Bitcoiners have come out in fierce protest to a blog post by Bitreserve CEO Halsey Minor, which extols Bitcoin as a means to transform the world of finance but writes off its potential as a currency.
Despite praising Bitcoin in the most glowing of terms, the post seems to have more than rubbed Bitcoiners the wrong way. One commenter concludes an impassioned piece by saying, "I for one will be steering people away from Bitreserve as much as possible."
Bitreserve is developing a bitcoin wallet service that hedges against bitcoin's Volatility . It recently raised close to $10 million through crowdfunding.
The essence of the post, which has gone through a couple of slight revisions in response to the uproar, is captured by the following:
"In fact, I believe the term “bitcoin” won’t even exist in five years. And that’s okay! Netscape, one of the first internet browsers, isn’t around anymore, let alone known by most internet users. But it kickstarted an entire movement and shift in how our society worked. Bitcoin is poised to be the Netscape of the digital currency movement. It’s not a future currency but a system for better money transmission."
Less vocal critics have also questioned how Minor can downplay Bitcoin as a currency considering that it is the core asset of his business. Others have further argued that even if he is correct, the commentary is ill-advised from a PR standpoint.
Yet, his viewpoint is reflected by many, including Warren Buffet. It is intuitive, and frankly, correct.
While he may have undergone some short-term pain after running through an ideologue-dominated gauntlet, he ultimately wins the respect of the mainstream business world--something which Bitcoin sorely needs. A Bridge between the two worlds, in both of which Minor has laid entrepreneurial foundations, is the best hope for Bitcoin.
A commenter on CryptoCoins News ends off impassionately declaring on his vision for the replacement of fiat, "This vision has remained steadfast, for nearly 6 years now. It needs to be preached to the masses, with evangelical fervor."
But as previously argued, if Bitcoin is to have a meaningful future, it is not one dominated by a select few ideologues dismissing governments as irremediably evil. And it is not one where a centralized system that has been, by and large, democratically developed, is replaced by another that undemocratically centralizes authority with a select few. It is one where the system undogmatically caters to the interests of the broader society.
