English, the language of cryptocurrency
English is the standard international language. For most countries you go to, you will find English translation attached to their original language for travelers like me to understand what is going on. Knowing English is such a great edge for a traveler, in so far as you are basically free from language barriers to communicate with different people.
The same applies to cryptocurrency as well. The space is so dominated by English, albeit the people doing it could have another mother language other than English. Every white paper you read, plausibly, English is going to be the default language.
The reasons why English is the default language for crypto could be manifold. Thanks to history, English has become the lingua franca in contemporary times. People from different countries do have some sort of English education. White papers in English could increase their exposure as more people can understand them, increasing their appeal.
Another reason could be quite pragmatic. Writing in English could directly target English-speaking nations like America. USD is still the currency everyone wants, and the USD stable coin in crypto reinforces that. While many crypto projects could be delighted if they have access to the China market, the regulatory environment of China denies this very hope.
The last reason could be fairly simple, that crypto writers have English as their main language. Many programmers and blockchain developers have English as their academic language that writing in English is nothing but conventional. Do Kwon, the South Korean founder of the Terra protocol, studied Computer Science at Stanford University. Even Asian crypto leaders, apparently, have superb English backgrounds, let alone Western champions.
That English is the lingua franca of blockchain could be devastating to non-English speakers. They are deprived of the chance to have access to this nascent yet lucrative asset. Thanks to how advanced Google translation is, people who don’t know could understand some of the crypto content. However, terminologies like sharding, tokenomics, layer two, etc. could still be perplexing. Investopedia could be a remedy to this, as personally, I have learned so much from this platform. (Homage to Investopedia)
As I am from Asia, what I can say is that crypto content for non-English speakers is gradually on the rise. YouTube and online media offer alternatives for people to understand crypto without resorting to English. To be frank, however, English is always the best language to study crypto.
This is quite a topic to explore while not many have touched upon it. I feel obligatory and happy to discuss it for my mother language is not English and I find this issue so pertinent to my research in crypto.
Last but not least, I offer no remedy to it.
(Besides specific crypto analysis or the analysis of the aggregate market, I occasionally would like to explore topics pertaining to the philosophy of cryptocurrency.)