(Editorial)

By Choi Chang-hwan

Block Media CEO and Publisher

Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, are plunging worldwide. Blockchain startups are in financial trouble and investors are at a loss. Triggering the downfall is the so-called hard fork of Bitcoin cash. In other words, Bitcoin is undergoing a radical change to its protocol that makes previously invalid blocks and transactions valid or valid blocks and transactions invalid. This hard fork requires all nodes or users to adapt themselves to the latest version of the protocol software.

The recent radical downfall is similar to the collapse of Internet firms in the early 2000s. What we should know is that Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Naver, and Kakao overcame the 2000 IT bubble and became the leaders in the global cyberworld. The bursting of the bubble is painful but provides new opportunities for competitive companies.

Italian painter of the Early Renaissance Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece, the Birth of Venus, well illustrates the fact that bubble and pain come before the dawning of a beautiful new world.

Venus, the goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility, was born of the foam or bubble from the sea after Saturn (Greek Cronus) castrated his father Uranus and threw away his genital into a sea near Italy.

The mythology is quite suggestive. The Birth of Venus symbolizes the transition of power from Uranus to his sons. Similarly, Bitcoin and blockchain projects are the Revolutionary Army which is trying to uproot the existing order.

Bitcoin, which could become the global currency without the central bank, is itself a revolutionary product. Many revolutionary young people have begun to replace the existing platforms through blockchain technology. They dream of removing costly and cumbersome intermediaries such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They seek to bypass these intermediaries and share benefits among consumers without such mediators. These young pioneers have already started a blockchain revolution to replace the Internet warriors in the early 2000s.

Bubble and Pain during Revolution

Is bubble inevitable? We need only one smart blockchain project to change the world. Then, why do so many fraudsters emerge and startups collapse in the grand march toward the Blockchain Revolution?

Venus was born of ‘form’ (sperm). Romans identified Venus as Aphrodite. Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty. Aphro means ‘foam,’ and Dite means a woman. Venus is a woman born from the white foam produced by the severed genital of Uranus (Heaven) after his son Cronus threw it into the sea.

Human is born in such a way. The form or bubble is sperm. Out of tens of millions of sperms, only one healthy sperm meets an egg during its journey to the uterus and pregnancy begins for a new baby. Nobody knows which sperm would be most healthy in meeting an egg for pregnancy.

The strongest will emerge through competition and takes over a crown. Good luck sometimes helps the stronger become strongest. Blockchain companies will survive the brutal market competition only when they are technologically competitive and lucky enough.

Fish give out tens of thousands of eggs. Turtles also lay hundreds of eggs. Numerous dandelion seeds fly over the air. However, nobody knows which fish egg, turtle egg, and dandelion seed give birth to life. We also need many competitors in the emerging blockchain world. Like mustard seeds, many blockchain projects are fragile and weak at the initial stage, but the surviving blockchain projects will create a bright future.

We cannot deny pain is inevitable on the road to the bright blockchain future. Amid the bubble-bursting, many companies will fall, and investors will lose money. Venus was born with roses. As the painting shows, roses are fluttering around Venus. Roses are the symbol of Venus. Roses have many needles. It means pain is inherent in roses. Metaphorically speaking, the needles are poking investors in blockchain projects and cryptocurrencies these days.

Where is God of West Wind and guidepost Zephyrus?.

It was God of West Win Zephyrus who guided Venus safely to the land. As the picture on the left shows, Zephyrus breathes to guide Venus on the shellfish on the land.  As the Venus born in the open sea, needed a guidepost like Zephyrus, blockchain projects and its related businesses need a guide.

Many institutional mechanisms such as reasonable regulations, optimal provision of information and safety devices for investments, are necessary to ensure the takeoff of the blockchain industry. I want to give a piece of advice to blockchain developers, investors, and related businesspersons. “We are approaching the land. You are the Venus although you are now struggling under high waves and bubbles.