a network that is too large or too efficient, they are traced and law enforcement will arrest them,” explains Wright.
Bitcoin, as it was originally designed, is capable of ruining everything anarchists want, and this scares them. Certain coders want to be able to determine how to shape the future, based on their own personal agendas, and Bitcoin was never designed to allow that to happen. Wright states, “Bitcoin works in part because you cannot erase the logs. When people talk about systems that are more anonymous, ones that are designed to lose logs, or even those like Lightning that hide connections, what they are seeking to do is take away part of what makes Bitcoin strong and secure; it is the aspect of not being able to alter information that they want to remove.”
The true Bitcoin will ultimately prevail, supported by the acknowledgment that it provides everything needed in a currency and that it can still work within a mature, responsible society. Other alternatives, such as Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash, will ultimately be relegated to being used for trading back and forth, devoid of any real-world value.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
