Truth

Bitcoin Shows You — It Does Not Tell You

09/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin returns economic consequence, and therefore learning from experience, to the pursuit of progress.

This is an opinion editorial by Aleks Svetski, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,” founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of the “Wake Up Podcast with Svetski.”

Bitcoin is superior to all moneys, movements or models that came before it, because it does not need to “tell” you anything.

It’s very reality shows you everything you need to know, through practical experience and blunt realness.

Try for yourself. Send some bitcoin to an incompatible address, or delete your wallet without backing up your seed phrase. Or perhaps lock some up in a DeFi Ponzi like Terra/LUNA. Once it blows up, you might then proceed to call the Bitcoin hotline for a refund because you “made a mistake.”

See how this strategy works out for you.

Much like real life, and the effects of physical laws on the material world around us, Bitcoin has no “rewind” button. “What’s done is done, and cannot be undone,” as Lady Macbeth’s daughter says.

Herein lies Bitcoin’s most important impact on human civilization.

If money is the scorecard through which we measure the use and application of time, energy and scarce resources, then a money which maps to the very real and consequential nature of their use and depletion, is not just accurate, but perfect.

As I stated in Part Four of Chapter 4 of the Jordan Peterson series, Bitcoin is like the Old Testament God, in that it is a consequential god. There is no free lunch, nor ignorance of sin or error. You pay the price for mistakes, but if you heed them and adapt, you shall find that “God is good.”

The Past, Present And Future

One of the diseases of fiat is the constant attempt to remanufacture the past in order to make it bearable or justify the eternally-flawed present, so as to give false hope for the future.

Ironically, in doing so, we actually place our futures at risk because we learn nothing from the mistakes of the past and instead go on repeating them.

For the first time in human history, Bitcoin actually gives us a past that is fixed. A source of truth to which we can anchor ourselves and the societies we choose to build. It also makes the future more realistic by making the actions of the present more evidently consequential.

“The future is like the past. But there’s a crucial difference. The past is fixed, but the future — it could be better. It could be better, some precise amount — the amount that can be achieved, perhaps, in a day, with some minimal engagement. The present is eternally flawed.” — Jordan B. Peterson, “12 Rules For Life”

There exists no possibility to adjust the records (the most important, being the economic record) in such a way as to cover up poor decision-making and sinful value judgments.

The ledger stores and files every score and the further we move from the past, the more fixed and immutable that record is.

Furthermore, its irreversibility means that future behavior and orientation has to be more measured or “moral” (the long-term viable way).

The Bible, The Vedic Samhitas, The Tao Te Ching and all of the great written works of religion are methods of helping illuminate “the way.”

But …they are all mere words that people can ignore.

Economic consequence is something else.

“We have been watching ourselves act, reflecting on that watching, and telling stories distilled through that reflection, for tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. That is all part of our attempts, individual and collective, to discover and articulate what it is that we believe. Part of the knowledge so generated is what is encapsulated in the fundamental teachings of our cultures, in ancient writings such as the Tao Te Ching, or the aforementioned Vedic scriptures, or the Biblical stories. — Jordan B Peterson, “12 Rules For Life,” Chapter 4

Bitcoin is a new chapter in human history but unlike prior attempts to distill and pass values, ideas and ledgers onward via the written or spoken word, we now have a network which resembles the physical direction of time (forward) as an incorruptible, imprintable medium on which these ideas can be recorded.

The possibilities are fascinating and endless. The ramifications, mind-boggling.

Fiat Tells You (Lies)

Many before me have pointed this out, and I shall do so again here.

Fiat is a form of time, resource and energy fraud that uses our most important social game to extract resources from one group and pass it to another, all the while eroding the capital base that our forefathers built.

The Ponzi lasts so long as people remain asleep, have no choice or are distracted by the bread and circus fanfare of the clown world. Sound familiar?

Central banks and governments spend their time and our wealth “telling” us all how things ought to be, in defiance of economic reality and the gravity of truth. This form of decree is not only inaccurate (sinful), but downright wasteful. But they don’t care — they’re not the ones footing the bill. You are.

Bitcoin doesn’t decree or tell you shit. It is raw signal which you interpret for yourself and then take subsequent action upon. You orient yourself based on what Bitcoin shows you. Not what some self-proclaimed authority has told you.

Let’s see some examples:

Bitcoin Shows Us All …

Bitcoin has shown us everything from the beginning. It just takes some humility, perception and intuition to notice.

In the early days, there were faucets, which helped “show” you how easy it was to acquire some bitcoin and use it.

From this emerged a plethora of wallets which took this ease of usability to the next level. You can try it yourself. Download a wallet now, and see how easy it is to be plugged in to the global financial system via Bitcoin:

Wallet of Satoshi
Fountain App
Blue Wallet
Muun

Of course, you’ll need to load it with money (Bitcoin) as you would any other account, and you’re not plugged into the legacy system so easily, because Bitcoin is fundamentally incompatible with that relic of a soon-to-be-bygone era. But compare how easy it is to be “active” on Bitcoin, versus what feats of disclosure and exposure you must subject yourself to when trying to be “active” with the legacy system.

Try to open a bank as a foreigner in a new country, and see what you’re told. In fact, try the same in your home country, and once you’ve revealed your ancestral lineage for the tenuous “right” to use your own money with said provider, then go ahead and try to do a larger transfer and see what happens.

You’ll be told once again that they must check and verify your transaction “for your safety,” as if you’re too stupid or infantile to know what to do with the product of your own labor. Clown world!

Anyways … moving along.

Payments: If you downloaded a wallet above, see how easy it is to send some bitcoin. You could be in Antarctica right now (assuming you’ve got internet access) and you could send some bitcoin here. Now:

Go try doing that with a normal bank account.

Another example is Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador. Its magnificent success to date has been well documented, so I shall just point to this as another example of a grassroots movement that showed us and thus became the impetus for an entire country adopting bitcoin as a national currency.

In America you have the same thing. Riot Blockchain has revitalized the entire Rockdale, Texas, community north of Austin, and vendors like Brett’s BBQ are now accepting bitcoin in exchange for their food. Owner Brett Boren also serves on the Rockdale City Council.

Bitcoin is not only helping create jobs, and assisting the formation of an independent micro-economy, but it is also stabilizing the energy grid!

The similar “show don’t tell” ideal goes for all the flared gas initiatives that are using Bitcoin to monetise wasted energy.

Bitcoin shows us every single time, what it is capable of.

At the same time, you have people with way too much power, telling you lies and stupidity that always turn out to be false. Whether they’re shitcoiners talking about digital proof-of-stake models to disguise seigniorage and wealth extraction, or the media, or the halfwits in government making things up as they go. They’re all the same.

There are so many examples I could post here, but I shall keep it to those least likely to bring the article down:

Bitcoin Versus Shitcoin

Bitcoin also shows us that there are greedy, short-sighted, naive and opportunistic morons all over the world.

Shitcoins are the perfect example of this, and their proponents all inevitably fit into one of those categories.

Feel free to do your own research. Every single one of these financial experiments has been an attempt to create digital fiat, by the decree of self-proclaimed overlords and insiders.

Whether the intent was to defraud or not is irrelevant. The issuance of money should be outside the hands of fraudsters, well-meaning idiots and even the most noble and moral of us; for its allure is like the One Ring … it shall corrupt the bearer.

Bitcoin solved this problem. It moved money issuance and control outside of all our hands. Bitcoin cast the One Ring into the fire.

And despite this, you have nincompoops running around creating new forms of fake funny-money.

In the end, Bitcoin’s reality shows us what happens. Survival and necessity always prevail. The world shall not converge upon ether, doge, BCH, hex or whatever other ludicrous attempt at printing digital monopoly money some buffoon conjures up, in the same way that on a long enough timeframe, 1 + 1 will not equal 3, and we will not build structures with elastic tape measures.

The gravity of truth prevails.

Ross Stevens, Allen Farrington and Nic Carter wrote a magnificent piece on the Terraa Ponzi recently, which I suggest you have read:

“On Impossible Things Before Breakfast”

In Closing

Bitcoin shows you, it doesn’t tell you.

Bitcoin’s greatest gift is the reintroduction of economic consequence. When I say this, I don’t just mean the making or losing of money, but the fact that every action is economic in nature, and thus actions once again have cost, meaning and a consequence.

I should augment my statement and say that Bitcoin’s greatest gift is the reintroduction of evident and accurately-applied economic consequence, because as much as we obfuscate the consequences of bad decisions by transferring or socializing their costs, the fact is; consequences abound — just the wrong people pay for them in the current system.

Bitcoin, as I’ve said, is “responsibility go up” technology.

We are always calculating where to allocate our precious time, energy and resources. This calculus helps us make value judgments, which in turn determines how we act.

By reintroducing accurate and evident economic consequence, it forces you, not by decree (tell) but by the specter of reality (show), to behave in accordance with the moral teachings that philosophies and religions across history have tried to tell you through narrative.

This is an incredible innovation and one that we’re yet to fathom the importance of as we evolve and integrate bitcoin into our lives beyond its use as base money.

What a time to be alive.

This is a guest post by Aleks Svetski, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,”, founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of The Wake Up Podcast. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin, Personality And Development Part Three: Bitcoin Truth And Speech

02/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin returns the world to a state of truth, which will have incredible ramifications on the feedback mechanisms we exist under.

This is an opinion editorial by Aleks Svetski, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,” founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of the “Svetski Wake Up Podcast.”

Part 3, Chapter 4 of the JBP series.

Tyranny cannot feed on truth, for it is poison to its system of lies. In that sense, Bitcoin is “poison” to the “rat” known as the state. — Warren Bitfet, the Bitcoin alter ego of Warren Buffett

The series continues. If you’ve not yet read chapters one through three, you can find them here, and of course read Part One and Part Two of this chapter.

Quotes with no source underneath are attributed to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

In Part Two, we explored how Bitcoin helps one enhance their aim and focus their attention on that which matters. This is the only real and lasting antidote to the hopeless helplessness of nihilism.

In Part Three, we’re going to discuss truth, tyranny and the moral obligation we as sovereign individuals have to speak up, as we emerge from this nihilistic world.

The Unholy Trinity Of The State.

In chapter four of “12 Rules for Life,” Peterson informs us of an evil psychological triad that we’re subject to as humans: arrogance, deceit and resentment.

When an individual operates within such a paradigm, or exhibits behavior fuelled by these emotions, their results and their individual orientation are suboptimal.

“It’s part of an evil triad: arrogance, deceit, and resentment.”

They may feel as though they’ve succeeded in the moment, but on an extended timescale, they’ve compromised their position, footing, integrity or their moral compass.

As outlined in Part Two, because we are largely blind, we cannot know what demons or monsters lurk downstream of each such decision or action.

This meta-idea applies to the macro scale. The State is an apparatus who is more blind than the individual, but has more impact on more people’s lives than an individual ever can.

It’s “Unholy Trinity” consists of the:

Monopoly on money,
Monopoly on violence,
Monopoly on morality / justice / law

Combined, this “evil triad” ensures that a territorial operator is insulated from market feedback and thus oblivious to the consequence of their actions and behavior.

Such an ignorant and static structure will slowly but surely transform a territory or society into a tyranny, just like deceit, arrogance and resentment will transform a person into a tyrant toward themselves and those around them.

How does one confront this unholy trinity?

By speaking truth.

Speaking Up

To speak up requires courage, and to have courage requires faith.

Knowing when to speak up requires wisdom, and wisdom requires maturity.

The path to becoming mature requires one to be responsible.

Bitcoin is “responsibility go up” technology.

“Resentment always means one of two things. Either the resentful person is immature, in which case he or she should shut up, quit whining, and get on with it, or there is tyranny afoot — in which case the person subjugated has a moral obligation to speak up.”

Bitcoin is our way of speaking up.

We are no longer content with the lot prescribed to us by the State. As free, mature individuals we seek to bear the responsibility of life upon our own shoulders. We seek to be sovereign.

We are mature enough, technologically speaking, to no longer require large-scale bureaucratic nation-states to tell us what we should think, do, eat, believe or say. As a diverse species, we have the capacity to solve problems that no bureaucrat or committee could ever hope to solve if we are left alone to solve them.

The computer I am writing on is one such example. Think about the complexity required for the circuits firing inside the hardware of this device to not only visually represent the thoughts I have in my head by virtue of me tapping plastic buttons on a keyboard, but to transmit them across time and space on an ephemeral network we call “the internet.” It’s just mind-boggling.

None of this came from the state apparatus. It emerged despite it. There was no central planner, organizer or panopticon. It happened because we were all aiming at things we individually valued.

Humans are capable of so much more when we’re not treated like imbeciles in a cage or rats in a maze.

It’s the moral obligation of those of us who understand this, to speak up, and Bitcoin is that voice in action.

Tyranny Versus Truth

Tyranny feeds on lies.

Tyranny is a map that ignores the territory and when reminded as much, the tyrant first ignores, then actively censors the signal.

Tyranny is a pilot removing the altimeter of the plane when it’s warning of low altitude or imminent danger.

Tyranny is the obfuscation and renunciation of economic consequences resultant from central planning, and their placement onto the populace by means of overt and covert theft (taxation and inflation).

Tyranny is the systematic theft by central planners and bureaucrats bailing each other out with the wealth of the people they purportedly represent.

Tyranny is wilful ignorance and coercion despite market feedback.

Tyranny wants silence. It develops mechanisms to censor signals, speech and action so it can have it.

“Because the consequence of remaining silent is worse. Of course, it’s easier in the moment to stay silent and avoid conflict. But in the long term, that’s deadly. When you have something to say, silence is a lie — and tyranny feeds on lies.”

Holding fiat money, cryptocurrency or any other form of permissioned and “approved” monetary asset or wealth issued by the State and their appendages is simply participation in their game.

It is a form of compliance, and therefore silence. Tyranny feeds on this.

Bitcoin is the antidote.

Tyranny cannot feed on truth, for it is poison to its system of lies.

Bitcoin is that “poison.”

Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger are right when they said “Bitcoin is rat poison,” only they don’t realize the “rat” it poisons is the tyrannical persona and the tyrannical state.

Both need to be cleansed.

#BitcoinFixesThis

Sophistication

Peterson makes the case that the quality of our values and morality are indicators of our sophistication.

I’m here to make the case that a Bitcoin standard may increase our level of interpersonal and social sophistication by enabling the organization of individuals and the world around us in accordance with more clear, precise and functional priorities.

In other words, Bitcoin may help us elevate the maturity of the human race.

This is why I believe it’s the most important invention (or discovery) of our lifetimes, and perhaps for centuries.

“Our values, our morality — they are indicators of our sophistication.”

Bitcoin will bring forth the fusion of the studies of matter and what matters.

We covered this in chapter two of the series.

It will open the door once more to the now-taboo non-empirical domain of value and quality. It will give us a chance to enhance and elevate our moral sophistication and thereby become better human beings.

And no — that will not happen in a straight line either. As humans, we shall make mistakes along the way, many of them. But fortunately, on a Bitcoin standard, we are subject to faster feedback loops and a stronger signal, so can more accurately course correct.

In the absence of a controlled money-issuing apparatus, the difficulty (cost) to hide or socialize losses is too great. One must learn the lesson, and in the future be more prudent or more accurate in their aim.

Which brings me to my next point, and one which we’ll explore further in Part Four of this miniseries.

Consequence

Bitcoin enables honest feedback in the game that 8 billion hairless apes are playing on a pale blue dot floating around in space.

A perfect Utopia will never exist and what Bitcoiners, at least those whose words are worth a damn, mean when they talk of a better world is not some panacea to all ailments such that everything is good for everyone all the time.

This isn’t some Marxist fantasy with Ethereum unicorns.

In fact, Bitcoin’s most important impact on society is the reintroduction of economic consequence. This will more often than not be painful and ugly but necessary.

“We can’t just get the one particular thing we especially just want now, along with everything else we usually want, because our desires can produce conflict with our other desires, as well as with other people, and with the world.”

On a Bitcoin standard we will get a blend of what we want, and more importantly, what we actually need, which are often two different things.

We will have conflict, but we’ll have no choice but to work it out on a more level playing field. At the very least, the systemic possibility of cheating by one player to the detriment of the others, without their knowledge or consent, dissolves. That alone is worth fighting for.

These conflicts will force us to prioritize, and take into account the market of values, which reminds me of John Vallis’s masterpiece “Money Messiah” in which he makes the case for:

Hierarchies as a prioritization and aggregate of values.
The market as an aggregate and prioritization of hierarchies.

This rings profoundly true for me, and I suggest you read that piece once you’ve finished this one.

In Closing

In a social sense, we are playing a game with a score, and that scorecard is determined to a large degree by how well you “play” in the “market.”

I don’t just mean the quantum of money. Winning occurs across multiple dimensions. A stay-at-home mom can win the game of life with a lot less money than a stressed out, childless female millionaire CEO with menopause can, after she traded her youth for the illusion of “career success.”

Therefore the game of life is like an aggregate of aim, focus, attention, consequence, feedback and adaptation within the context of internal and external value hierarchies.

It’s complex, but the more sophisticated you become at playing, the better your results, or the better your overall score.

“We succeed when we score a goal or hit a target. We fail, or sin, when we do not (as the word sin means to miss the mark). We cannot navigate, without something to aim at and, while we are in this world, we must always navigate.”

For this sophistication to enhance and not distort and confuse the system, it is critical for a society to have a rules that the participants are all subject to, with a functional, scoring mechanism (unit of account) that is transparent and un-fuck-with-able.

This is the case for Bitcoin.

On that foundation, on that standard of truth, we will become better through each successive generation. I’ll see you in Part Four to close this chapter out.

This is a guest post by Aleks Svetski, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,”, founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of The Wake Up Podcast. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Is The Societal Foundation For Truth

24/08/2021 by Idelto Editor

As we progress into the future, the necessity for Truth remains the requisite base upon which all else must be built.

Truth, Goodness, Beauty. The ancient Greeks identified these three transcendental virtues as the requisite underpinning for individual fulfillment and broader societal flourishing. They also believed that all humans have innate capacities that correspond to each of these values. Logos (reason) allows access to truth, ethos (morality) to goodness, and pathos (emotion) to beauty.

I believe each one of us resonates most strongly with one of these three virtues. Some people are naturally inclined to seek out truth, others goodness, and still others beauty. You can think of the archetypal scientist, servant, and artist, with each one of us being composed of some unequal mixture of the three. While these three virtues are all critical for life to thrive, there exists a natural order among the three. Understanding the dependencies this order implies can inform the proper structuring of successful human organizations.

The natural order begins with truth, flows to goodness, and ultimately comes to fruition in beauty. Mahatma Gandhi said it well when he said “Truth is the first thing to be sought for, and beauty and goodness will then be added unto you.” If this is true, then the best and most beautiful societies are first and foremost built on foundations of truth. The stronger the foundation, the grander and more beautiful the result (*). Since societies are fundamentally a continual and ever-evolving exchange of value between interdependent entities, the medium of said exchange is the foundation. All actions, all complexity derives from the properties of this medium of exchange. Bitcoin’s rules-based system lays perhaps the strongest foundation conceivable and therefore its success is paramount for life on earth to take its next great leap forward.

Life is mysterious and miraculous but in many ways it is also discernible and rational. While life’s origins remain unknown, it is clear that life unfolds and proliferates according to a set of unchanging universal physical laws. That is to say, life itself is downstream of truth. The periodic table, the laws of gravity, thermodynamics and magnetism all provide a stable and predictable matrix upon which complexity self-constructs. Without these bedrock truths, nothing so complex as an amoeba would be able to exist, much less evolve from scratch. But thankfully amoebas did evolve and so did humans. The universe is a richer place for it.

Life is good! If you have a soul or even an imagination, chances are you agree that the universe would be tragically boring if no life existed. There is thus something ineffably right and deeply good about maintaining and nurturing life in all its myriad forms. Not all actions contribute to sustaining life however, and the ones that do not are often lacking in goodness, untethered from truth. Bad actions undermine life’s ever-increasing complexity, reducing things to simpler states. War is a prime example of this and is predicated on the falsehood that every action does NOT have an equal and opposite reaction. Implicit in the logic of war is that by stealing with force the life and livelihood of other people, the victors can enjoy a more abundant and fruitful existence. While this may be true for some individuals for some amount of time, it neglects the fact that every individual is part of a larger whole which is inclusive of all life, even of their innumerable descendants. The net effect of war therefore is greater impoverishment for life on earth and thus contrary to all parties’ interests. Peace on the other hand is good because it acknowledges the truthful oneness of all life. With peace comes trust and trade, specialization, increased complexity, and the flowering of civilization. Good actions then, rooted in truth, lead to flourishing which is another way of saying beauty. This is true on all scales, from the molecular level to the cellular level, all the way to global human civilization. Truth leads to goodness which produces beauty.

The goal then if one wishes to live in a better, more beautiful world, is to anchor oneself as firmly as possible to truth, to tap into that deep truthful flow of life. Life is good. Go with the flow. Easy. Done. Reality however is messy and confusing. There are many overlapping currents, most of which are man-made and ephemeral, but the current of truth is deeper and all-powerful. Mystics and wisemen throughout history have found it and tapped into it. Breaking through the noise to find this current and maintaining the conviction to remain attached despite the countervailing forces requires uncommon courage and strength. Sadly the great masses of people have often been too preoccupied with basic needs to attain this level of human fulfillment, and hence societies built upon truth have proven to be rare, fragile and brief. Could it be then, that the pervasive ugliness of today’s culture, the failure to achieve greatness, the acceptance of trash as art, and the enshrinement of victimhood as a virtue stems from our collective unmooring from truth? I believe so. The fiat money paradigm we exist in today profoundly pollutes the communication and transfer of value between all economic actors and depends upon ignorance to persist. It is a house of cards built on lies. Bitcoin fixes this.

Bitcoin is like a universal API for truth. It provides a standard, global, unstoppable portal to access truth and this portal is open to everyone on the planet. While some may say it’s just a glorified spreadsheet, this misses the profound implications that global dynamic consensus entails. I say dynamic because there’s actually not much value in simple, static, global consensus. We all agree that the sky is blue, yet that is not especially useful, much less the basis upon which to construct a thriving civilization. It doesn’t do anything towards unlocking latent human potential.

The magic of Bitcoin is that there is a new global consensus achieved every 10 minutes, and any human that plugs into the network can literally contribute to each change in the consensus. Furthermore, any human can peacefully maintain a piece of this consensus through HODLing and need only relinquish this control through consent. It’s more than just property rights, it’s also the right to transfer these rights to anyone else in the world. It’s worth considering that for a moment. It’s something like granting every human in the world the ability to implant a thought into every other human’s mind every 10 minutes. While the analogy is far from perfect, it does point to the vast increase in individual agency that Bitcoin ushers in. Universal transferable property rights that no one can mess with is a huge deal because it empowers every human to reach into themselves and deploy their talents towards fruitful endeavors. This is true because those individuals now have the unalienable right to hold onto the just rewards of their labors. But it also tears down walls by opening an economic connection between every single human being. A fully connected human population of 8 billion people would imply roughly 32 quintillion connections. The network effect of this is staggering to consider as is the remaining potential for growth. If you assume there are currently 100 million people who hold bitcoin, then its journey to 8 billion participants would result in the current number of possible economic connections to multiply by 6,400 times.

I contend therefore, as many others have, that if society migrates to a bitcoin standard, that an emergent order predicated on truth and embodying goodness will prevail. The result will be a proliferation of beauty and ultimately an explosion of human flourishing. This doesn’t just happen however. It requires that we act and that our actions be rooted in truth and thus facilitate its spread.

For that reason I’ve begun a project called the Bitcoin Tree Forum, the aim of which is to experiment with new forms of civic organization tied to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Tree Forum is meant to promote low time-preference behavior and is thus focused on directing human action and value towards projects with long time horizons and beautiful results. Running a public node and planting a grove of long-lived trees such as giant sequoias are the first and most accessible steps towards that worthy goal. In my next piece I will introduce the concept in more detail. I’ll be the first to admit that this concept is aspirational, experimental and vaguely quixotic, but nonetheless it is my hope that 1000 years from now people will look upon Bitcoin Tree Forums as one of the many examples of Bitcoin’s beautifying impact on society.

(*) Footnote

In previous centuries, societies used religion as a shared portal to truth and therefore as a way to mobilize human capital. While one may argue today with the veracity of some religions’ claims, religion nonetheless was a shared idea with shared truths that bound many disparate individuals together. This had an enlivening and enriching effect on society, however was vulnerable to becoming unmoored as scientific advancement undermined some religions’ claims and therefore attractiveness. This process has been playing out for over 100 years and has contributed enormously to the fracturing of society. This is not to suggest that religion is bad or unworthy of pursuit; quite the contrary. In its most sincere expression religious organization can bring out the very best of humanity and connect individuals to the most profound truth. I believe thriving religious communities are necessary for a healthy society. The diverse globally-connected world we live in now however precludes any one religion from serving the role as global social anchor to truth. Without this anchor humanity can not reach its full potential. Bitcoin is not a religion. But because of its universality, neutrality, and transparent objectivity, it is an idea that can replace and even advance some of the social benefits that religion traditionally serves.

This is a guest post by Fangorn. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

Indian Crypto Community Gathers to Dispel Confusion About Regulation

18/12/2019 by Idelto Editor

As the Indian government deliberates on the country’s crypto policy, there has been some confusion in media reports regarding crypto regulation in India. A group of local crypto enthusiasts and community members have gathered in an effort to ensure that the crypto situation in India is accurately portrayed.

Also read: Indian Lawmaker Says ‘Cryptocurrency Is Inevitable’

Problem With Misinformation

While the Indian government has not decided on the direction of the country’s crypto policy, a number of media reports have painted an inaccurate picture of the actual situation. The banking restriction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the draft bill to ban cryptocurrencies have contributed to misleading reports such as India banning cryptocurrency or crypto exchanges and prohibiting crypto trading or owning cryptocurrencies.

To prevent misinformation from spreading, a number of Indian crypto industry stakeholders and community members gathered on Dec. 14 for an event in New Delhi called “Unwind 2.0.” It was co-organized by Indian crypto exchange Coindcx and blockchain startup Inblox Network. Coindcx CEO Sumit Gupta explained to news.Bitcoin.com on Tuesday:

There is still a huge misrepresentation that crypto is banned in India but the fact is crypto companies and exchanges are not allowed relationships with RBI-regulated entities like banks. However crypto companies are free to operate on their own.

He added that “Due to the misrepresentation of many such facts and information, the true picture does not emerge to people outside the crypto space, accounting for 99% of the total Indian population.” The CEO additionally described:

Currently, mainstream media reports all the negative news, and gives little notice to positive ones. There are many positive news but [they] go uncovered.

Getting Mainstream Journalists on Board

The event stressed the importance of ensuring that crypto-related regulatory and industry developments are portrayed accurately. This is the second Unwind event. The first one, which took place in November, focused on bringing the crypto community and business leaders together. Journalists attending the event on Saturday were from a number of Indian mainstream news outlets such as the Indian Express, Inshorts, Business Standard, and Inc42.

“The major reason why journalists attended Unwind 2.0 [was] because there were a number of uncertainties in the cryptocurrencies and blockchain community, which included the state of regulations in the country,” Coindcx noted. Business Standard journalist Vireshwar Tomar suggested during the event that crypto exchanges could work on educating young journalism graduates so that the next generation is equipped with crypto knowledge.

The journalists at the event participated in an exercise that tests their knowledge of crypto news. They were asked if a few crypto-related statements were true or false such as “cryptocurrencies are banned in India,” “There are 5 bitcoin ATMs in India,” “Due to lack of regulations, blockchain projects have stopped investing in India,” and “Reliance Jio is building its own blockchain, dubbing it to be the world’s largest blockchain.” Coindcx revealed to news.Bitcoin.com:

The journalists present at the event answered true to most of the statements which were actually not true.

“The point of the game was proved which highlighted the fact that mainstream media journalists have very little idea about the reality of the cryptocurrency industry,” the exchange noted, adding that this will help them “understand that every morsel of information out there, pertaining to crypto and blockchain, needs thorough research.” The organizer conveyed that many journalists at the event expressed their willingness “to go the distance and report accurately,” but “they would definitely like to be more educated on the topic and that would perhaps make mainstream media pick up these stories.”

The Truth About Crypto Regulation in India

While India currently has no crypto regulation, a number of existing laws could apply to crypto businesses. A draft bill entitled “Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019” was submitted to the government in February but it is not on the agenda to be introduced in Parliament this year. Gupta further shared with news.Bitcoin.com:

The truth about Indian crypto regulation is that it will be a long-drawn process. While ideally, it would be wonderful if there was a faster resolution, but there are many factors to be taken into account.

He continued: “The Indian government is taking a cautionary approach toward regulation. They are actively studying the benefits of blockchain technology and more importantly monitoring the steps of various developed countries like the USA, China, Japan, and UAE in terms of how they are approaching cryptocurrency regulation. So, we believe when the regulation does come, the government will take all facts into consideration before passing an act.”

Meanwhile, the banking restriction imposed by the central bank is still in effect. The RBI issued a circular in April last year prohibiting regulated financial institutions from providing services to customers dealing in cryptocurrencies, including exchanges. This ban has been challenged in India’s supreme court, which is scheduled to resume hearing the case next month.

“We expect the government to closely follow the court case that is currently scheduled to be heard on January 14. We want them to hear both sides. We have presented a strong case and have provided adequate information,” Gupta opined, concluding:

Before taking any final decision, we believe the government will consult with all the key stakeholders in the crypto community.

Furthermore, the crypto community has been actively campaigning for positive crypto regulation. The “India Wants Crypto” social media campaign has entered its 412th day. The community strongly believes that the draft bill is flawed and no one in the crypto industry was consulted prior to the drafting of this bill. A member of the upper house of India’s parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has indicated that he will help the crypto community convey the message to the government. Moreover, another member of the upper house of parliament, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, said last week that “Cryptocurrency is inevitable.”

What do you think about the community’s efforts to stop misinformation concerning India’s crypto policy? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Coindcx.

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Remembering Satoshi’s Vision — As it Was Written

13/05/2018 by Idelto Editor

On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto had a vision to share with the world — a protocol he called “bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.” Since that time a whole lot has changed, and there is a vast cryptocurrency landscape with over 1,500 virtual currencies listed on data feed websites. It’s been a very long time since Satoshi left the community and his vision, the white paper, and even the protocol’s proof-of-work has been questioned multiple times over the years.

Also read: Privacy-Centric Coin XMR Splits Into Four Different Monero Protocols

BCH Proponents Believe That Many Key Attributes Have Been Slowly Replaced With a Whole New Concept

Satoshi Nakamoto left the community in 2010, and no one has heard from the anonymous creator of bitcoin ever since. At the moment the bitcoin community has split into two factions due to the scaling debate, that coincidently started the same year Satoshi left. Many bitcoin cash supporters believe the BTC side of the community has never had a valid excuse against raising the 1 MB block size by utilizing a refuse to give in at-any-cost mentality. The bitcoin cash community believes this group has been so stubborn that Core supporters basically enabled blowback to occur this past August, allowing a large majority of users to go their separate ways by forking the protocol, before the introduction of the contentious Segregated Witness (Segwit). The protocol Segwit had been and still is controversial and hasn’t gained much traction even to this day. All of these individuals who once shared similar visions with their peers, formed another community and rallied around the bitcoin cash (BCH) network believing that BCH is the closest chain to Satoshi’s original vision.

Revisionism

Alongside all of this vitriolic energy tethered to the scaling debate, BCH supporters say there have been quite a few individuals who believe “Satoshi’s vision doesn’t matter,” and actually have the audacity to propose making changes to the creator’s white paper. Many individuals will tell you the reason for this is because supporters of the Segwit chain have realized that the document does not apply to the BTC network. Unfortunately, BTC hardly resembles what is described in Satoshi’s white paper. For instance, the co-owners of Bitcoin.org, ‘Theymos,’ and ‘Cobra Bitcoin’ among others have talked about changing certain phrases in Satoshi’s paper. Another example is how the web portal Bitcoin.org, which is heralded by Core supporters as ‘truth,’ removed the cheap and fast transactions description for bitcoin off the front page — the reason for this is because the description does not apply to Core network.

Of course, bitcoin cash supporters have been livid about this method of revisionism used by the other side of this debate. It is often said that “Satoshi’s vision” or the creator himself doesn’t matter, but BCH supporters believe most free-thinking individuals understand that history is important. Satoshi’s words and his original white paper is extremely vital towards keeping the network from being perverted. Anyone who denies history doesn’t understand how things came to be, and they will have a serious issue coping with the future. The past is the future’s direct causation. The very title of the white paper explains that bitcoin is a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” which shows absolutely no references to holding the coin as a speculative asset, or any comparison that represents a ‘digital store of value.’

Can’t Afford to Send Bitcoin? — Deal With It — It’s ‘Censorship Resistant’ for a Certain Group of Individuals

After close to a decade, one by one, BCH supporters state that specific features that used to be promoted widely among the bitcoin community have been slowly forgotten. In the early days, bitcoin was considered pseudonymous and needed tools like mixers and tumblers that could help provide anonymity. However, due to the rise in transaction costs most bitcoin mixers and tumblers found the network unsustainable, and many were unable to mix coins because network fees were both too expensive and unreliable. Further, during the times when BTC suffered from extreme network congestion, and unconfirmed transactions spiked to well over 200,000, darknet mixers and tumblers were called out for ‘spamming the network.’

Remember when transactions were once described as cheaper than most centralized processors like Western Union? In the early days, people envisioned billions of micropayments helping people in need and third world countries. Instead throughout 2015- 2017, Core advocates and developers stated they didn’t mind if fees aggregated to $100 per transaction. Core developer Gregory Maxwell stated during the worst period of BTC’s transaction backlog and $60 fees that he was popping bottles of champagne.

"Personally, I'm pulling out the champagne that market behaviour is
indeed producing activity levels that can pay for security without
inflation, and also producing fee paying backlogs needed to stabilize
consensus progress as the subsidy declines." ~ Greg Maxwell Dec. 21, 2017

It didn’t matter that economically unfortunate countries couldn’t afford to use the bitcoin blockchain as long as the chain continued to remain ‘censorship resistant’ — Ironically this thought process leads to the censorship of more than 2/3rds of this world who have a hard time considering paying $0.25 cents per transaction (tx) let alone $30-60 USD per tx. It’s safe to say that enjoying the rising fee market process is straight out of a Ponzi scheme manual where only the early adopters are those who can afford to use the network benefits.

The Resurrection of Killer Apps

Core supporters will tell you that bitcoin cash proponents are deceptive by utilizing the open brand name ‘bitcoin,’ when in fact all BCH proponents believe they are doing is “adhering to Satoshi’s original vision.” In fact, the chain and the BCH community are direct derivatives of stubborn blowback. Revisionists and actors with confirmation bias have clung to arguments that make no sense and act like the world is ready to adopt a whole new infrastructure called the ‘Lightning Network.’ This is after realizing on-chain BTC transactions are not very fast, and on-chain BTC transaction fees are unreliable especially during times of demand. Unfortunately, mainstream attention that took place during Q4 of 2017, was one of the worst periods of time for congestion, as BTC fees aggregated to upwards of $60 per transaction and confirmation times of up to a week for low fees. Then the mainstream was directed to a system that is not even close to widespread adoption, even though this mainstream audience was basically at a tipping point towards mass adoption.

Fortunately for mainstream adopters, BCH supporters believe bitcoin cash will be there to provide the very things that were promised in the early days that made the idea of cryptocurrencies so cool — actual fast, cheap, and reliable transactions that cannot be censored.

This is because BCH supporters state that mainstream audiences and users from third world countries won’t be hindered from using the cryptocurrency due to unreliable transfer times and tumultuous network fees. They also won’t have to learn to adopt a new network on top of the blockchain or learn about the flaws of routing, watchtowers, centralized hubs, opening channels, or keeping coins online in limbo. No, all they will have to learn is how to use bitcoin as it was taught for the past nine years. Mainstream audiences are also getting a glimpse of an ‘application resurrection’ of tools that were once heralded by the BTC community. The bitcoin cash ecosystem has resurrected mixers and tumblers, micro-tipping applications, a Bittorrent platform, social media apps like Memo and Blockpress, even the ability to send very small fractions of BCH without an internet connection.

Protecting Propaganda and Censorship Over Conscience and Principles

Bitcoin cash proponents think that revisionists will continue to try and say that Satoshi and the white paper “doesn’t matter” and will attempt to revise history to make bitcoin something that it is not. Why do BCH enthusiasts believe this? Likely it is because supporters of bitcoin revisionism have defended propaganda and censorship, so much that it has become a routine activity on some of bitcoin’s most frequented forums. All of this for a stubborn win-at-any-cost mentality that wouldn’t even allow the discussion or open debate of adding one measly megabyte to the block size. No, BCH proponents believe the confusion Core supporters complain about, rests on their conscience, because they obfuscated the protocol’s original intentions, anonymous minions sniffed out dissenting opinions, and cried when they got the blowback (the birth of BCH) they deserved.

It’s safe to say that Satoshi’s vision will be remembered, and his white paper will remain safe from changes. However, BCH supporters understand that the revisionists will also be recognized for being intellectually dishonest and as sophists attempting to keep bitcoin hostage. Bitcoin cash enthusiasts believe that after August 1, 2017 bitcoin’s hostile takeover has ended, and there is now an avenue available to continue following Satoshi’s vision.

What do you think about the idea that most BCH supporters believe that Core proponents have revised history and have tried to lessen Satoshi’s vision and even alter the white paper? How do you remember this history? Let us know in the comments below.

This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article.

Images via Shutterstock, the Future of Bitcoin Conference, Bitcoin.com, Pixabay, and Wiki-commons.

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