Crypto's Global Acceptance Lagging, Western Reputation Plummets, Warns Spacemesh's Tomer Afek

Spacemesh, a layer 1 proof-of-space-time protocol, aims to democratize the world of cryptocurrencies by catering to young and underprivileged communities that often face daunting entry barriers.

Its innovative consensus protocol is fully permissioless and ensures accessibility for new miners. It also supports high transaction throughput while consuming notably less energy than traditional PoW-based protocols, effectively addressing concerns about environmental sustainability.

Spacemesh achieves this by adopting proofs of space-time (PoSTs), a novel approach that replaces energy-intensive CPU work with energy-efficient disk storage, making cryptocurrency participation more inclusive and environmentally friendly.

Benzinga recently caught up with Tomer Afek, the co-founder and CEO of Spacemesh, and discussed the company's plans, the newly launched People's Coin and the current state of the blockchain market. Here's an excerpt from the interview. 

Share the story behind Spacemesh, including its current market position and upcoming initiatives for the coming years.

Spacemesh is a layer 1 protocol that we began working on five years ago, with a daunting task: to invent a radically different approach to L1 blockchain protocols, focused on creating a permissionless network that was maximally decentralized. Our work was based on the premise that the "People's Coin" ideal has not yet been achieved in existing PoW and PoS networks due to the failure to distribute assets (and power) among a broad enough population. 

The Spacemesh project and protocol is focused on proving that massively decentralized block production is both possible profitable (for all miners) and sustainable. Specifically, concerning the environmental footprint, while a PoS blockchain is the greenest, it is achieved with high cost to its "credible-neutrality." In any case, this "environmental friendliness" fails to factor in the negative externality associated with the inherent failure of PoS to distribute coins more widely. Spacemesh takes a hybrid approach between PoW and PoS, with the advantages of both: It's much greener than PoW without sacrificing decentralization like PoS. 

Achieving lasting decentralized and permissionless infrastructure is anything but simple and not for the faint of heart. Imagine any team busting for such a long time, under extreme uncertainty, as research flexes and shuffles, with no small victories for reassurance. Our determination has been tested so many times. But seeing the fruits of our work in the wild after years of hard work is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime feeling. 

Back in July, you launched "The People's Coin." Can you provide more details about it and its progress two months after launch?

The response to genesis has been overwhelming, surpassing our expectations. Even though we've been cautious about promoting Spacemesh due to its "beta" phase, the seamless scalability of the technology and its exceptional quality distribution have attracted an impressive 50,000 miners already, only three months in. It's genuinely exciting! 

The rapid growth of the network was a pleasant surprise, which presented several challenges to overcome. In particular, network congestion from many nodes causes high CPU usage and syncing problems. We've already made huge strides in streamlining network traffic, which has improved these issues significantly.

There's still a long road ahead. We're now kicking the development of our SVM into full gear, which will enable smart contracts in the future. Once this feature has been rolled out, the Spacemesh platform will be fully mature and much more versatile.

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Spacemesh is touted as the only layer 1 cryptocurrency that can be mined from a home computer without specialized equipment or technical knowledge. How do you envision this accessibility?

Accessibility is the key to embodying the "People's Coin" ideal. Right now, it's not feasible for the average person to mine crypto or use it in a way that resembles an actual currency. This has stifled the potential that crypto represents. Namely, the ability of ordinary people to gain unprecedented freedom by generating money themselves and then not having to rely on banks to do anything more complex than paying with cash. This manifests in two ways:

Accessible mining: Striving to make it so that as many people as possible, from as many places as possible, can join the network and earn Spacemesh coins for themselves.

Accessible coins: Striving to make the Spacemesh coin available in people's day-to-day lives and not merely as a store of value. 

Accessibility is the key to making our community grow, which is important. A cryptocurrency is only as useful as the size of its community — just like a language is only as useful as the number of speakers it has.

Can you give us an overview of the current state of the blockchain market, along with the opportunities and challenges it currently faces?

Our industry could be in a better place now. The global acceptance of crypto is not advancing fast enough, and the reputation of cryptocurrency in the West is at an all-time low, resulting from devastating events our industry suffered in 2022 and 2023. While a growing number of skeptics see a distasteful casino, optimists like myself see endless potential: a blank slate on which we can build an upgraded financial system and internet platform.

Today's casino-like speculation is part of a bootstrapping process, which is the hallmark of all emerging technologies. Today's speculative frenzy in crypto, though off-putting in many ways, is attracting the pioneers who will build the infrastructure necessary to turn a barren planet into a thriving crypto civilization. 

How do you foresee the cryptocurrency industry evolving over the next five years, and what role do you believe global regulations will play in shaping its path?

In the future, we must increase our capacity to respond to real-world circumstances that seem increasingly chaotic, and I believe that crypto is an essential tool for making this happen. Therefore, a rapidly changing, chaotic world needs a decentralized financial system and anti-fragile. This is why crypto will increasingly enter the mainstream, especially as greener alternatives to proof of work — like proof of space-time and proof of stake — break through some of the stigma currently attached to this technology. Necessity will breed adoption.

Another "black mark" against crypto has been its use in criminal endeavors like money laundering. But I believe that the next five years will see great strides in finding ways to curb such abuses, with much progress already under our belt.

A significant uncertainty is how governments will receive crypto in the future. Many will resist crypto, fearing its transformative potential to shake up the comfortable status quo. But those who do the hard work of educating themselves, who can offer sensible solutions, such as managing to avoid blanket regulations that are unequipped to deal with needed subtleties, will gain an edge over others. 

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