"The broad point is that only the strong survive was correct. We are entering the endgame of crypto having any reason to exist.
My thesis as to why it exists at all is a combination of a novel vector for gambling and an affinity scam.
Bitcoin is extremely difficult to even begin to understand, and even though what it fundamentally 'fixes' is money printing, its novelty ironically lends itself to confusing the uninitiated and impatient with meaningless appeals to 'blockchain technology' that manifest as attempts to print money." -- Allen Farrington
Allen Farrington's article is a follow-up to his earlier piece “Only the Strong Survive,” and it poses a blunt question: If Bitcoin can now fulfill virtually everything the broader crypto space originally promised—programmable money, scalable payments, DeFi primitives, and more—then does the rest of the altcoin casino really have any reason left to exist?
On the Bitcoin side, the piece highlights whether the combination of Arkade (built on the Ark protocol), Lightning Network, and e-cash systems could be the true endgame for real programmability and a global, self-custodial banking layer directly on Bitcoin.
I've always seen this as the ultimate outcome, ever since my early research into distributed blockchains back in 2011. From the beginning, it felt clear to me that Bitcoin's design would eventually layer up to handle everything else claimed by later chains—without compromising soundness, decentralization, or self-custody.
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