Safecoin? The best thing to do is just forget about it
Articles ·
Some months ago, I wrote a post on the SAFE Network Community Forum, entitled Ruminations on the Beauty of Safecoin** (copied below). In it I made a number of points about why safecoin will be “the bomb” as a currency. I stand by all those opinions still.
Further revelations in interviewing Daniel Dabek about the impact of SafeX decentralized exchange protocol have driven my estimations of the impact of safecoin even higher.
But as the wonders of safecoin reveal themselves and rise in our estimation, it becomes very tempting to overlook something critically important:
Safecoin serves the SAFE Network, not the other way around. In fact, safecoin can only exist in all its wonders because of the SAFE Network as a whole.
In other words, safecoin in itself is of negligible importance as a “currency” compared to what the SAFE Network is designed to provide. It is a beautiful part of the concept of the SAFE Network and really serves to enhance the purpose and function of it in spectacular ways, but by itself safecoin could not exist and, if it could, it would not be as big a deal, especially with other decentralized currencies evolving.
The concept for some kind of currency to allow participants to exchange resources was part of the SAFE Network thinking from early on, but the whole purpose of it has always been to further the objectives of the SAFE Network as a whole: Privacy, Security and Freedom for all users. The external currency aspect is a bonus which just happens to align perfectly with the overall purposes of the network.
Historically, the control of currencies has been such a pervasive and dominating tool in the control of general populations (and the enrichment of the elite)–especially over the last century–that when people start to look around to see what can be done to increase freedom, it is perfectly natural to think “If we could just loosen the stranglehold of the power elite on our means of exchange and create a better money, we’d be all set.”
The book The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, and other such exposes, have long since documented that control of the creation of money and dictating monetary policy of nations are key tools of influencing society and maintaining power in the hands of a few.
So when Bitcoin comes along and demonstrates that there CAN be a completely decentralized money which cannot be arbitrarily inflated, which cannot be spent except by the express actions of the owner, and which cannot be shut down or directly controlled by state actors, it’s pretty exciting for the prospects of freedom. And it truly is meaningful. Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies which it has spawned are definitely decentralizing in their effect and move toward freedom in a way which is rather unique in history.
Plus the consensus mechanisms which secure these currencies have a lot of other very virtuous uses, most of which have probably not been explored yet. It is all ground-breaking, historic technology, for sure.
But is the cryptocurrency revolution enough to turn the tide and avoid the all-out police state which is growing fast? Maybe, but not on the currency front alone.
There is tremendous hope which surfaces from these explorations and implementations, and progress is being made through implementation of blockchain technologies. But they are, as yet, mainly centered around and dependent upon their currency function. It is my thought that if we want to reach towards our full potential as a race, it has to come from a place much deeper than that. Remember, things had to already be far amiss in order for “the powers that be” to gain such complete control over the money in the first place.
The SAFE Network is about creating an internet experience which is inherently private and secure, and which engenders freedom of choice and action (and responsibility) by its complete design. Only by choosing to be responsible can an individual be truly free. Freedom starts in the mind, but there is a definite feedback loop in an environment where privacy, security and freedom are manifest in significant ways.
Safecoin plays a sizable part in making a space where freedom of thought and communication actually becomes more possible. But it is important to remember that safecoin is enabled by the SAFE Network and is really only needed to incentivizing the use and health of the SAFE Network. How it functions as a currency beyond that is not terribly relevant. With SafeX, the network will soon be able to facilitate the transfer of all sorts of assets between people directly, other currencies included. Safecoin will facilitate the use of the SAFE Network for villagers in India as well as businesspersons in Indianapolis, however else it might (or might not) function as a currency. The SAFE Network will provide. Safecoin is simply an integrated aspect of it.
So forget about safecoin? No, of course not. Not really.
Just let’s make sure to keep it in perspective.
It’s not just another altcoin. It’s so much less–and so much more. And for that very reason, safecoin becomes even more exciting.
– by John Ferguson, the Simpleton of Project SAFE
** Ruminations on the Beauty of Safecoin – (lead post on a topic of 8 Jan 2015)
I’ve been thinking over the different aspects of Safecoin and find it beautiful.
There are so many things to say about the value of the network as a whole that it could fill volumes. I’m, here, just expounding on the specific attributes of safecoin, especially when compared to any other currency, crypto or otherwise, which I’ve not seen pulled together in one place.
Representation of a valuable resource: Each safecoin betokens resource (drive space, cpu, bandwidth, etc.) which has been actually contributed and already found useful to the network. This is not completely unique to Safecoin, as Bitcoin and other altcoins represent reward for serving the network, but with Safecoin it is done in a way that doesn’t involve so much excess energy because it is so granular and based upon cooperation rather than competition. This seems to fit the Austrian Economic concept of marginal utility, as in underlying resources such as gold or silver, but I’m not an expert on that.
Granularity of Contribution: Security of the currency is achieved by the very mechanism which is used to access and participate in the network, down to the interface level. This is granularity of contribution. Every device connected to the network will contribute to its security. Bitcoin and altcoin mining is a specialized function which tends to become centralized by necessity. Such centralization doesn’t invalidate its usefulness, but it causes the currency to issue from much more concentrated points, after much effort. (That effort is worth doing, because it enables the security and transaction aspects of the currency–platform, really, since bitcoin and others can do a lot of other worthwhile things.) This then requires that these currencies use separate mechanisms to become broadly dispersed.
Granularity of Distribution: Unlike blockchain currencies which have much more centralized contribution of resource, and thus distribution of currency, Safecoin will be spread much more evenly amongst users/resource-contributors, because most anyone who can access the network can contribute to it, and thus many , many people, all over the world will acquire Safecoin. This is fantastically important as far as bootstrapping Safecoin as a currency goes. Almost everyone can farm safecoin. From a planter on the window sill (smartphone/tablet), to the squarefoot garden on the porch (laptop), to a backyard garden plot (desktop), to the larger operation (dedicated server arrangement). Everyone who wants to, can have some safecoin, anywhere in the world that they can connect to the network and run the software. This allows one to very directly and easily purchase additional resources from the network, but also to start to exchange safecoin for other things VIA the network. The only analogy to the “Bitcoin Millionaire” will be those who were actually rich in bitcoin, or used existing wealth to buy bitcoin, and used it to purchase a lot of Safecoin in the crowd sale. There are a lot of others who contributed in the crowd sale, who will have varying amounts of safecoin from the beginning, but the bulk of Safecoin will come into existence on a very granular and dispersed pattern, making it so that almost anyone can have some. It’s sort of like watering your plants because you want the flowers or veggies you grow, but finding a piece of silver turn up every now and then. The only others who get rich with Safecoin will be those who provide products and/or services which are valued by others and get paid for it. Early adopters should do well, but that is by virtue of providing service to the network early on, when it is most needed by the network to get up and running. Likewise for those who contributed early in the crowd sale, when resources to get the network live were most needed.
Anonymity: Using safecoin, it will be possible to achieve true anonymity of transaction–or fully verified identity, as well. Possibly Bitcoin’s greatest feature is that it is NOT truly anonymous, only pseudonomous. It can be used anonymously to a degree, but the value is in a public ledger. Safecoin will have none such. It will truly be digital cash. Few people will have great quantities of it at the start, so no purchase of WMDs right out of the box, thank you very much. The potential of privacy of value exchange will slowly return to the picture.
Transaction speed: Safecoin will transact at network speed, which should be quite fast from the start and get faster as the network expands. When confirmed, which should approach nearly instant, it is done. No waiting for further confirmations before being able to spend your Safecoin.
Transaction scalability: Because of the nature of Safecoin, the number of transactions per second has no foreseeable limit. As the network expands and demand for transactions grows, so will the capacity to accommodate them.
There’s probably tons more that can be said about the beauty of safecoin, not to mention the exponentially greater aspects of the network as a whole, but those are the ones that I just wanted to clear my breast of.
Not great news to a lot of you, but I had to pull it all together in words before I blew up. Would love to have these expounded upon.
[NOTE: If you have linked in to this article from elsewhere and wish to know more about the SAFE Network, visit the Home page of this site to find links to more info. Also, listen to the first SAFE Crossroads Podcast on the same page.]
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