Resist All Attempts at Centralization

It’s not an exaggeration to say that “decentralization” is the whole point of cryptocurrency.

Satoshi Nakomoto published the famous “white paper” in October 2008 — in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis/Great Recession. That context is important.

What kind of system is it that makes such a thing as “too big to fail” possible? Well, whatever else it may be, it’s a system virtually crying for disruption.

Indeed, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” represents a challenge to the old, postwar way of doing things. The best evidence is right there in front of us: “peer-to-peer” …

Anything that is not peer-to-peer at its heart alienates from the meaning of Bitcoin.

That’s why we’re down on Singapore’s crypto industry association helping developers with regulatory requirements. Engaging with regulators subsumes crypto into 20th-century infrastructure and mitigates its potential for disruption.

The lead paragraph to CoinDesk’s recent story on the topic tells you just about everything you need to know: “A Singapore cryptocurrency industry non-profit has released a code of practice for digital asset payment providers that was guided by the city-state’s central bank.”

Here’s the rest of the story on the Association of Cryptocurrency Enterprises and Start-ups Singapore (ACCESS), a group comprising over 400 crypto and blockchain-related businesses, and its cooperation with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) on updates to the country ‘s Payment Services Act:

•  Specifically, it attempts to offer a standardized approach to combating money laundering and terrorism financing through know-your-customer (KYC) best practices.

•  ACCESS Chairman Anson Zeall said the guidance would point both global and local digital payment service providers "in the right direction" and facilitate successful applications for operating licenses under the act.

•  The code had been two years in development to ensure it's "in line with both the interest of our members and that of regulators," Zeall said in a tweet on Friday.

•  The code comes amid efforts to align with the Financial Action Task Force's June 2019 guidance for global supervisory frameworks for virtual asset service providers.

•  The code is expected to "evolve over time" collaboratively and will continue to be updated from "time to time" to ensure relevance, ACCESS said.

This is “centralization.”

This is not what crypto is meant to be.

And as we said in our tweet last Friday, companies should stay far away from it.

Best,

Juan and Bruce