Power to the people?

A common perception about the so called cryptocurrency space is that it empowers people by giving them the ability to mint their own coin and compete with it on the open market. We hear about the web 3.0, the tokenized economy and the blockchain revolution. There seems to be very little real understanding of what the blockchain actually does, why it’s important or what differentiates Bitcoin from all the other cryptocurrencies. Now all you blockchain proponents out there, once and for all, get this through your thick skulls — the crucial thing that makes Bitcoin valuable at all is its fixed money supply. That’s it. The blockchain was invented for one purpose and one purpose only. It’s not good for anything else. No one on earth can create new Bitcoins. Anyone capable of pressing ctrl-c and ctrl-v on a keyboard can create a new cryptocurrency. Gold is rare, fake gold is not.

The way in which Bitcoin transfers power to the people is not through the web 3.0, the tokenized economy or the blockchain revolution but through holding Bitcoin, which no government tax collector, no vampire banker nor snake-oil salesman altcoin visionaire can leech upon. It is not a socialist idea in any way, shape or form. Nor is it a capitalist one in the current, Keynesian definition of the word. It is more akin to a time when it was costly for those in power to steal from the people since it involved paying them a visit and taking their gold and valuables with brute force. Bitcoin is a shield against theft and whether that theft is carried out disguised as taxes, inflation or fees doesn’t matter. This is what Bitcoin does. It stays the same over time and space. This might not sound very empowering short term but Bitcoin is not about short term thinking. It’s about disrupting the destructiveness of short term thinking. You can pass it down through generations carried in the brains of your offspring and no one can do anything to stop that from happening. This will happen. It is happening. Right now.

Like the privileges that came with titles given to the feudal lords several centuries ago still echo and give advantages to their descendents today, the descendants of today’s Bitcoin holders are likely to enjoy privileged positions in the future. This time around however, it is no longer up to the current sociopath on the throne to decide whos grandchildren gets to enjoy the boarding school life style. This time, the power to pass wealth on to your children is in your own hands, which should provide you with at least some incentive to save some of your assets for less fortunate times.

People in general will continue to make bad financial decisions. No government or financial advisor can prevent this. People will take part in pyramid schemes and people will ignore inflation when thinking about their economies. Equal financial outcome for a population is not only impossible but also undesirable for a plethora of reasons as proven by the failure of communism. Equal opportunity however, should be something to strive for everywhere. Satoshi Nakamoto gave us humans a tool to start from scratch with and build something durable. Opportunities can’t get much more equal than that. This is power to the people in the only meaningful sense of the expression. Should opportunity never knock, build a door.

Power to the people? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.