The amount of security that modern life affords us is remarkable. We are more likely to die from heart disease than murder. We are more likely to be injured by a car than wolves. We are more likely to be robbed by inflation than bandits.
In the modern age security is an afterthought. Historically, everything was designed around security. Even something as simple as staircases were built counter clockwise to give right handed defenders an advantage. Cities were a study in blending military and economic engineering. For every dollar invested in improving the productivity of a city a dollar must be invested in securing it. For a city to have attracted bankers and artisans it must have guaranteed them security in their wares.
A city that spent all resources on security, protects nothing.
A city that spent all resources on productivity, protects nothing.
So what is the most efficient way to optimize for productivity and security?
Break your city into economic rings. As you get further from the center the rings get larger making them more expensive to secure; longer walls take more materials, larger areas need more guards.
The Motte
This is the center economic ring and smallest by area, but the largest security investment with thick stone walls and a complement of heavily armed soldiers. The limited space means that only the most valuable economic activities could afford the security premium. Bankers and scholars were among the few whose assets warranted this level of protection.
The Bailey
This is the center economic ring and most efficient security investment by area. Palisade walls and an army of guards ensure this area is safe for most economic activity. Here traders and artisans would be able to afford the more moderate cost to be secure their wares. Its proximity to the motte also allowed for residents to retreat to an area of higher security in times of crisis.
The Ward
The largest economic area with the lowest security investment was the ward. Practically unprotected save a few guards, this is where the least efficient economic activities would take place. Proximity to the economic activity in the bailey made it worth the small security premium laborers and farmers otherwise might not be able to afford.
In crypto we talk a lot about security. A lot. However, most of the security discourse is framed around computer science who’s only contribution over that past decades has been sending indecipherable messages, rather than defending from raiders.
The modern man has simply lost his visceral connection to security. Until a hacker can stab you through the computer, everything is virtually table stakes.
Cypherpunks being the notable exception. Early crypto adopters, whose outlaw mentality or clinical paranoia, had re-activated vestigial security centers of their modern brains. Their singular focus was building an impenetrable digital castle. And with the blockchain —they did it.
The technical limitations of blockchains are such that something can’t be secure, fast, and cheap. Security, in this context, refers to how likely I am to lose assets from either compromised code or actors. Having a lot of people running the cryptographically dense code means that its really hard for hackers or governments to compromise code or actors. It also means the network is extremely slow and expensive by modern computer standards. But security minded crypto users are willing to pay the price.
As the crypto industry has grown, it has accrued more people with modern views of security. The mindshare of crypto is shifting from designing everything around security, to a desire to sacrifice security for usability. More people in the space are building toward a mainstream audience that is unwilling to pay a premium for security.