Cyphercash Not Cryptocurrency
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I, as the maintainer of Ergon.moe, have decided to drop the term cryptocurrency in favor of cyphercash when referring to Ergon on the website. The maintainers of other Ergon outlets may or may not follow but I encourage them.
The word cryptocurrency, initially introduced to represent Bitcoin and similar projects, is associated with what the current crypto industry is about - investments, speculation and scam. What does this word mean nowadays? What do the cryptocurrencies have in common? Certainly not the consensus algorithm, those come in many shapes and sizes. Not blockchain, there are other designs that are also considered crypto. Not the censorship resistance nor irreversibility. Not decentralization.
However, the feature that all cryptocurrencies share is artificial scarcity. The same template design appears over and over. It's this particular design that makes cryptocurrencies the most volatile and risky markets in the world.
I heard an opinion that crypto is deranged because money corrupts everything, even decentralization. I believe the problems with cryptocurrencies are much deeper than that. There's nothing inherently corruptive in getting paid. Just imagine your boss telling you they won't pay your wage because money corrupts. Getting paid is fine. Cryptocurrencies however are deliberately designed to turn into an MLM-like, pyramid structure, with the insiders constituting the "deep capital", as we call it. The artificial scarcity disattaches the issuance payout from any measurable effort, the insiders simply have to be in a privileged position to gain access to the distribution of the coins. On top of that, the perfect price inelasticity of supply causes massive volatility, amplified by the MLM marketing promising to make you rich. Once you join, you need to start spreading the word, or else you'll be the last greater fool, the scheme will collapse on top of your head. The regular price collapses have to remind you about this. Once you join, it starts corrupting you.
The word cyphercash captures the essence of what Ergon is and it widely resonated with the community when we started using it in chats. It's the cash of the internet. It's not for investing, not for speculation. It's for paying and getting paid. It is deeply connected to work, through the issuance. There's no chance to get any advantage over others by coming earlier because when very few people mine it (e.g. the insiders at the beginning), the payout is proportionately tiny. They can't load their pockets before others have a chance. There's no pyramid structure. Of course it means it won't make anyone rich for doing nothing, but isn't it fair?
I changed the content of the front page and from now on I will be using this term in the blog posts, but I won't go back to the old posts and change them. I'll leave them as they are for the archives. Yes, Ergon came from cryptocurrency origins and yes I used to call it a cryptocurrency, but after careful consideration I decided it was not appropriate. Not only the crypto industry cast its shadow on Ergon but it's also inappropriate to legitimize it with our work.