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1/ As we get closer to the launch of a number of Layer 1 chains that raised big money in 2017 and early 2018, I've been thinking a lot about what those launches are going to look like and whether they will pan out as early investors might have hoped.
2/ The history of software development shows that building in a vacuum and expecting to come out with the perfect solution basically never works. Development is an iterative process which often involves many false starts and should have user feedback at its core.
3/ There are many classes of users here. Mainly for L1 chains I'm talking about developers, as they will ultimately be the ones to decide, via voting with their feet, which chain(s) win.
4/ While we'd all like to think that bitcoin came into the world fully formed, perfect, and entirely bugless, that's not the case. What happened is that bitcoin launched into relative oblivion (read: general sentiment was IDGAF).
5/ This was actually a terrific stroke of luck - since approximately 4 people cared, few eyes were upon it, and almost nobody was trying to attack the chain. In bitcoin's early years, there was basically no financial incentive to break it.
6/ If syphoning off bitcoin only netted you a few hundred bucks, it would hardly be worth the trouble. This let bitcoin develop into a robust state by the time it started getting more attention.
7/ The environment today looks very different, and is much more antagonistic. There are 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars to be made by attacking top chains, and that # is rising.
8/ Developer expectations are (rightly) much higher today than they were when bitcoin or even ethereum launched. Part of that is projects today should be able to benefit from and build on prior art.
9/ And part of it is just about the money - if you've raised 100M +, people are going to expect that your chain has its shit together at time of launch. In this kind of environment, the iterative process is much tougher.
10/ As if that weren't enough, as new chains become more complex, the surface area for vulnerabilities becomes dramatically larger. It's easier to have bugs, and easier for malicious actors to exploit those issues - and as discussed, there's more incentive to do so.
11/ On the whole, I remain extremely excited and optimistic about what other chains will bring to the table. But being glib about the risks involved strikes me as a recipe for disaster. As usual, never a dull moment in crypto.... 🙃
