Who am I?
I've been here from the beginning, but now you can say I'm disenchanted by the scene.
I wish there were more Satoshis building. I am aware of the real possibility that the forces of traditional finance will increasingly co-opt decentralized cryptocurrency networks (Maker via USDC) and thwart the chance to restore financial optionality to the public.
Since the advent of Bitcoin, we have seen cryptocurrencies move from an obscure internet toy to a global financial commodity that could not be ignored by sovereign nations looking to diversify their holdings. It has been useful for removing single points of failure, preventing censorship, and providing transparency and verification proofs for all parties involved in a transaction.
However, despite the numerous examples of adoption taking place due to ever increasing VC and institutional money, the promise of crypto as The Internet of Money, where citizens and businesses use cryptocurrencies for all their payment needs, seems no closer than in the early days. This is true, even in spite of a few select CEOs of public companies racing to buy as many bitcoins as possible. Today a minuscule few are living fully on crypto alone without resorting to fiat.
One of the drawbacks to cryptocurrency adoption has always been volatility. Large price movements make crypto difficult to be used reliably as a medium of exchange. Fast, instant transactions denominated in the regional currency of the average seller will remain the preferred route for transactions. Stablecoins, pegged to regional currencies, are needed to usher in full mainstream adoption.
But the current modus operandi of the industry has been to appeal to and appease the specter of centralized finance, creating custodial types of stablecoins such as USDC and DAI that can blacklist at will. These compromising forms of cryptocurrencies will be challenged to provide financial freedom and privacy.
The quest for a true stablecoin that retains the original ethos of crypto has never been more important. It is vital that the values of decentralization, censorship resistance and full user custody be preserved.
Other so-called decentralized stablecoin projects may claim these same properties, but are always at risk of external influence, blackmail, bribes, or hostile capture because their identities are known. This central point of failure jeopardizes the censorship resistance of the projects, opening a vulnerability for external actors to shut down the project or impose centralizing rule changes.
DittoETH will be an exclusively ETH backed decentralized stablecoin project, holding fast to the traditions of cypherpunk.
This is my labor of love to the crypto community.
-―Ditto
I'll also be continuing to contribute to open source tooling, starting with Rivet. Keep your eyes peeled for future collabs and blog posts