They’re not virtue signalling, pandering, begging, trying to pull up the ladder, collaborating in secret forums, writing worthless foundation documents, constitutions or other drivel that does not and cannot make a single Bitcoin transaction or help anyone.

And note how they say “non-profit”, virtue signalling that they’re not in it for the money. Of course they are. They’re in it for the money 100% and want to prevent other people from competing for the same money they want to capture. There is no “Blockchain Ecosystem” and even if there were one, these self-appointed pinheads don’t have the right to anoint themselves and lord it over everyone else. It’s also profoundly unethical to use the law to fence off Bitcoin and prevent others from working with their own hardware and the software they’ve written. What these venal people are trying to do is create a bespoke Patent System, where the State will grant a license to write software to people approved by them, using only previously approved techniques and business models.

It doesn’t appear to the casual observer to be anything like Patents, but the effect is the same; these people use the legislature to create a barrier to entry. You can only write software if you are defacto approved by them, and do things their way, or face legal consequences. This is indistinguishable in effect from being granted a Patent by the State and using it to keep competition from developing.

Our objective is to create a pro-innovation environment for the industry, meeting the growing global demand for accessible, transparent and democratic financial and technical systems. To do that, we’ll foster collaboration between the community and industry leaders, educate policymakers and the public on the benefits of blockchain and related technologies, and advocate for public policy that cultivates and enables innovation and improves lives.

It is a lie to say that their aim is to create a pro-innovation environment. That environment already exists, and the many software projects and companies operating is proof of this. Bitcoin itself didn’t need any of these people to start, and not a single one of them thought there was a problem to solve in the first place; they are all new to this problem (the problem of fiat money), and have no understanding of the motivations behind it, let alone the gears that make the solution run. We know this is true because they were all for SegWit2X.

Now for the real triggering. Bitcoin is not democratic it will never be democratic, and it is a good thing that it is not democratic. For those of you reading this who believe in democracy, try and think. Do you believe that the value of your house, your business or your life should be left to a democratic vote? Of course, your answer is “no”. You should also answer “no” to the question if it is asking about the form and function of your money. The value of your money like any natural constant cannot and should not be left to a vote. Bitcoin cannot be democratic, and as we’re seeing with Etherium, leaving technical details to a vote is a recipe for total disaster.

Bitcoin has no “industry leaders” despite their rabid wish to appoint themselves as such. There is no distinction between peers on the Bitcoin network; everyone has the same rights and must obey the same rules, all of which are written explicitly in the software. The people who don’t want to follow the rules, like the SegWit2X people, CoinCenter and now Blockchain Association are rule breakers, cheats and bullies who can’t accept the discipline of the network, and who in fact have no respect at all for “the community”. That’s why they’ve created this association; they’re elitists who think they’re better than everyone else.

When they say they’ll “advocate for [sic] public policy” that means they will lobby the Congress to pass laws that flavour their operations and pander to their perspective and business models to the exclusion of all others. Doesn’t sound so nice when you tell the truth does it? But that is exactly what they’re proposing to do, and we know this from the BitLicense debacle that turned New York into a wasteland. KYC/AML and market friction don’t “improve lives” and only serve to slow down the spread of Bitcoin. These people are the worst liars; KYC/AML abuses users, makes business more expensive to run, causes services to be less usable and viral. But…that’s what these people want.

The Blockchain Association unites the projects, investors, exchanges and foundations who will work together to advance the future of the entire ecosystem. Our inaugural members include industry-leading projects and exchanges, such as Coinbase, Protocol Labs, and Circle, and investors such as Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital. These organizations are setting the pace of the industry. As a group, they can have the conversations with policymakers that will drive meaningful change.

None of the members of this gang is working to advance Bitcoin. Coinbase is the worst actor of all, and Circle is no better. DCG was one of the main Bitcoin antagonists in the SegWit2X scandal. None of these gangsters is setting the pace for anything, save bad behaviour (cutting off accounts of users, surveillance, chain poisoning, and other anti-market, anti-Bitcoin activities). If you want to see what a company that is setting the pace looks like, look no further than Lightning Labs, Samurai Wallet and other, actual industry leaders who are building the infrastructure that these parasitic entities will all adopt and try to co-opt.

We know the industry doesn’t agree 100 percent of the time, but we do share many core beliefs and principles. The Blockchain Association came together these past few months not in a bubble, but over coffees, dinners, video calls, and perhaps most importantly, during New York’s Blockchain Week. It’s clear that we will only thrive if the blockchain ecosystem achieves its full potential, which requires regulatory clarity, policies that support the whole system rather than a handful of large organizations, and the protection and privacy of consumers.

This is another lie on many fronts. But it is true that the only way these people can thrive is if they use the law to kill competition. They don’t innovate and iterate fast enough to keep up with the thousands of developers who are all trying to disrupt them. And there is one live example that vividly demonstrates this: BTCPay Server.

Take for example the sad case of BitPay and Nicolas Dorier. Dorier is a genius software developer who took it upon himself to disrupt BitPay by duplicating and radically improving their service feature for feature. In a few months after accepting the challenge, he did it.

Now there is a tool that can totally destroy BitPay forever. Obviously BitPay or anyone under this form of withering market competition would rather not endure it, so what would they do about it if they could do something about it…theoretically?

Theoretically, they would set up an “Industry Group” and then lobby Congress to make running an “Unregistered Bitcoin Fulfilment Platform” a crime. CoinCenter would provide the legal cover/pretext and expert fearmongering. Then it would be literally illegal to run BTCPay Server in the USA. If you think that scenario is impossible, you are totally insane.

Innovation moves faster than policy, and we’ve seen many blockchain-based frameworks with great potential that don’t fit neatly within existing statutory and regulatory frameworks. The unique characteristics of the token economy require an evolved environment that supports our members as they build more inclusive, efficient, and distributed financial systems, and more decentralized web applications.

And there you have it. “Innovation moves faster than policy”. It also moves faster than these companies combined can counter. AirBnB is not a hotel. Uber is not a taxi company, Facebook is not a publisher. AppearIn is not a telephone company. None of these companies felt the need to “reach” out to explain what they were doing, they just did it, because they knew they would win. The companies in the Blockchain Alliance know they can’t win without using violence to stop competitors.

The fact that software projects don’t fit into artificial categories that these people imagine are real or relevant is called disruption. And the idea that every single activity people engage in, new or novel, needs regulation is anathema to Americanism. The only people who need regulation are CoinCenter, who stand to make a fortune out of consulting once they set up practice consulting on the laws they helped draft.

The “Token Economy”? PLEASE.