The holidays are always kind of a whirlwind for me. It's what comes from having a cross-continental family, I guess. But if I'm lucky I'll be able to sneak away and post some of what I saw as the key moments for this past year of 2019 in bitcoin, blockchain & crypto. Here's to writing down my intention in the hopes of guilting myself into keeping up with that promise!
If there's any one moment that embodied the year in crypto for me, it was the whatever it is you call it (fiasco?) that occurred between an anonymous space cat on Twitter and one of the supposed creators of bitcoin, Craig Wright. Even though it seems fewer and fewer people actually believe his claim to being Satoshi Nakomoto, he is one of the most influential people in the whole space. His coin, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), still commands a top-10 spot in the cryptocurrency league tables. It sports a lofty market cap of $1.6 billion. That alone, to me, is enough to warrant our attention whenever Professor Faustus wants to stir the pot.
If you've ever trolled around on Crypto Twitter, you probably remember the time this year, back when spring melted into summer, where it seemed like everyone in the Twittersphere changed their account icons to some version of the aforementioned space cat.
WE ARE ALL HODLONAUT became the meme of the moment and even spawned a $30,000+ crowdfunding campaign to support the cryptosphere's favorite space cat. You see, what had happened was that the supposed father of all that is blockchain, @ProfFaustus, threatened to sue the anonymous account called @hodlonaut. Because, you know, that is exactly the kind of thing that inspires confidence in an emerging digital asset class that has spent most of the year hovering around the $200 billion valuation level. If Wright was indeed the father of the blockchain movement, you would think he would realize the negativity that his little spat with a feline would bring to the industry. But I digress...
All I really wanted to accomplish was this post was to highlight the absolutely fantastic piece that Coindesk has brought us for the holidays. Like I said, it's that time of the year, that time when we are all asked to reveal our "end of the year" thoughts. It's crypto. So why not write about a space cat? It's my nominee for most important moment of the year.
Crypto is often, as I recently noted in a piece about THORchain v. Uniswap way too much about tribalism. This story does indeed reinforce that larger point to some degree. On the whole, when you see whole groups of unrelated people banding together to support a random anonymous space cat in the face of vested interests, it affirms some of the best parts about being in this industry.
I'll leave you with a quote from the Coindesk piece. It's an absolutely great read that I encourage you all to check out.
"Of course, the real Hodlonaut isn't a cat on a journey to the moon. He is a middle-aged Scandinavian man who loves tattoos, ice cream, and tucking his child into bed. He wasn’t looking for a Twitter feud. Despite his penchant for tweeting jokes, the real life Hodlonaut is a soft-spoken man who gently arranges each syllable.
When he’s not ruffling Wright’s feathers on Twitter, Hodlonaut often ponders what role bitcoin will play in his child’s future."
That's how we should be thinking about this space - how will it affect, nurture and support the next generation - not how we can get rich quick, or get in a good burn with our sock puppet accounts, or get one over on such and such shitcoiner or no-coiner. Although I know that all of that is great entertainment and some people are actually really here just for the memes, I would encourage everyone of us in the new year to act like we give a fuck and rise above these kind of petty arguments like we saw in ProfFaustus v. Hodlonaut in the future.
Good luck with your end-of-year wrapping up and
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🏋🏻♂️