Ah, the wild west. John Wayne, the Man with No Name, Billy the Kid and Jesse James. <\/p>\n
The frontier has a way of capturing everyone\u2019s imagination \u2013 young and old. The cowboys, the outlaws, the gold prospectors. A land of opportunity and harsh cruelty. Unforgiving yet irresistible. <\/p>\n
Bitcoin was once such a frontier. The early days were rife with scams, \u201ccriminals\u201d and underground markets. The underbelly of the internet embraced it first. It was an agora filled with foreign and obscure figures. It thrived as a counterculture, void of any rules and regulations. No government to protect you from yourself. No KYC, no AML \u2013 only your name, your PGP key, gribble<\/a>, and the Web-Of-Trust. Fortunes were made, and fortunes were lost. A beautiful chaos where only the authority of the Bitcoin blockchain reigned supreme. True anarchy.<\/p>\n Along the way, entrepreneurs & VCs intervened and the siren song of mass adoption invited the lawmen into our territories. Fast forward a decade and the prospect of a new world where the individual stands at the center appears grim. Markets have been institutionalized, businesses regulated and consumers are now \u201cprotected\u201d. Anti-establishment has been replaced by dogma. Tradition & sovereignty were traded for religion, lured by the prospect of gold and dollars. The bold dream of an underworld economy has faded.<\/p>\n That is until you start looking abroad, far east, where a new frontier has surfaced.<\/p>\n I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever. – Mark Twain <\/p>\n Boarding the plane for Hong Kong last week, it was interesting to reminisce on the timeline that had brought me there. <\/p>\nWild Wild East<\/h4>\n