After listening to Shervin Pishevar discuss the tech industry one might find recent Facebook developments ironic. Shervin Pishevar criticized the industry for becoming overly centralized. The Internet itself was designed to be decentralized. Therefore, for the majority of tech to become subject to a few companies is an unnatural occurrence. Nevertheless, this is what happened.
To the dismay of people like Shervin Pishevar a few large corporations are now in control of much of the world’s data flow. Amazon, Facebook, and Google have all drastically overstepped their influence. Blockchain technology was supposed to help undo this. And for the most part, blockchain, through cryptocurrencies, has revived some of the decentralization that shaped the early Internet.
What you might be asking yourself at this point is: what about those pseudo cryptocurrencies? Certainly, there are many cryptos that Shervin Pishevar and others would not consider true cryptocurrencies. Some that use the name are actually entirely centralized and, beyond their disguise, are nothing more than an altered form of PayPal. These digital payment systems, or currencies, share little with the unchangeable, publicly distributed, and transparent systems that take after Bitcoin.
These are the thoughts running through the greater community of the crypto market. In respects to Facebook, the conclusion that its crypto project will, at best, be partially centralized is a foregone conclusion to most. And yet, a strange turn of events has ensued.
The head of Facebook’s blockchain partnership project has indicated that the future of its cryptocurrency, termed Libra, will in fact not be under the company’s direct control. For many people this will be hard to believe. Maybe this is why Facebook and its partners took the time to release the files that will form the foundation of Libra as an open source project on Github.
We do not know the future, but so far, the intent of the project has been stated to be one of a truly decentralized blockchain. Facebook’s incentive is that as a top tier wallet. The company expects other wallets to compete and a community to form in support of Libra.
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