When you’re full of doubts, what keeps you going is the dream. That dream of becoming a famous singer, or the next UFC champion, or maybe your dream is to build a city on Mars, or become a best-selling author.
Whatever it is, you put in the hard work because for you the dream is worth chasing no matter how much the odds are stacked against you. You keep pushing because you know you’re not going to be disappointed, and achieving your dream will mean everything you’ve ever wanted and then some.
So the question is, what is my dream for eCash that keeps me going?
Ever since I got into crypto I’ve been waiting for pretty much one thing: a network that feels like the future. A network that scales to handle a trillion transactions a day, that never lags, or goes down, and enables every person on the planet to freely transact with one another peer-to-peer as part of a decentralized, censorship-resistant global financial system.
I’ve been waiting for this because I believe that such a network will change civilization as we know it. It would free us from having to rely on governments to manage and centrally plan our economy. It would free us from being forced to use government compliant banks, credit card companies, and other large corporations specializing in financial services. By enabling humanity to no longer have to rely on such institutions, imagine what that would mean. Make no mistake about it. These aforementioned companies are rent seekers, opportunists, and sometimes predators who take advantage of the fact that people have no other options in terms of the money they can use.
Imagine if the only car you could buy was a Ford, or if the only computer you could buy was a Dell. That’s essentially the situation we find ourselves in with government currencies. Rather than having different financial systems competing with one another to come up with the best solutions, we’re all dependent on the various central banks of the world seeking to maintain their power rather than trying to make the world a better place for as many people as possible.
In the current system, I see banks and credit card companies as a necessary evil. They are necessary because, up until recently, there was no better option. How else are you supposed to store your wealth or transact with someone? Imagine the amount of wasted energy that would be required if you tried to pay everyone in precious metals or cold hard cash. All the weighing and counting and recounting to make sure the right amount was sent or received. All the transportation costs of delivering the physical currency securely and on time. The banks provide a service, and in exchange they take a cut, but the fact is they don’t create any new wealth. They earn profits without contributing anything productive, which is the definition of rent seeking.
I’m not saying that banks and credit card companies won’t be needed in the future, but that they will have competition. Now in order to be successful, such companies will need to provide something above and beyond what they provide today because people will have multiple cryptocurrency networks they can also choose from to serve their needs.
Imagine what the world can be like if we got rid of all the financial friction we have today. So much human capital is wasted on rent seeking behavior that could instead be used to build and produce new wealth in the world.
And of course the biggest waste of all is the government itself. I see the governments around the world as a giant negative feedback loop sucking the productivity out of its citizens. With more and more regulations and taxes, governments require more and more bureaucrats to monitor and administrate those rules, which inevitably leads to even more taxes or money printing to keep the whole thing from falling apart.
But what if there was an alternative financial system? What if we were no longer dependent on the government and those under their control to run our economy?
In the current system, we are forced to rely on intermediaries to take custody of our money. Rather than having everyone learn to take personal responsibility of their funds, we live in a world where everyone is taught that you need to depend on some authority to do this for you. We are all coerced into relinquishing our personal sovereignty in a sense, and so instead of holding ourselves accountable, it ultimately gives us an excuse to blame others for our problems. It’s almost like living in a perpetual state of victimhood.
I dream of a world where people finally understand the true meaning of wealth. That wealth isn’t about just having a lot of money in some bank account, it’s about what that money can buy. What good is all the money in the world if you have nothing to spend it on? Would you rather have a billion dollars and live in the 1700s, or would you rather have a few million and live in modern times? Would you want to live in a big house with a nice car in a shitty neighborhood, or in a modest house with a modest car but in an amazing neighborhood?
To me the choice is clear. I don’t want to be rich in a world where everything is falling apart, where crime runs rampant and you have no control over the future. I want to live in a world with the best technology, with the least amount of crime, where people are constantly creating the new and the exciting and our children’s futures are in their hands.
And I believe that a cryptocurrency network that works, that is affordable for everyone to use and can’t be controlled by any single person or entity will play a huge role in increasing the amount of wealth in the world. Because it’s not just about becoming wealthy on your own at someone else’s expense (a zero-sum game), it’s about creating situations in which the total gains and losses are greater than zero, and the desires of as many participants as possible are satisfied (a positive-sum game).
Just as someone from the 18th century would marvel at the world we live in today, my dream is that eCash can dramatically change the way the world works and one day we can marvel at all that was accomplished by finally freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the state.
(Bonus clue 1: A blue one of these is usually a good thing)