The future will be decentralized
Web3, blockchain, what kind of narrative are these words exactly trying to shape?
From my point of view, the most important part is "decentralization"
The future of freedom needs decentralization.
Technological developments have proven that building trust and consensus between different actors must rely on trusted 3rd parties is a compromise made because of the inability of backward productivity to solve problems, and we can now get rid of the dependence by taking advantages of the architecture of distributed systems --- this is essentially taking back the rights which we have ceded , and we deserve to have more freedom.
Financial systems as an infrastructure, not privately owned weapons.
With trust and consensus, we can then build a decentralized financial system and take a big step towards the desired finance freedom.
If you agree that human beings have the right to live and should all have the right to breathe fresh air freely, then you should agree that people should have the right to own finance freedom. Because they are actually equivalent. Suppressed breathing hinders survival, and so does finance freedom: Truckers protesting at the U.S.-Canada border have their bank accounts frozen by government, making it impossible for them to repay loans and buy necessities —— and they haven't violated any specific law. See, damage to financial freedom can also be used as a weapon to undermine people's other legitimate rights and interests, such as freedom of assembly and protest.
It is not difficult to see that in the above example, the financial system has become a tool for maintaining stability for the authority. Ordinary people are already powerless to fight back in the face of authoritarianism, and if we don't fight for some small rights for ourselves (trying to become technically immune to authoritarianism on finance), the next person to be slaughtered may be ourselves.
The financial system is instrumentalized in a sense to the detriment of others, far beyond authoritarian entities to individuals. Isn't it also one of the manifestations that the Fed uses the hegemony of the dollar to pass on US inflation to make the whole world pay for it, and therefore periodically harvests high-quality assets of other countries at low prices? "Fairness" has always been child's play under the current system. (That's always the case, but does that also mean it's right?)
Decentralization allows us to make the financial system a public resource like air, accessible to all, rather than a tool that is privately owned and weaponized by a central entity. （Think about the word "permissionless"）
Not everyone wants to play the game, especially the game is designed to have a bad ending.
No matter how well packaged the modern financial system is, it cannot escape its Ponzi scheme nature.
Even U.S. Treasuries, which are generally considered the most reliable assets, may make us have to think a few more points after the farce of debt default risk:
- In American politics, where partisan interests already outweigh national interests, it is now possible to put U.S. debt on the brink of default for political blackmail, and it can be done at anytime. And often walking by the river, where are there not wet shoes?
- One of the main uses of U.S. Treasuries is interest payments on Treasuries. Borrowing new money to pay interest, the snowball gets bigger and bigger, and there will always be a day when the risk cannot be passed on to the future. (Is its credibility supported by aircraft carriers? When everyone's force is so high that they can flip the table, the cowards who play to the limit may end up dying together.)
- The long-term depreciation trend of credit currency will not change. To achieve "store of value" in this system, it takes "painstaking work"
Not everyone wants to be a player in such a game. Even China claims to be able to "come and go freely"; the modern centralized monopoly finance should also allow players to exit. Decentralized finance gives us such a hedge, and this is the progress of the times.
And maybe, we can find a way to escape?
Someone judges that today is "a major change unseen in a century." I think this statement is very correct.
In the current century of change, the potential risks are far more than we see. Can decentralization, and decentralized finance, serve as a safe harbor that allows us to take refuge?
I hope the answer I get in the future is "yes". I also hope that everyone will not ignore the significance of decentralization in the media hype and complicated words such as "web 3", "blockchain", etc.
Thanks for your reading. I hope you find this helpful.