Why are there so many cryptocurrencies?
Why isn't there only one cryptocurrency, or multiple iterations of one cryptocurrency?
There are currently hundreds of cryptocurrencies, each with their own specifications and benefits.
Perhaps Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and his Phenomenological Philosophy can provide some insight.
According to Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, an object is the crystallization of a multiplicity of perspectives.
What this concretely means is that an apple, for example, is not just the frontal view of the apple, or its top view. An apple is never just a singular view of the apple.
This is a core teaching of Phenomenology.
An apple, well, any object, is the dynamic synthesis of all perspectives, ever changing, since these perspectives so to speak, sit within time.
What this means is that pragmatically we can never hope to have a full-view of any object. Total awareness, regarding an object, is not possible, even if it is desirable.
We are limited beings, and all we can hope for is "enough" information (and this information is structurally filled with blanks) about the object to be able to circumnavigate it, use it.
Now let us turn our attention to this specific object: digital currency secured by cryptography.
There is no single solution, no single iteration of cryptocurrency because no project has been able to acquire a complete view of this complex, multidimensional object: the problem and question (which calls for an answer) of digital money secured by cryptography.
If our view of this object is limited, if we see this problem through the lens of our particular skills, knowledge, abilities and background, it goes without saying that our answer to the question of digital money secured by cryptography will also be limited.
Each cryptocurrency project is a singular answer, an "approach", that enriches a whole, a distributed, synthetic view of the problem of digital currency.
This is the reason why there has to be a multiplicity of cryptocurrency projects as every answer brings us asymptotically closer to a more complex, richer, clearer, distributed understanding of the object of digital money secured by cryptography.
But why did Cryptocurrency emerge in the first place?
Follow me down the philosophical rabbit hole.
Next: DesCartes, Modern Subjectivity and the emergence of Cryptocurrency.
