Free-Man’s Perspective – by Paul Rosenberg
It has been interesting to see large numbers of people pay attention to Bitcoin in the past year or so. The reason for that attention was the exchange price of Bitcoin, which made a lot of early adopters wealthy. (One of the few times when the right guys got rich.)
The idea of getting rich quick always sells, and it did this time too. Along with it came a lot of investment talk, complaints about volatility, well-publicized government raids, central bank reports, and threats from tax men.
What most of these people missed was that Bitcoin is not a traditional financial instrument and doesn’t fit into the categories of traditional finance. Bitcoin – cryptocurrency – is a new thing. It’s a radical, revolutionary thing. As long as you try to categorize Bitcoin with traditional financial tools, you’ll never really understand it.
Bitcoin Comes From Outside
Lots of people talk about “outside the box,” but many of them would run from anything that was truly outside of the box. Such people may be interested in Bitcoin because of price gains, but only because they don’t understand how radical it really is.
Bitcoin, you see, is not an adaptation based on existing currencies, nor can it be understood that way. Bitcoin is from outside – from the realm of anti-establishment radicals.
In particular, Bitcoin comes from the cypherpunks, a group of crypto-anarchists and anarco-capitalists. They began to flourish in the early 1990s, as cryptography merged with the new Internet and they realized they could “wall-off” areas of cyberspace from the coercive intrusions of governments. Here are a few quotes from these folks:
We don’t much care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can’t be shut down.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us.
Encryption, digital money, anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero knowledge, reputations, information markets, black markets, collapse of governments.
A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.
Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!
These are not financial people trying to invent a new kind of currency that’s going to make them rich – these are radicals who want to build a new world. And that’s exactly what Bitcoin is: a radical tool for building a new world.
Bitcoin was birthed on the cypherpunk mailing list, by the way. One of the list members, someone named Wei Dai, outlined the structure of cryptocurrencies in 1998, ten years beforeSatoshi Nakamoto wrote his program.
What’s so interesting about the current moment is that the concept of cryptocurrency is challenging people to think about what they truly believe. Do they really love the status quo? Or is it just something they accepted because they saw no alternative?
Because once people really understand Bitcoin, they also understand that it is built on the opposite principle of the status quo. Bitcoin has no place for a central controller, no tool allowing an enforcer to override anyone’s transactions, no mechanism of coercion at all. That makes cryptocurrency anathema to the current monetary regime and to every ruling regime.
People who come to understand Bitcoin also learn this, and it can be a real challenge for them.
And What Now?
Well, several things are going on now, all at the same time. Here’s my list:
- The old regime – banking, law enforcement, tax-gatherers – are trying to harness Bitcoin and build tools of control into or around it.
- Military and intel agencies are figuring out how to shut down Bitcoin traffic without killing the Internet altogether. The big tech companies have become their sycophants and are following their masters’ will.
- Certain financial operators (“reasonable” types) are trying to subvert Bitcoin and make it acceptable to the powers-that-be.
- People outside the G20 financial monolith are beginning to see the utility of Bitcoin. It is much cheaper, easier, and faster than Western Union, bank wires, or credit cards. It’s also far easier to transmit over distance than cash. A cab driver in Zaire doesn’t give a hoot whether the Western banking cartel hates Bitcoin; if it works for his customers, he’ll use it.
- New projects like Ethereum, Dark Wallet, BitWasp and many others are popping up regularly. The innovations are not stopping.
What comes of this is anyone’s guess, but one thing is clear: The genie is out of the bottle; everyone knows that cryptocurrencies work, and work well. Even if Bitcoin is brought down, new adaptations will follow it in a steady stream.
The revolution is here, now. Fight it, join it, dance, mourn, or just play dumb; it’s your choice.
Paul Rosenberg
FreemansPerspective.com
http://www.freemansperspective.com/bitcoin-revolution-not-an-investment/
Tis a component of the new economy.I do not necc. trust electronic funds of any source including bank/investment accounts as they can be vaped in a nano second,prefer the feeling of goods in hand.That said,bit is just one of many ways the economy is side stepping the fed goons along with barter/cash type economy.You ever want to order off of the net,you usually need some sort of debit card with limited funds to get goods,that said just have enuff to order what you want and that way if vaped loss is minimized,the new economy is just beggining,will be many more components involved in it,but bitcoin certainly plays a part.
Bitcoin is a fraud. It’s no different than the banks transferring from paper money to digital currency. When are people going to wake up to this crap?
Many folks did wake up and took a risk,did well with bitcoin including one of my friends,yes,as vulnerable as all bank accounts,but for the time,the returns were better.Unless you do no purchases on net which is fine,you need as I mentioned before some sort of electronically passed currency,that simple.
Well it’s kind of like a casino — some people have to win or the masses won’t show up to lose.
as for the “new economy”, I think it’s going to have a lot more to do with bartering for the necessities of life rather than buying things on line.
Poverty is a state of mind, and I think it would be wise to start severing your attachment to gadgets and luxuries now, so it’s not as difficult to do without them later. You’ll only survive by living much as the Amish do now, so start getting used to it to avoid being incapacitated by shock and/or depression when these changes are forced upon you in the future.
And the same is true of war. If you’re not mentally preparing yourself for it now, it’s going to be a big shock to your psyche when you have to endure it, and that big shock isn’t going to work in your favor.
I think it’s going to be enough of a shock for most of us despite any mental preparations we DO make, but to be taken “by surprise” by war might be a bit too much for any of us.
I don’t think many Americans appreciate how luxurious and pampered our lives have been. For the most part, we’ve known nothing but good, plentiful food and endless entertainment, and that’s not exactly the “boot camp” of psychological preparations that we all need to make.
it will go bust