Why eCash?
Why should anyone care about, let alone invest in, yet another cryptocurrency? Why should you take time out of your schedule and use up precious brain cycles to learn about this project?
Maybe the better question is why do we do anything? Why do we watch TV shows, or read books, or listen to podcasts? Why do we get up every morning to go to work, or to school, or anywhere for that matter?
I don’t think anyone would disagree if I said we do the things we do because either 1, we derive enjoyment from those activities, whether it’s because we find pleasure in them or because they give us a sense of fulfillment, or 2, we believe a particular activity will lead to more of 1.
Another way of putting it would be that we do things out of self-interest.
Why would anyone work if they didn’t enjoy it, or if they didn’t think it would result in being able to do more of the things they enjoy in the future?
So what does any of this have to do with eCash?
Maybe the best way to answer that is by explaining why I care so much about eCash. Why I feel this need to “tell as many people about it as possible” as stated in my tweet above.
For me, eCash represents the ultimate opportunity. An opportunity not only for me to significantly grow my personal wealth, but also for the world at large to become significantly wealthier as well. A kind of positive sum game that has never been seen before. A paradigm shift.
As I said, we do the things we do mostly out of self-interest. We are driven by our natural desires for pleasure or fulfillment, which means it’s unnatural to do things that are painful or difficult or keeps us from doing the things we would rather be doing. This is why we need to be incentivized to delay gratification and do what’s best in the long run and not just for a brief moment in time.
We don’t need to be incentivized to do what’s easy. We need to be incentivized to do what’s hard. But when the primary incentive mechanism becomes so distorted that it no longer properly functions, that’s when things begin to fall apart.
I believe that’s what we’re seeing happening all over the world today. Due to inflation and other problems created by the governments around the world, people are losing the motivation to work and losing hope in the future. But I think this is a solvable problem. By fixing our money, we can fix the incentives that can lead to a change in our behavior.
One of the core principles of finance is known as the time value of money. It’s the idea that an amount of money will always be worth more today than that same amount in the future. But what if this was no longer the case? What if this idea was turned on its head so that our money was worth more the longer we waited to use it, not less? Wouldn’t that lead to less wastefulness while also causing us to be more thoughtful about how we spend and invest our money?
I support the eCash project because I believe it represents our best chance of creating a new incentive system. One that can speed up technological advances and reshape our society for the better.
Like everyone else, I’m driven by self-interest. I want to live the best life possible, and I believe that the eCash project is a critical and necessary part of making that a reality.
And while I don’t expect one short article to convince you to see what I see, I look forward to continuing to share my views and explaining why I believe the eCash project can accomplish its goals with the hope that if enough people think the same way, it can become the self-fulfilling prophecy that Satoshi Nakamoto once predicted.
