Pro-crypto or anti-crypto, you can’t deny progress

The current state of pro-crypto vs. anti-crypto is like that of all discourse in this day and age, where feelings take precedence over facts. Factual considerations all too often yield to merely personal opinions. This is further reflected in the presence of blanket claims and the overuse of hyperbole, suggesting unfounded zeal on the one part, and too little critical engagement on the other. While this can make for an engaging style of writing, either through cheering the supporting side or trolling the opposing side, it ultimately leads to empty and unsupported conclusions (and certainly poor long-term investment decisions).

The current divide between crypto-bulls and crypto-bears is a bit like the famous “shifting image” by William Hill entitled “My Wife and Mother-in-law.” The picture markedly flips between viewing a young lady and an old woman, depending on the viewer’s chosen paradigm. In a similar fashion, the conversation over cryptocurrencies tends to represent two entirely different perspectives, caricatured as firebrand believers on one side and ardent skeptics on the other.

Not helping is that all too many approach the conversation on cryptocurrencies as a competitive sport. Every discussion must have a winner. This dynamic creates not only poor interlocutors, but compromised thinkers. A win-at-all-cost approach to the dialectic loses sight of what makes the dialogue inherently valid: the pursuit of verifiable hypotheses. Thus, the intent should not be point-scoring, but collective advancement in pursuit of understanding.

No country for old finance

A good place to start is finding mutual agreement on points of consensus. Everyone can agree that traditional banks’ interests are now hostile to consumer financial well-being, and that central banks are no longer protectors of fiat currency, but exploiters of an entire payments system and commercial infrastructure that is hostile to individualism. Finally, the processing of personal, social and financial data has become both intrusive and increasingly misused as a vehicle of control. Add in the rapid evolution of AI and these yellow lights become red lights.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the increasing number of security checks, regulation requirements, and data collection activities involved in online activities. What appears as innocuous customer protection is anything but. Facial recognition access for a smart phone may seem an effective mode of security, until it is realized that one well-known company has harvested three billion facial images from the internet. Equally, the data-oligopoly employs the world’s top neurologists to map out further paths of manipulation.

Finally, we must reference the core point of contention, which is commercial integrity. Adversaries cite investors as either ideologues or get-rich speculators, relegating coins to re-animations of pyramid and Ponzi schemes, or worse, the resort of fallen dictators, tax dodgers and criminals. What is missing in this analysis is that these criticisms are common to all investments: stocks, shares, options, futures, longs, shorts, and certainly tax avoiders and shady characters seeking to keep their wealth from moral scrutiny. Like humanity itself, money is a transmitter of both good and bad, both opportunity and exploitation. There will always be some desire to cut corners in wealth creation. In the end, however, cryptocurrencies are commercially amoral; what shapes and validates the market for them is the ethos of the collective investor.

As in all emerging markets, cryptocurrency transactions face all the issues cited above, but they are normative and natural. What will lead to commercial maturity are sound investors identifying sound opportunities, allowing commercial evolution to ensure the survival of those most adapted or adaptable to facilitating real world commercial needs. Good money will drive out the bad.

The blockchain imperative

Advocates and adversaries can also agree that the current dynamics of financial infrastructure are moving in a negative and increasingly unstable direction. To say that fiat is in danger of becoming devalued or worthless is not polemic, but a statement of contemporary fact, as Venezuela and Zimbabwe demonstrate. Equally, as digital intrudes more and more deeply into every facet of life, both sides of the debate recoil at the dangers of security failures, hacking, invasion of privacy and resultant consumer manipulation.

Responding to these threats, crypto-adversaries and advocates must come together to strongly affirm the value, future, indeed, the imperative represented by blockchain technologies, even if there are still disagreements over execution. We can find common ground on the overall strategy while disputing tactics. The speed and depth of the threats noted above have produced a common reaction condemning legacy fintech, along with the ever-growing tide of regulation, to near-extinction by the end of the decade. It will not be commercial pressures, but the irresistible will of the people that finally forces ubiquitous blockchain adoption.

While we are a long way from crypto replacing the fiat hegemony, were these trends not real, we would not be having this conversation. A year ago, the idea of fiat’s demise might still be scoffed at by most. In a world transformed by COVID-19, its financial wreckage, and the growth of pro-crypto alternative finance like DeFi, there is much less scoffing. A year from now, how much further will the perspective skew pro-crypto across all meridians?

About the writer: James Gillingham is the co-founder of Finxflo – a trading platform that facilitates multi-crypto exchange access for both retail and institutional investors.