Yonatan Sompolinsky@hashdag
@binance,
Thanks for including me in the top 100 blockchain people list, appreciate the signal!
I must decline the Dubai invite though. I do not wish to disrespect, but many of the award voters are avid kaspians who rooted for my kaspa status at least as much as for my research. Let them win or count me out.
Crypto has turned from a euphoric cypherpunk project to a house-friendly casino. You may not be the culprit, but as a top player you hold the lion’s share of the responsibility to correct this, and the October crash your USDe oracle glitch helped trigger adds to what needs to be addressed.
There are three classes of crypto, as @mert put it recently: commercial crypto, casino crypto, cypherpunk crypto. <> A TBTF CEX should know better and play a different game with hardcore crypto projects.
When binance lists a green frog three weeks post its “launch” but skips a fair-launched-Nakamoto-Consensus-100ms-upgrade-ATH-top-20-the-only-nonbitcoin-marathon-mined project, this is not merely binance rationally calculating; it is also binance molding the market in a way that is alas misaligned with the roots of the movement.
You may feel that kaspa’s sovereign money thesis is boring – that bitcoin is already money and that implementing an internet-speed bitcoin is useless - fine. Wrong but fine. But what’s the thesis for the green frog?
Money is a classic chicken-and-egg product. It is a scam up until one moment before tipping point, “most of the value comes from the value that others place in it.” Considering your resources and influence, I think it's safe to say you can serve as both the egg and the chicken and make it worth your while to push sound attempts towards tipping point.
@cz_binance tweeted recently that “strong projects will be listed.” But binance is part of what defines "strong", it bears responsibility for the market’s compass and impulse and definition of strong. It is not a read-only entity.
Binance listing fees are legit, they are just unfit for category cypherpunk. Kaspa devs and early supporters fairly mined less than half what satoshi and hals mined. We don’t have a 20% ZEC-style founders’ reward or protocol-enforced dev fund; this is not a jab at ZEC and the wonderful @Zooko, who was crashing in my car on a late Thursday back in the low ZEC MC days – if somebody deserves to win it is zooko – but assuming binance is not taking a maxi bet, it should revisit its relationship with hardcore crypto.
We are here through bull and bear, ICOs NFTs XYZs; and we are the source of confidence that restores faith and capital inflow post meme-induced or CEX-induced crashes.
Please fix this.
Thanks again,
hashdag
cc @michaelsuttonil
Exhibit A: Binance Innovation Zone
Exhibit B: 10 bps Nakamoto Consensus
