๐Ÿ‘ฟRD5 | Blockchain Makes Everything Worse for Everyone in Every Industry

Due Date:

Authorship Team:

Author // Ed Leite [accepted]

Editor // Kenneth Shultz [accepted]

Abstract

This research aims to dig deeply into those advocating strongly against blockchain technology and web3 in general for ethical, economic, social, or other notable concerns. Relentlessly exploring dissenting opinions is vital to the rigor of the research and will shake loose existential threats overlooked due to confirmation bias. With those threats identified, Build3 can work to resolve or mitigate them within the protocol.

  • Line Goes Up - A two-hour documentary by Dan Olson with the general claim that blockchain technology is unnecessary financialization of everything that empowers capital holders fixes nothing, encourages fraud, and generally makes everything in the existing broken system much worse.

  • The Third Web - A well-articulated summary discussing negative freedom, censorship, code-is-law problems, "transactionalism", and ownership. It discusses primary issues, including scaling, The Oracle Problem, ownership fallacies, climate destruction, pyramid scheme / bigger fool, and the general claim that VCs will fundamentally re-centralize the decentralized system.

    • From the website, "Web3 is a web of ownership. Every object is owned by someone, every object can be traded to someone else."

    • The above claim is not necessarily valid. Build3 is about authorship, no ownership. This distinction is the fundamental difference between the criticisms (generally focused on flaws inherent to fintech and so claims typically reside in the claim that blockchain is the financialization of all things). The distinction is vital: Build3 is concerned with authorship for construction supervision authority.

  • Web3 is Going Great - A curated timeline of fraud and scams in blockchain to emphasize the problem with scams and fraud.

Blockchain and the $1 T Ponzi scheme.

Thirteen years ago, a group of people going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have released the open-sourced digital currency based on blockchain technology, Bitcoin. A distributed ledger system that validates transactions with no need for a centralized intermediary. With strong revolutionary and democratic intentions, aiming for security, cheap fees, neutrality, shared ownership, and governance, ruled by the algorithm. A powerful statement towards the Establishment, a message to the super-wealthy who play with the working class and end up bailed out by the government.

After the 2008 economy fiasco caused by speculators, brokers, and banks, Bitcoin turned into a solution for the anti and hyper-capitalist movements, an option out of banks and centralized currency, with such complex jargon and mechanisms that proselytizes the conversation in the likes of a cult prepared to defend itself against all criticism and facts.

Unfulfilled roles characterize the not-so-new hype for the masses, a medium by which Establishment operates. Bitcoin and blockchain are fully entwined, although thereโ€™s more to it than old Bitcoin blockchain, smart contract blockchains, DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, FOMO, YOLOโ€ฆ they all add up to the fundamental problems preventing blockchain as a whole from fulfilling its original role. Over a decade later, Bitcoin reached an impressive $1T market cap for a pyramid scheme, with transactions too slow and expensive to handle regular commerce. In reality, nothing but an overly speculative financial vehicle is better used for illicit activities such as purchasing illegal drugs, terrorism funding, and money laundering. It is not a surprise that Bitcoin and blockchain DeFi attract all sorts of celebrities and shady personalities such as the Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Justin Bieber name a few.

The consensus mechanism of blockchain is the key to all the claims and promises of decentralization, security, and transparency for blockchain technology. By using the PoW or proof-of-work or just mining as a way of validating transactions, itโ€™s required that different people using powerful computers compete to decrypt blocks in order to move the transaction from A to B, resulting in payment for the miner and a lot of wasted energy in the process. Bitcoin is believed to move the equivalent of electricity of a small European country. PoS or proof of stake solves the problem by appointing a node (a computer) owned by someone who invested a lot of money or put them on stake in order to have the opportunity to validate such transactions with the possibility of losing such stake in case their validation isnโ€™t accurate, but making extra money or tokens when the validations are good. Both consensus mechanisms empower those who can afford powerful computers and those who can afford nodes in the blockchain. They have enough money to invest in the technology, favoring those already empowered and privileged. Not to mention blockchain canโ€™t scale or perform, fails in bringing in security, presents negative freedom, is hardly decentralized or fair, doesnโ€™t share ownership, isnโ€™t transparent, and is just a glorified Ponzi scheme that is far from delivering on its promises, too dangerous to handle any amount or type of data whatsoever.

The distributed ledger is such an exciting and revolutionary concept that would fit just extraordinarily well into the gap caused by the yearnings of the ordinary people (anti and hyper capitalists) feeling overwhelmed and left out of the internet and finance, flooded by fake news on Facebook, that sold their data in the past and still reigns the space with a formidably strong hand. Scammed by banks, Big Pharma, Monsanto, and big corporations, not even allowed to consume art created an optimal space for venture capitalists and enthusiasts who elected blockchain technology as their newest messiah, a good opportunity and the creation of a more sustainable and fair future. A very opportunistic capitalist, Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebookโ€™s name to Meta to save face and insert his company into the future, into generations X and Zโ€™s pockets, not to mention to reach the unbanked with the failed projects of Libra. This stable coin turned to Diem because changing Facebookโ€™s name was not clear enough. It feels like Web3 is being re-invented by the same people who created the old web in the first place. NFTs and DAOs are part of the Web3 section within the blockchain. I know so many acronyms. NFTs or non-fungible tokens are simply a toy in the hands of speculators, a money laundry alternative for super bored wealthy criminals and very wealthy celebrities who will not let go of an opportunity to feel evermore exclusive and relevant.

On the other hand, DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and plays a dirty game, fantasies of fair governance and shared ownership, organized DeFi poorly associated with real-life unions, all very offensive. Web3 is an attempt to give blockchain a heavy use other than speculative. Deeply anti-political, a new space for accumulation, a playground for NFT collectors, and delusions for venture capitalists and enthusiasts who believed they were about to make good money and save the world while having loads of fun collecting digital art. Blockchain has failed us, Bitcoin might never reach its full potential or even recover from this latest crash, but the world is not ending just yet. Blockchain brought negativity to this piece, a very heavy storm cloud during one winter in History. Blockchain will have its story told but most likely described as a fad, a hype that deluded many, promised a bunch only to create new problems that werenโ€™t even there in the first place, and then just vanished like a bad husband who left for cigarettes one day and never returned. Hopefully, it leaves a significant mark on our generation, more like a catastrophic event that once we have recovered from the PTSD caused by it, we can re-route towards a brighter and more real place where we can learn to regulate and evolve the very habits and feelings that got us here in the first place.

ED, I'm just throwing a few thoughts in here below...delete and change or add however you want - KMS

Governance Problems with Proof of Stake

This is still a problem because, fundamentally, if you have the money, you can buy the network.

The concept is to solve the problem by making voting authority linearly proportional to the time put into the network (i.e. the industry).

More information is found here on Phil's current work on the topic:

๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™€๏ธRD2 | Labor-Based Based Voting Authority

NFT apes are about ownership, NFT supervision is about authorship.

Build3 is not about selling or owning digital documents. It is about proving who the author of the document was and if they were qualified to direct the engineering.

๐ŸชถRD3 | Authorship, not Ownership: Re-understanding and NFT

Build3 is an Underwriting Layer for the Industry

Authorship proof has a value shared among regulators, lenders, and insurers when it comes to construction. Build3 does not disrupt any of the roles of the current actors. Build3 data serves as a layer to underwrite the truth for which each entity exists to serve or regulate: things that can be dangerous when designed by unqualified individuals.

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