About three years ago, I was a complete Bitcoin maximalist. This was around the time when many altcoins were coming on to the scene. I thought that most of these were just riding the wave of blockchain technology; that most were scams designed to enrich the developers and early coin holders a lá  Charles Ponzi.

Not so much today.

I've done a 180 with regards to altcoins. Though I still think the vast majority of the coins out there are mostly useless or playing the hype of ICOs and altcoin fever, there are many that I believe are genuinely trying to fill a market need. This is a good thing. This is the free market experimenting and offering many solutions. It's a let's-see-what-sticks approach.

For the times, they are a changin'

With this new view, I hope that we see thousands of new blockchain based coins, projects and, in general, the movement to decentralization. Why?

Quite simply: the shift is upon us. What shift? Perhaps a paradigm shift of everything we take for granted. Everything that we think does not need changing. Perhaps humans are shifting to higher consciousness. Who knows. 

What I am certain about is that this reality is based on constant change. Everything changes. Politics, medicine, culture, social norms, technology, scientific theories, the earth's climate, ecosystems - absolutely everything. 

So given that change is inevitable, why fight it? That is illogical. I say let's embrace this new technology and see where it takes humanity.

My guess is that as we adopt more decentralization, societies will see massive changes in organization and cooperation. No more ruthless governments, no more monopolistic and monolithic corporations, and no more single points of failure. We will see more robustness in our systems and more freedom for the individual.

Decentralize it all!

With more blockchain projects, we see a distribution of resources (i.e. development teams) which helps to ensure the safety of these people. Any entity opposed to these ideas will have a difficult time suppressing the technology.

The more focus we have on decentralizing the Internet, systems, money and resource-control, the less influence any one entity has on infringing on human freedoms. 

Having more altcoins available to the market is also desirable. As an analogy, why settle only for the USD? In today's fiat we have most countries issuing their own currency which offers choices for investors and speculators and allows for geographically-based mediums of exchange. 

With altcoins, we also see this competition happening. The main difference though is that altcoins represent some niche or a different way of solving the problem of transaction processing. I want to see more solutions being brought forth. And I do not necessarily want to see one clear winner. I like the idea of having choice.

Why do places with few mobile carriers suck for consumers? Less choice, higher prices, crappy service. Can we say oligopoly? Why would we want this for cryptocurrencies? In a market with lots of competition, the consumer gains in terms of choice and ultimately, an increased standard of living.

So let's embrace this massive and exciting movement to decentralize everything. Let's encourage entrepreneurs and developers to offer more to the marketplace. Let's experiment and see what gives the most value to our lives.

I say long-live cryptos. Embrace decentralization!