With the blockchain sector experiencing some difficult challenges recently, we are sharing our thoughts on the current state of the market and our perspective on the ecosystem’s future. While some of the views in this piece will no doubt resonate with many throughout the digital asset and blockchain space, unfortunately, not everyone shares them. Still, here at Serenity Shield, our team believes transparency extends to our opinions on various issues. Consider this our weighing in.
Despite all that has transpired, we remain incredibly optimistic about the future of blockchain technology and tokenized digital assets. Despite the metaphorical scorpions and snakes operating in the space, so much of what we have collectively witnessed and been active participants in gives us a glorious clarity of purpose.
In the Beginning
As Serenity Shield has taken its first steps, from a proverbial cocktail napkin to a live, working prototype solution, we have constantly been amazed by the number of intelligent, passionate and community-driven individuals who have helped us move forward. They represent a small fraction of the people in this space who have approached blockchain technology with genuine humanitarian interest at heart.
To highlight this, one need only drop into one of the many Twitter Spaces that cater to the industry for seemingly countless examples. From the likes of Cosmos Hoss’ channel to the burgeoning intellectual ecosystem built around the industry, the variety and multitude of forward-thinking people abound. That fact alone gives our team immense confidence in the future of our industry.
One thing those people share in common, of which we count ourselves a part, is that they build. They build because the need exists for powerful technology that works for us, not against us. Such representatives are responsible for ensuring these new and novel technologies remain human-centered. Naturally, the problems become more complex daily, yet the builders and developers answer the call. Crucially though, they have helped to add the most critical ingredient of all – community. With the support of a strong community, we can achieve anything!
They Never Promised Us A Rose Garden
Still, you would be foolish to act as if what we have witnessed over the past year does not represent a massive step backwards – or five. One could almost cut the distrust circulating within the space and throughout the outside world with a knife, so thick has the pessimism and skepticism become – and not without good reason.
For example, consider the recent bankruptcy of FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. At any rate, the FTX disaster prompted Neel Kashkari, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President, to start making loud and public noise about his opinion of digital assets. According to him, the cryptocurrency industry abounds with corruption and fraud of astronomical proportions.
He further stated that the corruption in the space has become so endemic that the failures will not end with the downfall of FTX. In his view, the entire industry is “nonsense”, representing no real utility or legitimate use cases. Unfortunately, the raft of significant failures involving and consuming some of the most prominent names in the space lends credence to his assertion. After the serial collapses of Terra/Luna, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, BlockFi, AAX, FTX, and then BlockFi again, one could be forgiven for skepticism of the industry.
And Yet…
Fault, nevertheless, resides in his logic. The root problem with all of these failures does not lie in the technology. The common factor of all those failures stems from the problem that blockchain technology developers generally, and Satoshi Nakamoto specifically, sought to remediate – centralization.
While the team here at Serenity Shield wholeheartedly disagree with Kashkari’s assessment of the utility of digital assets, we can find little fault in his accusation of such rife, rank dishonesty flooding the sector. However, that dishonesty goes right to the top, endemic to the entire system. The system itself threatens us all with its centralization risks. Singling out digital assets for blame while remaining quiet on the raft of examples outside that sector smacks of hypocrisy.
If we put his criticisms aside for one moment, the fact remains that the Federal Reserve has proven itself time and again to be less than trustworthy stewards of the health of the overall economy. It was barely even a year ago when the Federal Reserve announced a prohibition on purchasing individual securities, active trading, and stricter reporting and public disclosure policies by Federal Reserve policymakers and senior staff. How ironic that the Fed released the announcement on the pico top, 4.236 Fibonacci extension of the market. Indeed that was simply a coincidence.
Moreover, no asset has ever proven to be a more popular and utilized asset for criminal behavior than the almighty Dollar. And, of course, no one wants to talk about the money-printer-go-brrrrrrrrr response to the Covid-19 pandemic that vastly exacerbated inflationary forces. Nor does he seem to want to discuss the twelve years of unabated quantitative easing (QE) that preceded the lockdown response that drove the entire economy into a spiral of inflationary instability in the first place.
The Truth
Regardless of what Kashkari or other detractors say, blockchain technology works incredibly well for all manner of applications. It affords us a credible solution to circumvent most of the threats we face from the concentration of power. As our society continues its technological sprint into the future, our lives will become increasingly digital. This transformation will happen with almost complete certainty, just as widespread literacy became a similar certainty with the creation of Gutenberg’s printing press.
Just as with the dawn of any new technology, problems arise. This impending digitization brings a host of massive concerns and challenges – from political to economic, to social, and to practically every human endeavor. Centralization remains the greatest among those, as we have seen recently. The Serenity Shield team feels that the most fundamental of those concerns require and demand our attention. Security, privacy, and digital rights are not just our strapline. It is our guiding light, the lodestone by which we navigate. It will be one incredible journey, but we can always use the help and the company. Let us build a safer digital future for everyone.
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