To me, the eCash project is many things. For example, I am hopeful that it can be what Milton Friedman famously described in 1999 when he said:
“The internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of the government. The one thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, is a reliable eCash. A method whereby on the internet, you can transfer funds from A to B, without A knowing B, or B knowing A.”
You can also say that the eCash network, which shares the same genesis block as BTC, is a direct continuation of the project started by Satoshi Nakamoto when he released his seminal whitepaper: “Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system”.
For me, however, the eCash project embodies something even bigger than what Milton Friedman or Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned.
In addition to reducing the role of government by creating a form of electronic cash that can be sent without going through any financial institutions, in my mind this project also represents all the values I hold most dear like hard work and perseverance.
In large part this is because the project is led by a team who has done nothing but constantly demonstrate these qualities time and time again. Over the past four plus years, Bitcoin ABC and their lead developer, Amaury Sechet, have tirelessly dedicated themselves to the mission of p2p electronic cash despite facing the most daunting of circumstances.
This is why I see the eCash project as having the potential to become a beacon to the rest of the world. A symbol of what can be accomplished if you aren’t afraid to work hard, stand by your convictions, and challenge authority.
This project isn’t about expecting to have everything handed to you like a spoiled child, but making a positive contribution to the world and protecting the right to be rewarded for one’s work rather than allowing others to take the fruits of a man’s labor through the power of coercion.
eCash isn’t about being a popularity contest. It’s about determining who the real experts are based on actual evidence and giving weight to their opinions instead of surrendering to the will of a mob that doesn’t know what it’s talking about.
It’s about doing things because they make sense, not because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.
It’s about having the proper incentives to ensure progress and getting rid of the kind of perverse incentives that can cause a project to stagnate or fall behind.
To me this project is about celebrating the heroic while shutting down those who only want to throw wrenches and muck things up for others. It’s about identifying those who add value versus those who seek to waste other people’s time and get in the way.
The eCash project is about investing in talented individuals who know how to get things done. People who seek to enrich others by creating wealth, not by making false promises hoping to find greater fools who are easily parted from their money.
It’s about constantly pushing to find a better way, not just assuming something is good enough, or that someone else will take care of it. It’s about educating yourself and solving difficult problems, and being willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone in order to grow.
It’s about supporting those you admire and helping to lift people up rather than having that crab mentality where you want to see others fail because you’re afraid of being left behind.
It’s about doing something with conviction, not out of fear of missing out.
It’s about winning by outcompeting everyone, not by sabotaging your fellow competitors.
It’s about justice, and doing the right thing even when it’s hard, and being honest with one another as well as with ourselves.
In five days, the chain heretofore known as BCHA is undergoing a major change as it reinvents itself with a new website, a new logo, a new base unit, and a new name that will leave behind the Bitcoin brand in order to forge a new path. This is something no Bitcoin fork has ever tried before, and to me this is the kind of pioneering spirit that is necessary if you’re going to dramatically change the world.
This is what the eCash project means to me.