Joshua Buirski decentralized technologies purist, focusing on open-source protocols, on-chain governance, and interoperability. Joshua coordinates much of the Decred Project‘s Asia-Pacific strategy & operations, in addition to being a core contributor to the Block Collider multichain protocol.
Q1: Dear Joshua – you are one of the speakers at the upcoming 5 Years anniversary event of the local Bitcoin Saigon Community. When did you first time hear about Bitcoin and why did you get interested into it in the first place?
I am looking forward to the event, crossing the 5-year mark is a significant accomplishment in this space. A major accomplishment for the BitcoinVN team.
I first encountered Bitcoin through an online game called SecondLife. I was a pretty avid online gamer at the time and the concept of a digital currency that transcended the borders of an individual game seemed significant to me. In my younger years, there were few things more frustrating than grinding in-game currency/items only to have them made worthless when the game inevitably went out of fashion/shut down.
So whilst my initial encounter with Bitcoin was probably under fairly immature and naive pretexts, there certainly are interesting parallels between the gaming world and the global economy. Like games, sovereign currencies are often restricted to their borders, fall out of fashion, and occasionally collapse.
Q2: Looking back over the past 5 years – what surprised you most positively, what most negatively in the past half decade of Bitcoin history?
Great question.
– The positive: the rise of Bitcoin globally has demonstrated that humans have an innate and universal urge for freedom. It’s been pretty exciting to see how universally the significance seems to be understood, and it has given me immense faith in the ability of human’s to mobilize and co-ordinate on a global scale, despite cultural differences.
– The negative: it has been disappointing to see some of the “OG” advocates become complacent/arrogant. It has also been very disappointing to see the intense toxicity between once aligned “rival” factions. I do also often times find myself concerned that we are making too many compromises to rush the technology to masses at times. Maintaining decentralization should always take precedent over scaling.
Q3: What can listeners expect to learn from your talk at the 5 Year anniversary event?
I’ll be talking briefly about dispute resolutions in decentralized systems, as well as making a staunch defense of Proof-of-Work consensus.
Q4: Where do you see Bitcoin, the communities and its general impact on society going within the next 5 years?
The next 5 years will be pivotal. I don’t see Bitcoin reaching the mainstream consumer within the next 5 years, and that is a good thing we are not ready, and neither are they. However the occurrences we are seeing in Venezuela and Iran are just the beginning.
The world is going to be shocked to find out just how fragile the global economy truly is. So I expect that Bitcoin’s value proposition will be very clearly established among the mainstream consensus over the next 5 years, and this will lay the foundations for adoption over the next 10 years.
Joshua will be speaking at the Bitcoin Saigon anniversary event on the 29th of November about On-Chain Dispute Resolution & The Importance of Proof-of-Work – you can grab your tickets here!
