Thread by @ctoLarsson

EU threatens to ban blockchain technology as we know it, vote on Thursday.

“Crypto bros” are upset, @paultang writes.

Yes, I am. Take 2 minutes to read this thread, and you will be too.

I've also been the "Internet bro" and the "Mobile phone bro".

/1

Blockchain tech is my #3rd rodeo, and it’s the same all-over again.

Where would EU have been today if we had hampered the internet or the 2G/3G/4G/5G revolution?

The big innovation of Bitcoin/blockchain was the ability to transfer value without an intermediary.

When I studied computer science in 1992, that was an unsolvable problem.

Hence the need for an intermediary which is the database storing the where the funds are now.

That intermediary is the bank. That is the database storing if funds are in account A or account B.

A large part of society today is built around such intermediaries.

Suddenly they are no longer strictly needed and the implications are... staggering.

The proposed ruleset will in practice enforce the use of the intermediary, the "custodial wallet", the database, the bank.

It's like:
- enforcing the use of the post office instead of email
- enforcing printed newspaper instead of www
- enforcing fixed phones instead of mobile

There were great arguments for all of those:
- Criminals can send encrypted electronic messages via email
- Internet lacks a publisher responsible for the content
- Mobile phones give cancer
- Criminals use Bitcoin wallets

But criminals also use cars, electricity, printed books and pen and paper.

We need to stop crime not by smudging invention even if it seems the easy way out, because it leads to economic ruin.

That’s the strategy of North Korea. It's a bad strategy.

The proposal will in practice enforce the use of "hosted wallets" (a database, a bank)

by making "wallets" persona non grata

through various impossible-to-comply-to rules.

We then kill the very essence of the invention,

because that's what the invention is

- a wallet which eliminates the need for an intermediary

We enforce taxation, criminal justice and national security today even with internet and the mobile phone around.

We can do it with blockchain technology too.

And we can do it without killing the next major technology revolution after the internet and the mobile phone, which would lead to economic destruction for the entire EU region for decades to come.

/end