Contention:
- heated disagreement.
- an assertion, especially one maintained in argument.
The fact that Satoshi Nakamoto included the text "03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" on the Genesis Block sugests that the guy/gal's little love for financial institutions pushed him to make his awesome invention.
Although I feel some kind of camaradery towards all crypto users and sometimes get annoyed at the bitterness of some debates and discussions in the community, I can't deny that the evolutionary pressures that drove the development of cryptocurrencies were conflict and contempt.
Most technology problems are solved with better technology. And so, watching the intensity of some discussions among relevant members of the community and the prices of competing cryptos racing up I just can't imagine a way through which 2018 can possibly be a bad year for crypto.
- In the beggining we had financial institutions and corruption pushing Satoshi to create Bitcoin.
- We also saw the develoment of deanonimization techniques on the bitcoin ledger through statistical analisis. This created a niche for privacy oriented currencies like Monero.
- More recently, full blocks on the main Bitcoin network led to higher fees that led to Bitcoin Cash forking off of Bitcoin offering a different decentralization/low-fee tradeoff.
- Bitcoin cash creates preassure on lowering the fees on Bitcoin so the Lightning network just became available.
It's an arms race towards awesomeness.
I'm thrilled by this community and the explosion of innovation that si being thrown around. A bunch of cryptomillionaires badmouthing each other on social media is tiny price to pay.
Go Crypto!
PIC: BBC Earth