Bitcoins in front of folder dollar banknotes
Those who tuned in for Dr. Craig Wright’s recent The Bitcoin Masterclasses will be much better informed about Bitcoin’s data management capabilities.
Picking up on this and predicting what the future will look like, George Siosi Samuels wrote about the era of ‘Pax BitCoinica’—an era of data peace and security that he envisages in the future. You can read the original essay here.
Pax Mongolica and Pax Britannica
The Mongolian and British empires were two of the largest in history. The former stretched all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean, and the British empire was dubbed the empire on which the sun never set.
Both empires ushered in eras of relative peace, trade, and exchange of technology, culture, and ideas. During the Mongolian empire, Samuels notes that technologies like paper money and gunpowder spread along with religions like Islam and Buddhism. The British empire ushered in an era of unprecedented free trade and travel, laying the foundations for the industrial revolution and establishing a truly global economy.
Samuels envisages a similar era of data peace, stability, and exchange which he dubs Pax BitCoinica. He notes that it won’t come without “massive disruption and consolidation of the current ecosystem” and predicts it will take 10-15 years before this era enters its full glory.
A Single Global Blockchain (SGB)
Samuels begins his insightful essay by identifying a key problem in the world today: data is the new oil, but it’s owned or hosted by large tech firms like Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ: META), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).
With data in these massive, centralized silos, breaches are inevitable. According to a recent report, over 4 billion records were exposed in the first half of 2019 alone. In 2022, data breaches cost more than $52 billion.
Having identified the problem, Samuels then proposes a solution: a Single Global Blockchain (SGB). Such a blockchain would allow users to store and share data without worrying about so-called trusted third parties. As well as eliminating or at least shrinking the huge data silos that hackers view as honeypots, an SGB could address another major problem: censorship.
Among the benefits of an SGB, Samuels lists the free exchange of data, the reduction of fraud and abuse, more efficient and secure financial transactions, and making data more available and accessible to all.
Ironically, multiple blockchains reintroduce the very problems the original Bitcoin was designed to solve. Samuels gives the example of the various blockchain bridge hacks that cost users billions.
However, Pax BitCoinica will be different from either Pax Mongolica or Pax Britannia. While these past eras relied on massive centralized powers, an SGB would “keep power decentralized enough to ensure no single entity has complete control over the blockchain for an extended period of time,” Samuels writes.
Samuels notes that a Single Global Blockchain would tame the ‘crypto’ Wild West and flies in the face of many of the ideas promoted by anarchists in the industry.
This is in keeping with what’s known about the formation of groups, according to Tuckerman-Edison’s four-stage model of Form, Storm, Norm, Perform, Samuels says. Bitcoin is entering the ‘Norm’ stage today. This is when increased legal understanding and regulation is to be expected.
Indeed, that’s what we’re seeing, and we have both predicted it and reported on it daily for years at CoinGeek.
After this period, we’ll enter the ‘Perform’ stage as new businesses and applications form and unleash new use cases. Samuels notes that this has precedent: giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter arrived on the scene 20-30 years after the internet was born.
Samuels predicts it will take another 10-15 years to reach this stage fully. He still sees the need for a “massive consolidation” and predicts it won’t come easily.
Key takeaways from this George Samuels Samuels article
- The Mongolian and British empires gave rise to eras of relative peace and stability. This led to the free exchange of ideas, culture, and technology, as well as the blossoming of global trade.
- Samuels sees an era of Pax BitCoinica 10-15 years in the future. In this era, a Single Global blockchain (Bitcoin SV) will enable an era of data peace and security never seen before.
- However, a massive consolidation must occur within the industry before this can happen. This won’t come easy; it will take around 10-15 years to play out. Samuels believes our future prosperity depends on it.
Who is George Siosi Samuels and where can I hear more from him?
George Siosi Samuels is Head of Culture & Community at the Bitcoin Association. He’s also a 3x Founder and Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Faiā. You can hear about ideas like Pax BitCoinica by signing up for his Bitcoin-focused newsletter It Will Come.
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