The recent decision of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to eliminate U.S. regulations enforcing net neutrality has led to a great deal of handwringing in the tech community. Some observers worry about a serious undermining of blockchain platforms and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. An article posted in The Next Web last week frets about exactly this outcome and lays out the scenarios in which it could come to pass.

Pessimists fear that telecoms companies no longer bound by net neutrality rules could effectively crush crypto ecosystems by restricting access to them. In the case of Bitcoin and others, this is a genuine possibility. Some of the scenarios the article lays out:

“ISPs may decide (or bend under government pressure) to effectively end cryptocurrency by shutting off access to make deposits or withdrawals from popular (and trustworthy) exchanges. … Or, another interesting idea: ISPs could decide to issue their own coins and prioritize transactions by running them through approved exchanges.”

And yet the landscape is not as grim as it seems. Innovations are coming to market that reinforce the value of blockchain to corporate partners. At Peer Mountain, we have developed a blockchain ecosystem that ties into existing global financial and commercial systems such that major legacy players actually support them. Our PeerChain protocol is on the leading edge of this trend.

Peer Mountain is designed as an open, circular ecosystem that works on PeerChain instances. PeerChain enables parties operating across different blockchains to interact with one another in a cohesive, unified environment. It provides major benefits to businesses, including the ability to generate revenue by acting as attestation providers. For example, a utility can attest proof of residency for a user applying for a credit card. Peer Mountain also relieves businesses of the financial, reputational, and regulatory burden of storing customers’ sensitive personal information, since everything can be shared granularly and pseudo-anonymously through the PeerChain Protocol. With GDPR entering into force in 2018, this capability is a major benefit to corporations using Peer Mountain.

All of this is to say that we expect large corporations to be active in the Peer Mountain ecosystem, and these businesses’ PeerChain instances will be accessible to all permissioned users. This means that in order for an ISP to shut down access to Peer Mountain it would need to restrict access to these companies as well. In effect, PeerChain weaves the blockchain into the global economy, providing valuable benefits to businesses and consumers alike. With these disparate parties aligned by the power and utility of a blockchain, and linked together by our PeerChain protocol, the technology ceases to be an unfamiliar innovation at the margins of the global economy and instead becomes an integral part of it. This integration, spearheaded by Peer Mountain and PeerChain, renders moot the fears of some in the community that the end of net neutrality heralds the end of crypto. On the contrary, the PeerChain Protocol is leading the way toward establishing blockchain as a pillar of a secure, trust-based global economy.