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Anyone who has heard of Bitcoin knows that it is built on a mechanism called The Blockchain. Most of us who follow the topic are also aware that Bitcoin and the blockchain were unveiled—together—in a whitepaper by a mysterious developer, under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

That was eight years ago. Bitcoin is still the granddaddy of all blockchain-based networks, and most of the others deal with alternate payment coins of one type or another. Since Bitcoin is king, the others are collectively referred to as ‘Altcoins’.

But the blockchain can power so much more than coins and payments. And so—as you might expect—investors are paying lots of attention to blockchain startups or blockchain integration into existing services. Not just for payments, but for everything under the sun.

Think of Bitcoin as a product and the blockchain as a clever network architecture that enables Bitcoin and a great many future products and institutions to do more things—or to do these things better, cheaper, more robust and more blockchain-01secure than products and institutions built upon legacy architectures.

When blockchain developers talk about permissionless, peer-to-peer ledgers, or decentralized trust, or mining and “the halving event”, eyes glaze over. That’s not surprising. These things refer to advantages and minutiae in abstract ways, using a lexicon of the art. But—for many—they don’t sum up the benefits or provide a simple listing of products that can be improved, and how they will be better.

I am often asked “What can the Blockchain be used for—other than digital currency?” It may surprise some readers to learn that the blockchain is already redefining the way we do banking and accounting, voting, land deeds and property registration, health care proxies, genetic research, copyright & patents, ticket sales, and many proof-of-work platforms. All of these things existed in the past, but they are about to serve society better because of the blockchain. And this impromptu list barely scratches the surface.

I address the question of non-coin blockchain applications in other articles. But today, I will focus on a subtle but important tangent. I call it “A blockchain in name only”…

Question: Can a blockchain be a blockchain if it is controlled by the issuing authority? That is, can we admire the purpose and utility, if it was released in a fashion that is not is open-source, fully distributed—and permissionless to all users and data originators?

Answer: Unmask the Charlatans
Many of the blockchains gaining attention from users and investors are “blockchains” in name only. So, what makes a blockchain a blockchain?

Everyone knows that it entails distributed storage of a transaction ledger. But this fact alone could be handled by a geographically redundant, cloud storage service. The really beneficial magic relies on other traits. Each one applies to Bitcoin, which is the original blockchain implementation:

blockchain_logo▪Open-source
▪Fully distributed among all users.
▪ Any user can also be a node to the ledger
▪Permissionless to all users and data originators
▪Access from anywhere data is generated or analyzed

A blockchain designed and used within Santander Bank, the US Post Office, or even MasterCard might be a nifty tool to increase internal redundancy or immunity from hackers. These potential benefits over the legacy mechanism are barely worth mentioning. But if a blockchain pretender lacks the golden facets listed above, then it lacks the critical and noteworthy benefits that make it a hot topic at the dinner table and in the boardroom of VCs that understand what they are investing in.

Some venture financiers realize this, of course. But, I wonder how many Wall Street pundits stay laser-focused on what makes a blockchain special, and know how to ascertain which ventures have a leg up in their implementations.

Perhaps more interesting and insipid is that even for users and investors who are versed in this radical and significant new methodology—and even for me—there is a subtle bias to assume a need for some overseer; a nexus; a trusted party. permissioned-vs-permissionlessAfter all, doesn’t there have to be someone who authenticates a transaction, guarantees redemption, or at least someone who enforces a level playing field?

That bias comes from our tendency to revert to a comfort zone. We are comfortable with certain trusted institutions and we feel assured when they validate or guarantee a process that involves value or financial risk, especially when we deal with strangers. A reputable intermediary is one solution to the problem of trust. It’s natural to look for one.

So, back to the question. True or False?…

In a complex value exchange with strangers and at a distance, there must be someone or some institution who authenticates a transaction, guarantees redemption, or at least enforces the rules of engagement (a contract arbiter).

Absolutely False!

No one sits at the middle of a blockchain transaction, nor does any institution guarantee the value exchange. Instead, trust is conveyed by math and by the number of eyeballs. Each transaction is personal and validation is crowd-sourced. More importantly, with a dispersed, permissionless and popular blockchain, transactions are more provably accurate, more robust, and more immune from hacking or government interference.

What about the protections that are commonly associated with a bank-brokered transaction? (For example: right of rescission, right to return a product and get a refund, a shipping guaranty, etc). These can be built into a blockchain transaction. That’s what the Cryptocurrency Standards Association is working on right now. Their standards and practices are completely voluntary. Any missing protection that might be expected by one party or the other is easily revealed during the exchange set up.

For complex or high value transactions, some of the added protections involve a trusted authority. blockchain-02But not the transaction itself. (Ah-hah!). These outside authorities only become involved (and only tax the system), when there is a dispute.

Sure! The architecture must be continuously tested and verified—and Yes: Mechanisms facilitating updates and scalability need organizational protocol—perhaps even a hierarchy. Bitcoin is a great example of this. With ongoing growing pains, we are still figuring out how to manage disputes among the small percentage of users who seek to guide network evolution.

But, without a network that is fully distributed among its users as well as permissionless, open-source and readily accessible, a blockchain becomes a blockchain in name only. It bestows few benefits to its creator, none to its users—certainly none of the dramatic perks that have generated media buzz from the day Satoshi hit the headlines.

Related:

Philip Raymond is co-chair of The Cryptocurrency Standards Association,
host & MC for The Bitcoin Event and editor at A Wild Duck.

#TheDAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization) is the hottest new form of investment built on revolutionary (Transparency, Democracy, Decentralization).

Our own Robin Hanson has been an inspiration:

“The slogan is vote on values, bet on beliefs. What you need are discreet decisions and then you need an outcome that you care about.”

Built from open-source code written by Ethereum-based startup Slock.it, The DAO has raised millions worth of ETH based on a business model of allowing those who buy voters rights tokens to cast a vote on funding proposals they want to support.

Read more

Steve Forbes sits across Brian Singer, a partner at William Blair, as Blair explains the potential of blockhain encryption to empower individuals. He also explains why credit card companies are beginning to embrace a technology that undermines their high fees.

https://youtu.be/CecpCepnkAU

Singer-Forbes

QC meets Blockchaining; nice.

CoinFac Limited, a technology company, has recently introduced the next generation quantum computing technology into cryptocurrency mining, allowing current Bitcoin and Altcoin miners to enjoy a 4,000 times speed increase.

Quantum computing is being perceived as the next generation of supercomputers capable of processing dense digital information and generating multi-sequential algorithmic solutions 100,000 times faster than conventional computers. With each quantum computing server costing at an exorbitant price tag of $5 Million — $10 Million, this revolutionary concoction comprising advanced technological servers with a new wave of currency systems, brings about the most uprising event in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

“We envisioned cryptocurrency to be the game changer in most developed country’s economy within the next 5 years. Reliance of quantum computing technology expedite the whole process, and we will be recognized as the industry leader in bringing about this tidal change. We aren’t the only institution fathom to leverage on this technology. Other Silicon big boys are already in advance talks of a possible tie up”, said Mike Howzer, CEO of CoinFac Limited. “Through the use of quantum computing, usual bitcoin mining processes are expedited by a blazing speed of 4,000 times. We bring lucrative mining back into Bitcoin industry, all over again”.

Google, NASA and Microsoft have been in close talk with the developers of a possible integration using quantum computing into their existing products and platform.

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The question breaks down into two parts:

  1. For what public benefit? —and—
  2. No, it cannot be achieved in this way

Governments are in the business of regulating certain activities—hopefully in an effort to serve the public good. In the case of business methods and activities, their goal is to maintain an orderly marketplace; one that is fair, safe and conducive to economic growth.

But regulation that lacks a clear purpose or a reasonable detection and enforcement mechanism is folly. Such regulation risks making government seem arbitrary, punitive or ineffective.

QR Code_CRYPSA-001«— This is money. It is not a promissory note, a metaphor, an analogy or an abstract representation of money in some account. It is the money itself. Unlike your national currency, it does not require an underlying asset or redemption guarantee.

Bitcoin is remarkably resistant to effective regulation because it is a fully distributed, peer-to-peer mechanism. There is no central set of books, no bank to subpoena, and no central committee to pressure (at least not anyone who can put the genie back into the bottle). In essence, there is no choke point or accountable administrative party.

Sure—it is possible to trace some transactions and legislate against ‘mixers’ and other anonymization methods—but there is no way to prevent a transaction before it occurs or to know the current distribution of assets. Bitcoin can exist as a printed QR code and it can be transmitted from a jail cell with a blinking flashlight. Sending bitcoin from Alice to Bob has no intermediary. Settlement requires only that one of the parties eventually has access to the Internet. But, there is no credit authority or central asset verification. [continue below image]…

feral_cat_mating-02-ts

If you are thinking of legislating against the use of Bitcoin, you might as well pass laws to ban the mating of feral cats or forbid water from seeping into underground basements. These things are beyond the domain of human geopolitics. You can try to shape the environment (e.g. offer incentives to cats and water levels), but you cannot stop sex or seepage.

Fortunately, Bitcoin is not a threat to governments—not even to spending or taxation. A gross misunderstanding of economics and sociology has led some nations to be suspicious of Bitcoin, but this improper perception is abating. Governments are gradually recognizing that Bitcoin presents more of an opportunity than a threat.

I have written more extensively on this issue:

Philip Raymond is co-chair of Cryptocurrency Standards Association, MC for The Bitcoin Event in NY and board member for Lifeboat Foundation. This fall, he will teach Cryptocurrency and The Blockchain in Massachusetts.

Here in the Lifeboat Blog, I have the luxury of pontificating on existential, scientific and technical topics that beg for an audience—and sometimes—a pithy opinion. Regular Lifeboat readers know that I was recently named most viewed Bitcoin writer at Quora under a Nom de Plume.

Quora is not a typical Blog. It is an educational site. Questions and numerous answers form the basis of a crowd-sourced popularity contest. Readers can direct questions to specific experts or armchair analysts. A voting algorithm leads to the emergence of some very knowledgeable answers, even among laypersons and ‘armchair’ experts.

During the past few weeks, Quora readers asked me a litany of queries about Bitcoin and the blockchain, and so I am sharing selected Q&A here at Lifeboat. This is my professional field—and so, just as with Mr. Trump, I must resist an urge to be verbose or bombastic. My answers are not the shortest, but they are compact. Some employ metaphors, but they explain complex ideas across a broad audience.

As you browse some recent Bitcoin questions below, click a question for which you know the least. (Example: Do you know what the coming ‘halving event’ is about?). Leave a comment or question. I am interested in your opinion.

Philip Raymond sits on Lifeboat’s New Money Systems Board, is co-chair of the
The Cryptocurrency Standards Association, and is a most viewed writer at Quora.

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament spent an hour and a half discussing bitcoin and virtual currencies on Monday, although more questions were asked than answered.

#cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #blockchain

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I administer the Bitcoin P2P discussion group at LinkedIn, a social media network for professionals. A frequent question posed by newcomers and even seasoned venture investors is: “How can I understand Bitcoin in its simplest terms?”

Engineers and coders offer answers that are anything but simple. Most focus on mining and the blockchain. In this primer, I will take an approach that is both familiar and accurate…

Terms/Concepts: • Miners • Blockchain • Double-Spend

First, forget about everything you have heard about ‘mining’ Bitcoin. That’s just a temporary mechanism to smooth out the initial distribution and make it fair, while also playing a critical role in validating the transactions between individuals. Starting with this mechanism is a bad way to understand Bitcoin, because its role in establishing value, influencing trust or stabilizing value is greatly overrated.

The other two terms are important to a basic understanding of Bitcoin and why it is different, but let’s put aside jargon and begin with the familiar. Here are three common analogies for Bitcoin. #1 is the most typical impression pushed by the media, but it is least accurate. Analogy #3 is surprisingly on target.

1. Bitcoin as Gold

You can think of Bitcoin as a natural asset, but with a firm, capped supply. Like gold, the asset is a limited commodity that a great many people covet. But unlike gold, the supply is completely understood and no one organization or country has the potential to suddenly discover a rich vein and extract it from the ground.

2. Bitcoin as a Debit or Gift Card

Bitcoin is also a little like a prepaid debit card, you can exchange cash for it and then use it to buy things—either locally (subject to growing recognition and acceptance) or across the Internet. But here, too, there is a difference. A debit card must be loaded with a prepaid balance. That is, it must be backed by something else, whereas Bitcoin has an intrinsic value based on pure market supply and demand. A debit card is a vehicle to transmit or pay money—but Bitcoin is the money itself.

3. Bitcoin as a Foreign Currency

Perhaps the most accurate analogy for Bitcoin (or at least where it is headed), is as a fungible, convertible, bankable foreign currency.

Like a foreign currency, Bitcoin can be…

  • Easily exchanged with cash
  • Easily transmitted for purchases, sales, loans or gifts
  • Stored & saved in an online account or in your mattress (Advantage: It can also be stored in a smart phone or in the cloud—and it can backed up!)
  • Has a value that floats with market conditions
  • Is backed by something even more trustworthy than a national government

Unlike the cash in your pocket or bank account, Your Bitcoin wallet can be backed up with a mouse click. And, with proper attention to best practices, it will survive the failure of any exchange, bank or custodian. That is with proper key management and the use of multisig, no one need lose money when a Bitcoin exchange fails. The trauma of past failures was exacerbated by a lack of tools, practices and user understanding. These things are all improving with each month.

So, What’s the Big Deal?

So, Bitcoin is a lot like cash or a debit card. Why is this news? Bitcoin is a significant development, because the creator has devised a way to account for moving money between buyer and seller (or any two parties) that does not require any central bank, bookkeeper or authority to keep tabs. Instead, the bookkeeping is crowd sourced.

For example, let’s say that Alice wants to purchase a $4 item from Bob, an Internet merchant in another country.

a) Purchase and settlement with a credit card

With a credit card, wire transfer or check, Alice can pay $4 easily. But many things occur in the background and they represent an enormous transaction overhead. Alice must have an account at an internationally recognized bank. The bank must vouch for Alice’s balance or credit in real time and it must then substitute its own credit for hers. After the transaction, two separate banks at opposite ends of the world must not only adjust their client account balances, they must also settle their own affairs through an interbank-settlement process.

The two banks use different national currencies and are subject to different laws, oversight and reporting requirements. Over the course of the next few days, the ownership of gold, oil or reserve currencies is transferred between large institutions to complete the affairs of Alice’s $4 purchase.

b) Now, consider the same transaction with Bitcoin

Suppose that Alice has a Bitcoin wallet with a balance equal to $10. Let’s say that these characters represent $10 in value: 5E 7A 44 1B. (Bitcoin value is expressed as a much longer character string, but for this illustration we are keeping it short). Alice wants to buy a $4 item from Bob. Since she has only this one string representing $10, she must somehow get $6 in change.

Bitcoin Transaction

With Bitcoin, there is no bank or broker at the center of a transaction. The transaction is effected directly between Alice and Bob. But there is a massive, distributed, global network of bookkeepers standing ready to help Alice and Bob to complete the transaction. They don’t even know the identities of Alice or Bob, but they are like a bank and independent auditor at the same time…

If Alice were to give Bob her secret string (worth $10), and if Bob gives her a string of characters worth $6 as change, one wonders what prevents Alice from double-spending her original $10 secret? But this can’t happen, because the miners and their distributed blockchain are the background fabric of the ecosystem. In the Bitcoin world, Alice is left with a brand new secret string that represents her new bank balance. It can be easily tested by anyone, anywhere. It is worth exactly $6.

This example is simplified and without underlying detail. But the facts, as stated, are accurate.

Conclusion

For Geeks, Bitcoin is the original implementation of a blockchain distributed ledger. Miners uncover a finite reserve of hidden coins while validating the transactions of strangers. As such, Bitcoin solves the double spend problem and enables person-to-person transactions without the possibility of seizure or choke points.

But for the rest of us, Bitcoin offers a very low cost transaction network that will quickly replace checks and debit cards and may eventually replace cash, central banks, and regional monetary authorities. The safeties, laws and refund mechanisms offered by banks and governments can still be applied to Bitcoin for selected transactions (whenever both parties agree to oversight), but the actual movement of value will be easier, less expensive and less susceptible to 3rd party meddling.

  • Bitcoin is a distributed, decentralized and low cost payment network
  • It is adapted to a digital economy in a connected world: fluid & low friction, trusted, secure
  • More zealous proponents (like me) believe that is gradually becoming the value itself (i.e. it needn’t be backed by assets, a promise of redemption, or a national government. In this sense, it is like a very stable, foreign currency

Additional Reading:

Philip Raymond sits on Lifeboat’s New Money Systems Board and administers Bitcoin P2P, a LinkedIN community. He is co-chair of CRYPSA and host of The Bitcoin Event. He writes for Lifeboat, Quora, Sophos and Wild Duck.

Recently, I was named Most Viewed Writer on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency at Quora.com (writing under the pen name, “Ellery”). I don’t typically mirror posts at Lifeboat, but a question posed today is Quora_Most_Viewed_splashrelevant to my role on the New Money Systems board at Lifeboat. Here, then, is my reply to: “How can governments ban Bitcoin?”

Governments can enact legislation that applies to any behavior or activity. That’s what governments do—at least the legislative arm of a government. Such edicts distinguish activities that are legal from those that are banned or regulated.

You asked: “How can governments ban Bitcoin?” But you didn’t really mean to ask in this way. After all, legislators ban whatever they wish by meeting in a congress or committee and promoting a bill into law. In the case of a monarchy or dictatorship, the leader simply issues an edict.

So perhaps, the real question is “Can a government ban on Bitcoin be effective?”

Some people will follow the law, no matter how nonsensical, irrelevant, or contrary to the human condition. These are good people who have respect for authority and a drive toward obedience. Others will follow laws, because they fear the cost of breaking the rules and getting caught. I suppose that these are good people too. But, overall, for a law to be effective, it must address a genuine public need (something that cries out for regulation), it must not contradict human nature, and it must address an activity that is reasonably open to observation, audit or measurement.

Banning Bitcoin fails all three test of a rational and enforceable law.

Most governments, including China and Italy, realize that a government ban on the possession of bits and bytes can be no more effective than banning feral cats from mating in the wild or legislating that basements shall remain dry by banning ground water from seeking its level.

So, the answer to the implied question is: A ban on Bitcoin could never be effective.

For this reason, astute governments avoid the folly of enacting legislation to ban Bitcoin. Instead, if they perceive a threat to domestic policy, tax compliance, monetary supply controls or special interests, they discourage trading by discrediting Bitcoin or raising concerns over safety, security, and criminal activity. In effect, a little education, misinformation or FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) can sometimes achieve what legislation cannot.

Reasons to Ban Bitcoin … a perceived threat to either:

  • domestic policy
  • tax compliance
  • monetary supply controls
  • special interests

Methods to Discourage Trading (rather than a ban)

  • Discredit Bitcoin (It’s not real money)
  • Raise concerns over safety & security
  • Tie its use to criminal activity

Avoiding both a ban—and even official discouragement

There is good news on the horizon. In a few countries—including the USA—central bankers, monetary czars and individual legislators are beginning to view Bitcoin as an opportunity rather than a threat. Prescient legislators are coming to the conclusion that a distributed, decentralized trading platform, like Bitcoin, does not threaten domestic policy and tax compliance—even if citizens begin to treat it as cash rather than a payment instrument. While a cash-like transition might ultimately undermine the federal reserve monetary regime and some special interests, this is not necessarily a bad thing—not even for the affected “interests”.

If Bitcoin graduates from a debit/transmission vehicle (backed by cash) to the cash itself, citizens will develop more trust and respect for their governments. Why? Because their governments will no longer be able to water down citizen wealth by running the printing press, nor borrow against unborn generations. Instead, they will need to collect every dollar that they spend or convince bond holders that they can repay their debts. They will need to balance their checkbooks, spend more transparently and wear their books on their sleeves. All good things.

Naturally, this type of change frightens entrenched lawmakers. The idea of separating a government from its monetary policy seems—well—radical! But this only because we have not previously encountered a technology that placed government accountability and transparency on par with the private sector requirement to keep records and balance the books. [continue below image]…

What backs your currency? Is it immune from hyperinflation?

What backs your currency? Is it immune from hyperinflation?

Seven sovereign countries use the US Dollar as their main currency. Why? Because the government of these countries were addicted to spending which leads to out-of-control inflation. They could not convince citizens that they could wean themselves of the urge to print bank notes with ever increasing zeros. And so, by switching to the world’s reserve currency, they demonstrate a willingness to settle debts with an instrument that cannot be inflated by edict, graft or sloppy bookkeeping.

But here’s the problem: Although the US dollar is more stable than the Zimbabwe dollar, this is a contest in relative trust and beating the clock. The US has a staggering debt that is sustained only by our creditors’ willingness to bear the float. Like Zimbabwe, Argentina, Greece and Germany between the wars, our lawmakers raise the debt ceiling with a lot of bluster, but nary a thought.

Is there a way to instill confidence in a way that is both trustworthy and durable? Yes! —And it is increasingly likely that Bitcoin is the way to the trust and confidence that is so sorely needed.

Philip Raymond sits on the New Money Systems board. He is also co-chair of Cryptocurrency Standards Association and editor at A Wild Duck.

Suggests a mechanism to be adopted for any
cryptocurrency that would alter the fee layer to
help fund a new public good.

From ABIS concept

In 2013, following a period of reflection and visioning, I imagined the possibility of completely altering the financial system as we know it. This vision, known as ABIS, will now see its first-ever implementation.

The implementation is now being issued in BCN’s GUI Wallet with the release of v. 1.0.8, where the transaction has been re-envisioned to allow the user new ways to explore the possibilities of transactions and realize greater giving potential, initially through two use cases involving unique forms of donations:

abis-donations

  1. Random donations — a percent of the sum depending on the available outputs. The user will be able to select the approximate desired amount for donation: from 0.1% to 10%. If there is a change input close enough to the target, it will be used as a donation.
  2. Donation mining — the user who is mining in pools from the GUI Wallet will be be able to specify donation address and percentage of donation mining shares (0–100%) that will be contributed for any donation.

This wallet is now available for anyone around the world to utilize and can aid those seeking to facilitate voluntary donation processes, and it is possible that more use cases for further microgiving possibilities may be added to the graphical wallet in the future.

Social Dimensions and Notions of the Transaction Have Limited Wallet Design Universally.

Most wallet software is designed with certain assumptions about what transactions are. If most in society have developed an assumption about what a transaction is, the manifestation of what our cryptocurrency wallets become (and the format in which the graphical user interfaces are developed to facilitate transactions) will tend to follow such a trend.

If a transaction (in which one sends, or transfers resources) remains limited notionally only as an exchange of currency for goods, services, or other currency, there is a problem in terms of the capacity which we are allowing ourselves to develop and enjoy from decentralized systems.

Certainly, this problem has not solely been in Bytecoin (BCN) but can be seen in any other cryptocurrency wallets as well, and of course, in all currency systems. Legacy systems — those which utilize fiat currencies and rely heavily upon central banks — simply do not have the flexibility to transmit very small amounts efficiently. Cryptocurrency systems are better poised to handle small amounts, but how they handle them will differ depending on the type of cryptocurrency being utilized.

Up to this point, some technical challenges exist which have kept cryptocurrency and wallet developers from tackling the issue, as mentioned in the BCN developer’s blog post, ‘Future of Slacktivism: How 1,000,000 Likes Can Save Lives’. Thus, cryptocurrency wallets do not yet emulate natural giving systems to the degree that they could.

The problem is that, around the globe, we have not yet re-envisioned the transaction to allow the user new ways to explore a transaction’s full potential and offer the option of greater giving potential. However, we now have the means to do so.

The initiative taken by the Bytecoin community to address this issue has resulted in software that is arguably the first of its kind ~ resistant to financial censorship (utilizing BCN’s installable desktop graphic wallet, which has anonymity preferences for transactions which the user can alter on a sliding scale ranging from greater to lesser anonymity), and now, allowing compassionate options for any user, which allow small donations to be sent and received anywhere in the world without any need for an intermediary.

Because the entire concept is fully voluntary there are really a nearly infinite range of choices, essentially limited only by the technology, fees, and network limitations. The user is contemplating who to provide a micro-donation to and at what level and at what threshold the microdonation(s) will be broadcast, based on their wallet settings.

And I hope that we would in this model of giving become more like the bees that share pollen as they bounce from flower to flower (indeed, the acronym of the concept, ABIS, stands for “Ants, Bees, Information, and Systems”).

An interesting commentary from recent events comes from the transcript of Pope Francis’s remarks to US Congress on Sept. 24, 2015:

‘We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology’; ‘to devise intelligent ways of… developing and limiting our power’; and to put technology ‘at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral’

We have the tools now at our disposal, and these tools are vital to have, but even more vital is having compassion and the desire to extend what we have to others, and to build systems in ways which do not rely upon coercion, violence, and the perils of institutional power.

ABISprotocol
PGP 0x6c70abf8a7486f02