There's a continuing need for coordination and leadership of the Blockchain Revolution. In this session, we'll look at who's rising to the challenge. Developers and the broader blockchain and cryptocurrency community, are still split on some basic technical issues. Within individual ecosystems, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, there are further disagreements. Earlier in this module we touched on the issue of a governance vacuum. It was affecting the debate over block size on the Bitcoin block chain. Former Bitcoin core developer Gavin Andreessen was once at the center of this debate. He told us, he'd prefer to stay in the engine room keeping the Bitcoin engine going. But, given the lack of clear leadership, Andreessen became a reluctant public advocate during the so-called "Hash Wars" of 2016 and 2017. The work involved a lot of outreach and lobbying. It took a lot of time, time that he'd rather be spending developing, but he considered it his job to focus on Bitcoin being around in two or three years in truth micro-payments stock trading, property transfer and many other businesses depend on addressing and overcoming technical standard issues within Bitcoin and the broader blockchain world. Andreessen was always on the lookout for role models, the internet governance bodies was a good place to look. Blockchain needed something like the Internet Engineering Task Force. Andreessen admitted, Internet governance is kind of chaotic and messy but it works and it's reliable. Academic institutions are funding blockchain studies in labs and centers. They're diversifying by collaborating with colleagues outside their silos. Prominent universities like Insead, Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton, Georgetown and Duke, just to name a few all teach courses on blockchain, Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies. Joey Ito director of the MIT Media Lab saw the opportunity for academia to play a role in things. He told us MIT and the academic layer can be a place where we can do assessments, you research and be able to talk about things like scalability without any bias or any special interests. Jerry Brito was one of the most prominent and effective advocacy voices within this industry. He's now director of the not-for-profit group Coin Center. He said governance comes into play, where there are serious decisions to be made and you need a process for making it happen. Brito suggested starting with the Hippocratic Oath. First do no harm. Bottom-up governance he said, is showing a little bit of its rough edges and stifling, consensus. Brito, wants to help develop a forum, where serious decisions can be made. If it comes to it, foster a self-regulatory organization. In technology and engineering, men still outnumber women by a wide margin. As many have pointed out, the blockchain movement is frankly overpopulated with men. But, high-profile women are founding and managing companies in the blockchain space as well. Listen to some of these names, Amber Baldet co-founder of Growclovyr, Meltem Demirors of Conshares, Jill Carlson advisor and consultant to numerous blockchain projects, Blythe Masters formerly CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, Elizabeth Rossiello a CEO and founder of BitPesa. Venture capital and blockchain has also recognized the awesome abilities of many of these women. Leaders like Arianna Simpson, former head of business development in BitGo, who's now an investor in this sector, Kathryn Haun is a general partner in Andreessen Horowitz. Many of these leaders have suggested that the industry welcome all voices. It's of the utmost importance that the trend towards diversity and inclusion continues. When it comes to governance and stewardship of this global resource, women have also taken the lead. A tireless advocate of blockchain technology is Primavera De Filippi. A faculty associate at the Bergman Center at Harvard and a permanent researcher at the National Center of scientific research in Paris. She's emerged as one of academia's strongest voices on governance. She's an organizer, instigator and promoter of dialogue within the ecosystem and she's collaborated with lawyer turned entrepreneur, Constants Choi another vocal advocate for blockchain. They led a series of workshops at Harvard, MIT and Stanford and in London, Hong Kong in Sydney. Events bring together people of different backgrounds to debate the big issues. Elizabeth Stark, is arguably one of the industry's most influential players having co-founded Lightning Labs, which is developing the Lightning Network. Perhaps the single most important innovation, that will scale the power and potential of Bitcoin and as a result all blockchain platforms. Stark has organized Scaling Bitcoin to convene stakeholders in this industry. Scaling Bitcoin was credited with clearing log jams in the block size debate. It was considered a constitutional moment for the sector. She's expressed concerns over governance. She said newcomers are simply able to do things regulated institutions cannot. So, we need to think very carefully about why those regulations exist, what purpose they serve. Before we think, exposing consumers to unregulated financial activities is a good thing. Ultimately the debate is not about the kind of society we want. It's about the present opportunities leaders have before them, to steward an important global resource. Any questions or comments on these stakeholders? Head over to the discussion forum, for more on these players in the blockchain ecosystem, see Chapter 11, Blockchain Revolution. Next up is our look at the final group of stakeholders.
