Crypto is an important part of financial freedom, says Amaury Sechet

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There are people in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry who are zealous with their ideas and relentlessly pursue them throughout their lives despite popular trends or mainstream opinion. One of those people is Amaury Sechet.

They don’t have millions of social media followers, like Elon Musk, and popularity sometimes (temporarily) surpasses them. However, they still have a greater influence on the development of the cryptocurrency industry than all the top influencers put together.

Amaury Sechet, is a Bitcoin pioneer and blockchain developer. He is the man who determined the fate of bitcoin in 2017.

Today, Sechet is building the eCash project, which is a development of Bitcoin ABC. Sechet is just as dedicated to his ideas as he led a development team to split bitcoin and create the new BCH cryptocurrency.

The hands-on experience and knowledge he gained during this process now helps the eCash team lay the foundation for a new generation of cryptocurrency payments.

Sechet doesn’t like publicity, and it took some time and effort to arrange a call with him. This reclusive former Facebook engineer who previously helped build the core of Bitcoin Cash is just starting to come out of his shell since he left Bitcoin Cash last year.

Over the past year or so, he’s been writing code virtually non-stop and hasn’t even had time to attend one of the blockchain conferences he’s regularly invited to.

Bitcoin and country

Julia Magazine: El Salvador became the first country in the world to legalize bitcoin alongside the national currency, the US dollar. Is this an important development?

Amaury Sechet: It shows how far the crypto has progressed from previous bull races in 2013 and even in 2017. However, this is not a major development. Big changes in cryptography occur when technology advances in leaps and bounds to make regulatory changes irrelevant. What’s important this time around is how much attention people paid. But it’s not because of a new law in El Salvador, it’s because more people have a basic understanding of cryptocurrency.

The story continues

JM: Why aren’t totalitarian and authoritarian regimes rushing to embrace bitcoin?

AS: Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes don’t rush to adopt bitcoin for the same reason that no other government is rushing to adopt bitcoin. Cryptocurrency brings transparency and accountability in areas that most traditional power structures would prefer to overshadow. The potential shifts in power and influence are not fully understood, so it’s understandable for governments to take their time.

Cryptocurrency and financial freedom

JM: Cryptocurrencies are the epitome of financial freedom, you said. At the same time, is this the goal of your new project?

AS: Cryptocurrency is an important part of financial freedom. Especially today, where surveillance is on the rise and privacy is more difficult to obtain, cryptocurrency will become a necessary part of financial freedom.

However, cryptocurrency is not everything. You also need tools and ecosystems that can be built on cryptocurrency, for example, what you see today with DeFi on Ethereum. On top of that, you need to create a culture that understands and wants financial freedom.

If you can’t do all of these things, your cryptocurrency will fail. We’ve seen this happen to a lot of cryptocurrencies that looked big in 2017 but aren’t so impressive anymore. So yes, allowing users to have complete financial freedom is the goal of eCash. Cryptocurrencies that do not advance all that is necessary for financial freedom will fail. That’s why eCash was designed with the bigger picture in mind.

JM: Do you think anonymity is what cryptocurrency users need the most, or is it just an important aspect?

AS: Anonymity is an important part of financial freedom, but I don’t think it’s what cryptocurrency users need the most. A fixed and verifiable supply, for example, is more important than anonymity.

Still, it is important that anonymity is possible. Users who wish to remain anonymous need the right tools. That’s why eCash already supports tools like CashFusion, which can offer anonymity comparable to existing privacy coins. We plan to develop more privacy tools in the future.

The fourth financial revolution

JM: What role do cryptocurrencies play in the current fourth financial revolution? Can we say that one of the fronts of this revolution is the struggle between the banking system and cryptocurrencies?

AS: I think cryptocurrency is often framed in this kind of simplistic competition between the old and the new. It’s a limited way of looking at it.

If cryptocurrency is successful, it won’t be because cryptocurrencies have created better banks. Cryptocurrency will succeed by building systems ten times better than banks. They are not fighting for the same thing. For example, banks are not in the business of enabling financial freedom. Debt is the exact opposite of this.

So, you could say that there is some sort of struggle between the banking system and the cryptocurrency. But the idea that this fight is competitive is mostly a distraction. Cryptocurrency is a financial revolution. Banks are banks.

Thoughts on the ideals of cryptocurrency

After the interview, I reflected on what Amaury had said, how I felt about him, and what was outside the scope of this article.

I started to wonder how many people in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world are actually moving the industry forward on the path of Satoshi’s vision, not for the hype, wealth, and money.

Do fame and fortune prevent doing things right? Do cryptocurrencies need legalization and regulation? Should bitcoin be a copy of the dollar, and do we all really need to be able to buy a cup of coffee using cryptocurrencies, or should we expect something more from it?

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