Transparency and government, or why anonymity doesn’t belong in crypto

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It has already been established, for those that actually read the Bitcoin whitepaper, that cryptocurrency was never meant to be lawless or allow for an anonymous system of any kind. Just like what has been seen with every kind of economic system, though, there are those who always try to manipulate the outcome for their own financial gain. In a new blog post, Dr. Craig Wright provides an update on the true definition of Bitcoin as it relates to transparency and government interaction.

Bitcoin was built on the premise of allowing individuals to conduct monetary transactions privately, without having to run them through a central bank, but not anonymously. The distinction is big, but, when the first Bitcoin alternatives, such as BTC and Ether, were introduced, they tried to blend the two together. Wright points out, “Bitcoin is not anonymous. And whether we’re talking about Plato’s ‘Ring of Gyges’ or the revisiting story of ‘The Invisible Man’ by HG Wells, it has been clear throughout human history that no man remains moral without his actions being monitored and viewed. The same applies to both people and the institutions we create. Governments require transparency to remain honest and aligned with the needs of the people they represent.”

Alex Gladstein, who says he’s all for democracy on his Twitter page, recently uploaded a YouTube video in which he complains about China and its plan for a digital currency. From the start, it becomes clear that he has no real understanding of Bitcoin or, perhaps, currency, as he says that “[BTC] keeps users anonymous…” This has already been proven to not be true and, given that the seven pillars of democracy include “the rule of law, freedom of expression, accountability and transparency, decentralization, and civil society,” it isn’t possible to have democracy with anonymity.

The video also talks about the stability of gold, which is a fallacy, as well. Wright explains, “In the YouTube video, the presenter says that gold does not increase in supply by more than 2% in any year. Which is false. The overall gold supply has not been steady. Some years have seen 8% changes to the total supply. In particular, the discovery and production of gold in South Africa following 1886 radically changed the distribution of the global gold supply; the introduction of the South African gold supplies in the period following 1886 both radically altered the distribution of gold globally and drastically changed the total available supply. Between 1980 and 1987, the production of gold in the U.S. increased by 407%.”

As soon as anyone begins to equate Bitcoin with anonymity or even gold, it is obvious that they don’t understand the true purpose or nature of cryptocurrency. Those individuals are only parroting what the BTC community would have everyone believe, and these concepts are far from Bitcoin’s original intent.

Bitcoin doesn’t make an economic system darker; it makes it more transparent—more than any current system could ever hope to manage. As Wright concludes, “It is not Bitcoin that adds surveillance, it is the government, and it will do so with or without Bitcoin. In fact, the blockchain adds transparency, allowing both the Chinese government and other governments and even human rights activists to start monitoring how the system is monitored. Transparency does not create tyranny; anonymity and shade do. It is the fact that everything is public that allows Bitcoin to not be controlled by tyrannical governments.”

Read Dr. Craig Wright’s latest blog post, Transparency and Government, here.