Core DAO

4oFb...29rR

18 Mar 2024

Core, powered by Satoshi Plus consensus, is the result of the dialectical clash of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Inspired by the principles of both blockchains, Core displays a deep appreciation for the history of the crypto ecosystem paired with an even greater excitement for Core’s role in its future. However, before standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before, this post will look back on the path they have set. That journey all begins with the man to which Core’s consensus mechanism owes both its name and influence.
Portability was gold’s most significant limitation and the reason for its ineffectiveness. Bitcoin, however, pairs gold’s scarcity with the internet’s portability. It ensures absolute scarcity and infinite portability. Whereas gold’s portability shortcomings led to permissioned custodians and the sacrifice of financial self-sovereignty, Bitcoin needs no such tradeoff. With Bitcoin, payments across any time or space could be permissionless and self-sovereign.
Whereas Bitcoin is purposefully limited to the simple verification of transactions, Ethereum’s groundbreaking innovation is the combination of general-purpose computing with a decentralized blockchain. With Ethereum, blockchain technology can do much more than send and receive payments. It can operate as the value layer for the next stage of the internet.
If Bitcoin is an impregnable system of walls, Ethereum is a neo-nation. As with physical nation-states, Ethereum has laws, economies, and cultures. However, unlike many top-down nation-states, Ethereum users choose the network. The Ethereum Virtual Machine equally governs all agents, applications, and information with the goal of preserving identity, liberty, and ownership.
The EVM ruleset harnesses the chaotic web, finally allowing the internet to have its own native, self-contained economic and cultural flywheel. An internet-native civilization can and will be built on the blockchain.
The starting point of any successful human network is peer-to-peer exchange. Bitcoin introduced peer-to-peer exchange natively to the internet and Ethereum expanded it with decentralized exchanges (DEX). Human exchange saves time, resulting in the division of labor as participants focus on their relative advantages. On Ethereum, different developers focused on lending and borrowing with Aave, stablecoin creation with MakerDAO, liquid exchanges with Uniswap, or other innovative crafts. The division of labor develops into a network of specialized participants. On Ethereum, the division of labor led to the development of a suite of specialized, interoperable, and decentralized financial applications. Specialized labor then creates more efficient tools. Better smart contracts enabled a resurgence in DAOs and superior dapps. Ultimately, better tools increase productivity and lead to prosperous golden ages like DeFi Summer. Then, the cycle repeats. Economic developments like trustless derivatives and cultural developments like NFTs are born, shocking both the physical and digital worlds.
Web1 was a pure foundation, but it was also incredibly limited. Bugs were everywhere, protocols couldn’t recognize user data, standard functions like search and commerce weren’t yet available, and the whole thing was simply way too technical for most people. On top of that, this model had no incentives for further development because these protocols didn’t make any money.
By collecting and monetizing data and attention, Web2 companies were economically and technologically enabled to build smarter protocols wrapped in accessible user interfaces. Problematically, however, the monetization method that inspired the Web2 revolution also sowed the seeds of its corruption. At first, Web2 improved the internet experience by bringing everyone together on the same platforms with attractive offerings. By locking in users, builders, and companies, these platforms achieved advantageous network effects. With these network effects locking in participants, Web2 platforms were free to change the rules of the game.