Zhu Weisha November 21, 2024

 

Satoshi Nakamoto established the Internet era

This is the last article in this series of five articles, written based on my speech at the W2140 Cryptocurrency Conference. In the article (Conservatism is a misunderstanding of Trump, MAGA is the practice of advanced production relations), it is pointed out that in the past thousand years, there are agricultural eras, industrial eras, and Internet eras. The characteristics of the agricultural era are that whoever has more land has the advantage, whoever has more capital has the advantage in the industrial era, and whoever has more people has the advantage in the Internet era. The agricultural era formed a totalitarian society, and the industrial era formed a democratic society, so what kind of society is the Internet era?

The Internet is divided into Web1, Web2 and Web3. In this series (Discussion on the Definition of Web3), I defined Web3 as: click, push + ownership. In Web1 and Web2, data is not owned by individuals, while Web3 explicitly states that personal data is owned by individuals. Web1 and Web2 both continue the architecture of the industrial era and solve the problem of productivity. Only Web3 is different, solving not only the problem of productivity but also the problem of production relations.

Only changes in production relations are a sign of change in the times. The industrial age began in the middle of the 12th century. After more than 400 years of exploration, our predecessors found a management structure suitable for industrialization, which led to the industrial revolution that began in the 18th century and rapid economic growth. The financial revolution brought about by Bitcoin has led to a fundamental change in production relations since the industrial age. This change is the sign that human society has truly entered the Internet age. Therefore, the emergence of Bitcoin is a turning point in the new era. There are only four Bitcoin system maintainers, and there is almost no management fee consumption, but its market value has reached 2 trillion US dollars today. This is unimaginable with the thinking of the industrial age. The Internet age began with Satoshi Nakamoto.

What are the characteristics of the Internet?

The characteristics of the Internet are borderless, non-hierarchical, frictionless, barrier-free, and rapid point-to-point communication. The above characteristics can be represented in one word: equal rights, which is the fundamental characteristic of the Internet. Everyone uses the Internet as a boundary rather than national boundaries. Obviously, hierarchical industrial thinking is not suitable for the underlying structure of the Internet.

What kind of architecture should the Internet era have? We don't know. Fortunately, we have experiments in cryptocurrency. Over the past 15 years, the idea of ​​cryptocurrency has evolved unconstrainedly from "tribes" and has gone through thousands of years of human history. We don't have targeted theories but we have practices. Summarizing the experience of cryptocurrency may be inspiring and instructive for the future social form. The election of Mile in Argentina and Trump in the United States are both signs of the transition of the times. They pursued Hayek's views on free market economy and relied on intuition. Their slogans and actions represent future trends. In order to follow the historical trend rather than suppress it, we must first figure out what are the characteristics of the Internet era established by cryptocurrency? In summary, there are probably the following five points.

Personal sovereignty

Personal sovereignty refers to the ownership of personal data. You should control your own money instead of the bank; you should decide how to use your own information instead of letting a third party control it. There is a difference between ownership and control. Bitcoin users have control over their Bitcoin accounts, which is equivalent to ownership. However, in the Bitcoin ledger system, users do not have control, but programmers have control over the ledger. The programmer's control must be restricted, otherwise the user's account control is incomplete.

Personal sovereignty strengthens the individual rather than the collective. At the beginning of Web1, those who are smart, capable, and full of

Ambitious individuals can start from scratch even without capital. Internet celebrities, big Vs, the ideas in their heads are the source of wealth. The White House issues interview passes to influential self-media and individuals, because self-media and big Vs are no longer inferior to traditional media. Musk has more than 200 million followers, and his influence exceeds that of any TV station. Trump's team understands the Internet era better than its opponents. In 2016, Trump made good use of Twitter and there was a saying that Twitter governs the country, making the government's will public. In 2024, Twitter became his campaign weapon. Polymarket, a new type of institution, reflects public opinion more accurately than a century-old store. Accurate grasp of the Internet has reduced Trump's campaign costs. The idea that having more money is an advantage is the thinking of the industrial age.

Web3, the organization is obviously shrinking, shrinking to the core team, and the number of peripheral contributors is increasing. Musk's efficiency department conforms to this rule. There is no salary for gathering like-minded revolutionaries. Individuals work for their interests. This refers to the core team. The contribution assessment of peripheral contributors mainly relies on market assessment. One more thing to say, there should be rewards without wages, just like YouTube hosts need automatic assessment and automatic incentives. The internal officials know the situation best, and they know best where the problem lies. Can they be mobilized without rewards?

Both dictatorship and tyranny of the majority will be met with foot-voting. Because project selection is too easy. If I am not welcome here, I will find another place to stay. I can work anywhere. The law is based on national boundaries, but a centralized Binance is a globally distributed office, and old regulations encounter new problems.

The biggest problem for the country is the issue of taxation. The original taxation mechanism of the industrial era is definitely outdated. The Internet era cannot support a large government, forcing the government organization to shrink. Taking the United States as an example, the global economy will be liberated from the strong control of politics and operate according to the characteristics of the Internet era. The benchmark role of the Bitcoin system is that it does not require government management. Bitcoin does not need to be kept by banks. Individuals take care of their own affairs, and social management will be simplified. How should taxes be determined at this time?

In the Internet age, individuals have to be responsible for themselves, and the number of freelancers has increased significantly, which is completely different from the habits of the industrial era. Doing a job may not be enough.

transparent

Musk is well versed in the ways of the Internet age and has implemented the concept of transparency in his Efficiency Department. Transparency is the core concept of the Bitcoin system. Transparency is the source of trust. Is management still necessary if it is transparent? Market supervision replaces power supervision. Whether you are decentralized or centralized, as long as you are transparent, you have credibility. Musk's Efficiency Department is a centralized organization. It is transparent, and whether it is fair is left to market supervision. Therefore, decentralization is not the core concept of cryptocurrency.

This efficiency department is in line with the characteristics of a small core organization and a large peripheral organization, just like the Bitcoin system, where programmers who maintain and upload codes are all volunteers. And the peripheral systems involved in Bitcoin are as numerous as stars.

Cannot be tampered with

Transparency can still be changed, but as a ledger, there is a more stringent requirement that it cannot be tampered with. This is the only way to be credible. What guarantees that it cannot be tampered with is the hash value, not necessarily the blockchain.

Being obsessed with decentralization and blockchain greatly limits our thinking. Musk started from the first principles, and the above three points are all adopted by him in the efficiency department. He did not use decentralization or blockchain, and he is not an expert in cryptocurrency. He can make a lot of money because he perceives the way things develop.

Fairness and Justice

The system you design must be fair, otherwise no one will play. A centralized system must also be fair, and it is based on openness. The core characteristics of Bitcoin can be summarized as openness, fairness, incentives, and immutability. The application of cryptocurrency can be extended to centralized projects. At this time, fairness must also be added. As a feature of the Internet era, community autonomy must also be added.

Community autonomy

Community autonomy was developed by programmers after Satoshi Nakamoto left. These programmers are amazing and they developed a new era.

The Bitcoin system requires trust, but the object of trust is different. There is no need to trust a third party, but you must trust the programmer. For the system to progress, there must be a controller. Fortunately, relying on human wisdom, the Bitcoin system has evolved to community autonomy.

The form of community autonomy is critical, and the community should be the highest body for coordination and decision-making among all stakeholders. Because as a whole, they directly and indirectly "own" this project, just as the people "own" the country, just as shareholders own the company. Note that "ownership" can be very real or very imaginary, and it does not mean control.

Community is not a new thing. It also exists in web2 projects. For example, WeChat community and Facebook community, but they do not have community governance. The Bitcoin system is different. The Bitcoin community has control and has formed the principles of openness, transparency and consultation. The Bitcoin community is not perfect because it does not cover all stakeholders. Chris Dixon said it well: "Digital assets are the link between builders and users." In other words, this is the fundamental difference between web3 community and web2 community, and it is also the fundamental advantage of web3 over Web2. Of course, community is not reflected in the definition of Web3.

The community control and decision-making of cryptocurrency is advanced. This is the decision-making method that a masterless system should have. In a broader sense, the country is also a masterless system, and civil servants are like programmers in the Bitcoin community. It is an advanced method to adopt similar decision-making mechanisms and incentive mechanisms.

Should we use the community to formulate policies on cryptocurrencies, so that they are open, transparent, and have equal participation and consensus? We see that whether it is the SEC or the Hong Kong Financial Secretary, you can write to them to give them your opinions, and they will reply that they have received them, and that's it. Users cannot participate in decision-making, nor can they see what opinions and requirements the market has raised. Their understanding of the Internet is still the Web1 model, and they still have the industrial age thinking. Users have no right to dialogue at all.

In the Bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto participated in customer service for 2 years. He listened to opinions and solved problems directly, and left only when the system was basically stable. This is a requirement for the actual controller of the project or the decision maker. Satoshi Nakamoto, as an expert, also needs to listen to the opinions of the community. Musk, such a genius, also needs to listen to the opinions of the community. Regulatory authorities sometimes have the ultimate control. Can some of today's bigwigs solve brand new problems that they don't understand by just snapping their heads? Gary Gensle of the SEC manages cryptocurrencies with the thinking of the industrial age, reflecting that he is not as good as Trump and Musk in understanding the Internet age. If the managers of cryptocurrencies do not understand the community and the Internet age, how can they manage cryptocurrencies well?

postscript

Due to limited space, please refer to Chapter 3 of the Unchained White Paper "Community Governance and Indirect Incentives" and (What's Missing in the Current Web3 Definition from the Perspective of Bitcoin?) for discussions on community autonomy.

Based on the above five points, we designed the general community software SimiTalk, which is aimed at communities with currency as the bond. It connects the public domain and the private domain. There is no limit on the number of people in the official group, and no data is stored in private chats. Currently, the user group supports bilingual functions (Chinese and English), and automatically displays the user's native language. The software is still being iterated and can be downloaded from the Apple and Android app stores.

Are the above five points the key points of the Internet era? I don't know. The social structure of the Internet era needs to be explored iteratively and cannot be summarized in one sentence. What kind of society should be beyond democratic society? I prefer a fair society? But does a fair society really exist? I believe it does.

In my article (From peer-to-peer cash system to bubble-free financial system), I explained that a bubble-free financial system can be achieved by using Bitcoin as the standard. At that time, there will be no inflation, morality and kindness will return, and this is an ideal world. Utopian socialists have pursued it, Hayek has pursued it, and cypherpunks have pursued it. Their ideas are more realistic than each other. Fortunately for mankind, the Trump team, which represents the Internet era, has won, and the Internet era has arrived. We are closer to the goal of achieving a fair society.

 

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