tl;dr: Bitcoin is more than a digital asset protected by a blockchain. It is a movement with believers and followers. The epiphany comes when one achieves a higher state of awareness about the religion of money.
One of the things that I think many people don’t realize about Bitcoin (and ‘crypto’ overall) is that it’s kind of like a religion.
For some, that has a negative connotation, so let’s say it’s a higher level of consciousness like, say, veganism.
Leave the specific analogies to the side for a moment, however, and think about the idea.
Of all of the things I am most grateful for after a 4-year sojourn to the ‘crypto space,’ it is the fact that I have been compelled to study money.
Don’t get me wrong…
I think open, public blockchains are one of the most important technological innovations of all time.
I also think Bitcoin is one of great product innovations of all time and that Satoshi Nakamoto is as much a visionary as Steve Jobs is.
But what Bitcoin helped me see the light on (the epiphany, if you will), is how the financial system currently works.
It was a blue pill/red pill moment.
Before I really “got” Bitcoin, I just accepted the monetary system we have (fiat, inflation as a given, debt financing, etc.). There was no reason to challenge it because, well, that was just the way things worked.
And, besides, there was no competition so it’s not like I had any real choice.
But today, I do.
And so do many others.
This post was inspired, in part, because of this tweet from Crypto Sara.
It’s not even about the responses to Crypto Sara, it’s the fact that there are so many people who just believe.
Sure, there are some hucksters and opportunists out there. No question.
But what I think is underestimated is how many people just believe that it’s better than the alternative.
And, if there’s one thing that I learned about money…it’s that it is really nothing more than a belief system.
Money is a religion.
You accept my dollars or euros or yen because you believe you can use them at some point in the future to get something you want..
However, if that belief were to change (see Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Argentina, etc.), you would no longer accept them.
What’s interesting for me is to see how, slowly, the belief is spreading. It’s like Climate Change.
Most start off as deniers because it requires us to look at our own habits and beliefs (consumption, lack of recycling, etc.) which makes us uncomfortable.
However, as the believers grow and the evidence grows along with it, more people join the movement.
The other day, I went to a Coinstar machine.
A Coinstar machine will count all of the coins you give it and then turn it into a more manageable form of money.
After all, it’s not easy to pay for things with $37.23 worth of dimes, nickels and pennies…which is what I had.
So, I dump all of my coins in and I am presented with 4 options.
I can get cash….which will cost me a 11.9% fee.
I can donate to charity.
I can get an e-gift card.
I can buy Bitcoin.
Now, I find it really interesting that someone would pay nearly 12% to have their US money turned into, well, US money, but that’s a different story.
But what I find really interesting is the fact that Coinstar even went to the point to give people the option to buy Bitcoin.
I mean, why would they do that unless they believed (there’s that word again) that there was some demand for it.
As more people start to ask themselves about the nature of money, more people start to see what John Maynard Keynes, the economic father to expansionist monetary policies meant when he said:
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.
The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.”
Satoshi saw a way to stop the secret confiscation of wealth so he created Bitcoin.
From there, others who believed as he did, chose to opt in to his movement.
Opting in to Bitcoin is one of the easiest things around.
All it takes is 1 Satoshi, which is 1/100,000,000 of 1 Bitcoin.
At current rates, that is about 0.00009581 USD.
There are plenty of ways to get started.
My friend Dean pointed me to a site called Lolli, where you get “cash back” for shopping at retailers, but the “cash back” comes in the form of Bitcoin.
Interesting those bitcoin movements
@tipu curate
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