The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau
What if I told you I could give you a magic box, and if you put $10 in this magic box, you could potentially eliminate poverty, reduce income inequality the make the world a better place to live?
You keep your magic box. I don’t take your money or use it for anything. Moreover, your money could grow as much as 100% over ten years.
Okay, enough with the silly analogy; what’s this magic box deal, and what are you talking about?
I’m talking about Bitcoin. Regardless of all the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that you’ve heard from banks in the existing stakeholders of the corrupt system that we currently use, Bitcoin is a revolution. I’m not talking about Bitcoin as an investment, although it’s probably not a bad way to preserve value over the long haul.
Bitcoin has survived as long as it has and performed as flawlessly as it still strikes fear in those invested in maintaining a flawed legacy system. A system that favors a tiny percentage of wealthy users vs. a simple and fair system.
Put aside for the moment the myth of Bitcoin’s abusive environmental considerations. We’ll come back to that.
I’m also not talking about Bitcoin immediately replacing the dollar, gold, or anything currently in existence. Accepting Bitcoin as a global currency has profound implications for all the other ways we facilitate transactions today.
The Money Changers
There’s a reason Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. They were making money the central focus instead of God. Similarly, banking and financial powerhouses throughout the globe have turned our lives away from the business of living and perverted life to the accumulation of money. Governments squander our trust through inflation, tax, and the mismanagement of funds while enabling the large lobbies that support them.
Trust
All money is a debt marker. You trust that you will receive an equivalent value in Gold, Dollars, Euros, or seashells when conducting transactions with people unfamiliar to you. When I do something for my brother, I trust that he will do likewise and act in kind; we don’t use a ledger to track our deeds. But when I buy a t-shirt from an obscure vendor in Asia, I depend on a currency to make that transaction operate seamlessly.
Money is a temporary binder of trust
Everyone, regardless of religion, race, or nationality, depends on money to some extent. However, it’s not money, but what money represents that binds us. Money is a temporary binder of trust.
Self Sovernity vs. Serfdom
When we depend on 3rd party intermediaries like Visa, banks, and the myriad of checking and validating services they incorporate, we give up our sovereignty. On top of that, we pay a premium to lose that power. If the current trend continues, we will end up owning nothing while constantly being told we are happy. Thank you, Mr. Orwell. Monopolies work for the monopoly, not anyone else.
Where Fiat Fails Bitcoin Thrives
Inflation
The governmental denial that they are capable of control is a fallacy. Any central bank has never proven sustainable in the long run. Every economy that depends on fiat currency has failed.
Governmental Abuse
To maintain control, the US spends earth-shattering sums to maintain a level of fear and violence that deters competition with their control of petrodollars.
Think military budget when evaluating the energy cost of Bitcoin.
We should look closely at the cost-benefit of energy expended in support of the dollar and ask if bitcoin could do a better job with less environmental damage.
Mistrust
With bitcoin, a transaction is between two parties facilitated by a protocol that only supports a fair transaction. The issue related to terrorism is not about the money they use any more than it is about the kind of cars they drive.
US paper dollars are not as traceable as Bitcoin. FBI’s involvement with the silk road affair has proven this.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot. It’s an ideology that drives extremism, not financial transactions.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Thomas Jefferson
Bitcoin is a new idealogy or something cooked up by those English terrorists in the 1700s. They didn’t have the magic boxes to make it work.
