Hello All!

Life gets busy and time awaiteth no man (I checked...that's how it's spelled). All that to say, I haven't written in a while, and every once in a while I get a note from wonderful friends or followers poking my side to make sure I'm still breathing. I am!

I admit, myself like many others, have found it disheartening to gaze at this amazing industry (and by that, I mean crypto duh) and see the puffed up egos with followers in the tens of thousands, while some of the most insightful friends I know barely able to scrape together an email list. I myself have just become very busy writing for others and other life things. The simple truth is that Web 3 Shangri-La is still a very far way off from reality, and there's a good chance it will never make it without the lords of Orwellism stomping it out. There is an astounding need for a few brilliant publishing solutions that simply aren't likely to surface, though it is probably the only truly important use case for someone to succeed with (yeah, I ended in a preposition...come at me bruh!)

Alright, so Gordon's intro ramble out of the way, I'm going to make this a pleasant read for anyone truly interested in a thought piece. If you want those lovely properly formatted 750-1,500 word internet-optimized pieces they are everywhere so take your pick. If you want to sip coffee and picture we're having a conversation and walk away with important ponderings...welcome!!!

What Do You Mean by the whole "Bitcoin, Litecoin, Jealousy Thing, Gordon?"

I'm glad you asked! The first part is easy. The second part is the truly important thing. I'll go ahead and break it down.

Bitcoin

It is now 2023. I believe that means we're on year 14 for Bitcoin! Wow, if we could all go back in time and help it out as a starter project, eh? Imagine what we could do to change the world by cashing some out for fiat at the top a few times, and HODLing the rest for our futures. Ah, but anyone who didn't mine on a crappy laptop while they had a chance is late to the show, no matter how early you were.

14 years! Seriously, that's like, a century in any other commodity or security market: almost nonexistent. Bitcoin is the first to breakthrough all of the previous failures in cryptocurrency. It is a stroke of genius we probably will never see again in our lifetimes. It deserves reflection...and regularly. Not only is Bitcoin "the" invention in the space, it is a breakthrough in math (I'm gonna say "maths" though because I just love the way the Brits Rolls sometimes) but also in utility.

It would be one thing to say "we figured out decentralized money": in my opinion that is still the math even though it sounds like the utility. The breakthrough in math is figuring out things like double-spend and absolute value over time (scarcity done based on work!!!). The true utility is the purity of the idea in actual application. Understanding that the need for Bitcoin or something like it, would be in preserving value over time. It wasn't just about removing trust from the "equation" (see what I did there?), it was about the fact that the same villains who squander markets and yet are too big to fail, are able to print money at will (okay, it really is a little more complex but you get the idea) which absolutely kills any value we try to store in...well really in anything.

Bitcoin is the first, but it also did something significant enough that it still matters whether there is a viable way to turn physical mining into value. People today truly do not understand the importance of this. And that is the fatal error every other project, including ETH and everything built upon it has made.

PoS has meant a few things over the years. Point of sale is one, Proof of Stake is another. The third is the irony that ties staking to its more fitting definition. PoS is a shill's dream, and it places the worst notions of decentralization into the hands of those who are powerful enough to win the odds to their favor. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Bitcoin has also remained the highest in value (proving the model is still significant) and the largest market share. When you consider every genius out there with an idea has had 14 years...again I say...14 yearssssssss, to prove that the dinosaur is dead and this time they truly invented the dinosaur killer...and failed, there is a reason the true intellectuals in the crowd are all going orange.

And then, there's Litecoin.

Litecoin

Litecoin from the start, was described as silver to Bitcoin's gold. I think that continues to be the perfect comparison. It's one of the earliest new projects, and it was an early experiment in using a slightly different algo, Scrypt instead of SHA-256 for encryption. And since Litecoin has weathered a lot of the same technical proofs for more than 12 years now, I think it is fair to say it has done a pretty good job of proving there are some efficiencies and cost-savings by the small fork of a project. From what I understand mining Litecoin also gets you Doge, and who doesn't like a silly mascot?

And Now, the Jealousy Part

So, here we are again. BIP300 and specifically "drivechain" is getting dug up again (I don't even know what kind of grammar that is, but I own it), and so it is the inspiration for this thinker's turmoil. I really don't care about the specifics, because it is the makings of man..the kind of thing that shows mankind's hubris, exposes our weaknesses...our Achilles heel of sorts.

We just can't do the boring, unsexy part without trying to add, "fix", change, "improve".

Earlier in the year it was a much more critical error in judgment with ordinals, and I guess more accurately, inscriptions. A catastrophe in the making, and something at some point that may not be possible to recover from. Introducing something as mind-numbingly stupid and careless as NFTs on the main blockchain is so incredibly absolutely destructive and OBVIOUS as a shill's dream for money laundering, extortion, trafficking, and truly any insult of shadowy supercoders an analogy..I could go on and probably should, but the bottom line is that if you think that Bitcoin needs to compete with others, you don't understand Bitcoin, crypto, venture capital, decentralization, or really anything about the space. Really. It isn't really even debatable. But, in the era of "my truth" and "your truth", we've become an industry of silly repositioning of facts and maths (see?) that we quickly lose site of what all of this stuff is about.

Let ETH be the land of the crapcoins where every single bad idea is experimented. Let people continue to lose billions of dollars (oh shocker...another breach you say?) in DeFi gone wrong. Let ERC-ad-nauseums thouest be minted upon thy vestibule of PoS in its purest definition. Sure, there are some very interesting, dare I even say important projects that have hopped the back of Ethereum. It's a great idea marred by PoS, wokism, and centralization, but it is also a space for some...very little but some...great innovation.

Here is the point: what Bitcoin and Litecoin need to do is to work.

Just like truly fixed...lack of better word...money, fixing decentralization IS the breakthrough. We needed trustless, decentralized, cheap, instant transfer of value. We got it! Now, our job is to preserve it, protect it, and make small extremely cautious tweaks poured over by open source geeks, to make sure it continues to do what it is designed to do.

Piling on ANY...and I do mean ANYYYYYY clever experiments is so careless, mindless, and dangerous, it is hard to overstate. ANY project can fail and we would be ok...other than Bitcoin. And also maybe Litecoin.

Boring is good. It means longevity.

Fireworks are bright, pretty, and loud for 2 seconds and then they turn into faded smokey ghosts of themselves. The sun has been burning brightly since God spoke "let there be light". We don't think about the light of day every single day: we just experience it. But a little to the left, a little to the right, and we'd either burn or freeze to death and that would be the end.

We need Bitcoin to do what Bitcoin does. And also Litecoin. This is no place. NO PLACE, for experiments. Let someone hard fork Bitcoin Cras...Cash, or BSV (heehee), and test out BIP300, as they should have with inscriptions/ordinals.

Hey Gordon...didn't you say you were going to explain the jealousy part? Well, I've been talking about it already, but probably not with a great deal of clarity. So, here it goes.

When Litecoin was dubbed silver to Bitcoin's gold, it seemed pretty clear to me that even if scrypt is slightly better than SHA, truth of the matter is that Litecoin had settled into its own as Bitcoin's little buddy, a Gilligan to Skipper of sorts. Silver isn't likely to overtake gold in value. But, often it is a better investment in market movement, but never ever in value. But, the principles are very closely aligned and they do complement each other nicely.

But, Litecoin has not grown to the stature of its big brother and likely never will. When I look at the Litecoin community, I see one thing and one thing only in how it is marketed and promoted:

Me ToOoOoO!

Bitcoin is sound money?

Litecoin is, too! 

Bitcoin is trustless, unconviscatable (I'm not even gonna bother with the spellcheck seriously), decentralized?

Litecoin is, too!

Bitcoin has ordinals?

Litecoin now has ordinals!

Yep. There's even LTC-20s and other silliness.

Litecoin does, and always has, suffered a little from Bitcoin jealousy syndrome, even though it was never really designed to take out Bitcoin's market position. It was an interesting experiment in whether Bitcoin done slightly different would be an improvement. Technically, it was. But, it wasn't the first and it isn't quite as shiny.

So, Litecoin has a jealousy problem and if Bitcoin Core developers make a fatal flaw, which absolutely COULD happen at this point (yes it could, Max...yes it could Nayib...yes it could), unless it is caught very quickly, Litecoin will race quickly to code the same thing. It is a little silly, and a lot careless. But, in a nutshell that is Litecoin's jealousy problem.

Of MUCH greater concern is Bitcoin's jealousy problem. And, it REALLY takes a lot of stupidity to get there. Should Lamborghini be jealous of a 90s Toyota MR2? Clearly not. Should Rollss Royce worry about a 2019 Kia sedan? Stupid if it did!

Bitcoin is Bitcoin. That is the selling point. There will be a hundred thousands blockchain projects. There will be one Bitcoin.

ETH has championed the #2 slot pretty much since it's launch. I think Litecoin may have had that position a few times, but certainly not in price action. ETH is a big deal because it should be a big deal. But, comparatively, whatever Bitcoin's price, ETH is roughly 1/11th of that price. Yeah, if Bitcoin peaked around $69,000, ETH's price peaked around $4900. That is a huge accomplishment, but it still ain't nothin' compared to Bitcoin.

And, that isn't just timing. ETH should have long-since overtaken Bitcoin in price and in market share, but it hasn't come anywhere close. That is because the value and maths are inferior. Yes. They. Are.

Every time someone has this new spark of innovation and they are certain it is 10X more important or viable than Bitcoin, there is a fatal flaw in the code, or something happens with a protocol vote and it is overtaken by a small tribe, or there is a DeFi hack, or...or...or...

The point is, ETH is the playground where every idea is experimented upon, and 1 token out of 2,000 have some crowd that clings to the hopes of a future pump. Other than Tether and if any other stable comes along that is better, there is very little monetary principle holding value in the ETH world. And, I am perfectly willing to outstep my maxi-sounding boundaries.

Unlike many Bitcoin maxis, I am aware of the fact that there is, in fact, a cryptocurrency industry, and other projects besides Bitcoin do, in fact, exist.

But, they all suffer from Venture Capitalism, greed, short sightedness (SP? whatever), bad code, questionable intent, fake roadmaps, and most importantly, the potential of bad decisions from their primary layer...ETH. I have a couple of dear friends with a small but extremely well designed cryptocurrency, and though I'm not mentioning it here, I am perfectly happy to share their Tweets (I'm still callin' it that m'kay?) and learn from them.

Innovation DOES exist outside of Bitcoin.

But, there is a reason beyond the name and billions invested in equipment that makes Bitcoin lead. It solved the one thing we actually need.

So, when people feel like Bitcoin needs to add ordinals directly on the chain to permanently tarnish the purity of the concept, because ETH has NFTs and we don't...it is Rolls Royce wishing it could be a Prius. Rolls is never going to sell the reputation of great gas mileage or going green. It would get laughed out of its bracket.

You buy a Lambo or a Rolls because of the beauty of design, the ridiculous performance, luxury, and sure maybe status as well. By the way, they make a great analogy too because it is a GREAT store of value! Rich people don't do everything for vanity's sake...I mean not always...not all of 'em. Sometimes that vanity is really for a very good reason. They understand that holding in tangible forms of value survive crazy economic sizzle. I truly doubt that saying will catch on.

You buy a Prius for the same reason you get your protein from soy. Okay, that may be a reach, but the point is that you want to be nice to the planet and get good value out of a ride. You do so with an aversion towards glamour or excess. You don't buy a Prius as a store of value. You get whatever practical value out of it that you seek. If you're Ferrari, Lambo, Mercedes...shall I go on... it would be stupid to have a jealousy problem with a completely different category. Sure, they are all forms of transportation, but no one should confuse a Ninja for a Schwinn. Same is true for Bitcoin and ETH.

Bitcoin does NOT need "new" shiny innovation. It needs to protect what it does at all cost. Society may or may not recognize the need for a digital store of value. But, every idea and whimsy thus far has come and gone. The grifters, shifters, swifters, and shoplifters have all come and gone, tried their ideas, and the longer this goes on, the more clear it should be.

What tokens or coins are still around over the past decade?

It seems that the newer the innovation, the more it resembles a firework in its 2 seconds of glory. Projects like Tron still try to hold themselves up like the Bitcoin killer. Sure, maybe it will happen some day...but it doesn't seem likely. ETH has taken it's lack of economic principle and run with that in the opposite direction. It has succeeded in shifting from real proof of work into something that can be bought without effort, and over the past year it has even left question whether you ever get that 32 ETH back, and if so when?, and if so how?, and at what cost to the network?, and is that network actually protected if not physically protected?

There are a million new questions every time Vitalik has to actually explain something...and can't.

Bitcoin suffers a jealousy problem, and it is the hubris of man. Just like Litecoin simply needs to be Litecoin, Bitcoin simply needs to be Bitcoin. The invention of all ages has been invented. We should revel to understand it and daily have our minds blown. If you think you understand Bitcoin...you haven't studies it deeply enough or long enough. If you think you get it...you don't.

When Satoshi unleashed the white paper and then the first exe, "they" weren't entirely certain if they truly had solved the problem. It had to be tested. They made a slight error due to the size of the network and had to give it another go. From that moment on, 14 years, there is more than $250 billion riding on Bitcoin simply doing what it does. The hash rate adjustments, the halvening, the limited supply, and keeping that darn blockchain pure and efficient.  

Let the good news be the good news! Yes, the good news technically is the Gospel, and that matters infinitely more than Bitcoin. For those who do not believe in any god, let alone God, I know you far outnumber me. And, that isn't the topic here. But, this is MY blog and I get to do what I want! haha!!!

In this case, the good news is that Bitcoin was launched. It DID solve the problem intended. It was made without raising funds, without making promises, and without a CEO to chase down.

We cannot afford to screw this up.

If you want to play with NFTs or BIP300 or literally anything that is a change of substance...do it with a hard fork.

Go fork yourself and leave Bitcoin alone!

It is too high a price and too great a risk to create something that cannot be Rolls'ed back (intentional).

Maybe one of 30,000 tokens will come up with something better that is even more decentralized, efficient, and still based on work and not stake, without ANY challenge to environmental concerns.

I don't know.

I didn't know Bitcoin was possible when it came about. But, Satoshi did what "they" did. Don't screw it up!

These young, foolish men with their ideas, are sowing seeds of jealousy into something that needs to remain pure. Just plant the seed, add water and sunlight, and leave well enough alone.

Bitcoin is money and it is gold. Litecoin is the same but silver. There's nothing else to be jealous over. Just be yourself. That's the message.

Stop trying to be anything other than your most authentic you.

And on that note, a very hopeful skeptic that is Gordon Freeman, the free man, for now...out.