The first time I saw a video of Amir Taaki, I was blown away by his charisma.
He explained how he single-handedly crushed the online poker monopolies, until
one day he found Bitcoin. Then he described the first time he read Satoshi’s
white paper and how he could understand the code, reading it like an everyday
language. I had never seen a person with such personality, who was just as
passionate as I was. It gave me goosebumps. A couple days ago, I watched another
video of Taaki rise to the top of the Bitcoin subreddit. Many people said they
missed the kind of spirit that Taaki brought to the table, along with others
like him, such as Cody Wilson. Whether we like to admit it or not, we think
Bitcoin is going through an identity crisis. Or maybe it is we who are
suffering, and we do not understand the ghost in the machine? Large banks and
research labs are currently dedicating their resources to figuring out the
virtual currency's protocol, with a total of 42 banks backing the creation of
digital architecture and using concepts like Ethereum to connect a bank-to-bank
system. The crypto community has applauded news of this nature and pushed it to
the forefront. Many say these developments differ from the cries for freedom and
privacy of cypherpunks such as Julian Assange, Eric Hughes, and early Bitcoin
adopters.
As an anarchist, I came to believe in Bitcoin and I hoped it could
change the paradigm of money, something we could use to "vacate Wall Street," or
use as a counter economic tool against the state. As time has progressed, I've
continued to study the attributes of distributed consensus and what the
blockchain could really do. It could create autonomous organizations,
decentralized governance, borderless identity solutions, and so much more—a
Swiss Army knife of financial and ideological disruption. How could I resist?
The Bitcoin protocol to me was something that could help defeat the banks and
give this world a taste of pure free markets. But I came to realize early on
that the code and the primary objective is not truly for me to decide. Satoshi
created and left this cryptocurrency for everyone, including people of
every ideology, religion, and human quirk. As much as I love to see Taaki’s
position come to life with ideas such as Dark Wallet, that doesn't mean everyone
does. Or when Cody Wilson voices his opinion about the state of the
cryptocurrency, it doesn't mean everyone in the community will agree. The
realization that Bitcoin is everyone's is sometimes hard for me to
swallow, but I did so long ago. Bitcoin is an experiment for all people, whether
anarchistic or statist. The protocol will continue to operate. But what is it
meant for? Is it for the banking industry to speed up daily monetary
transactions? Is it meant to save the traditional financial institutions vast
amounts of revenue? It can easily be perceived this way after the 2015
blockchain revelry. Or was Bitcoin created for us, so we can “be our own bank?”
We continue to hear the slogan, and we still hear stories about the digital
currency ending corruption in our economy.
All this could make someone new to
Bitcoin awfully confused when they enter an arena in which one side cheers for
banks to buy into the technology, and the other side cheers when libertarians
gather to discuss bringing an end to the damage caused by fractional banking and
centrality. Nearly every blockchain story or cryptocurrency tale still provides
a brief introduction to the 2008 economic crash. Yet some people still applaud
the banks who used deceit and corruption in scorn of the good in society. Now
these same banks suddenly value fintech over legacy. The tables are turning. As
an anarchist, even without cryptocurrency, I understand that stateless ideas
cannot create change over night. I do not stand in the way of people's lives and
try to get them to view my ideas as “better” by using coercive speech or force.
Instead of preaching down to everyone, I hope for emulation. I work my hardest
to practice what I preach and I hope one day someone copies my methods. This
same method can be applied to the community who adopts Bitcoin and assigns it
for particular utilities. Just as the block size must be decided by consensus,
so will be the identity of cryptocurrency in the world's eyes. It will carry no
ideology. It will only collect the identity our individual actions put into it
over time.
Every now and then, I hear someone say the “libertarian phase” of
Bitcoin is over, especially in the past two years. This is far from the truth,
however, as many of us still operate behind the scenes and in the forefront of
the community, creating and using applications that promote anarchism.
Developers continue to build platforms that allow individuals sovereignty over
their wealth, as opposed to third-party intrusion. Despite this, many people
would still like someone to hold their hand and keep things centralized.
Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, a great majority of society still believes
in centralization, protectionism, nationalism, and what I believe to be societal
failures. These ideological behaviors, which continue to coexist within the
Bitcoin community, reveal the conflict between believing in the state and
not accepting it. In the middle, other people swim both ways in the stream.
Swimming my own way through the current is the best possible method for me
hoping others will see he value of and want to copy my direction. In time, the
ways in which we identify the protocol's utilities will grow. As Mises explains
in Human Action](https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human%20Action_3.pdf),
each person uses their actions to serve a purpose within the network. Bitcoin
was created to be a tool neither of the supporter of central authority, nor for
the exclusively anarchistic. We can guarantee there will always be people like
Taaki, and others like me who want to use it to spread disruptive behavior, just
as you can bet there will continue to be many who love Bitcoin while wanting the
opposite of my stateless hopes. The element of conflicting human ideologies
continues, as does the growth of the technology we use. I'm here because of the
disruptive potential this code brings to the world. I personally hope it will
help end global monopolization and corruption. Images courtesy of Crypto-
graphics.com
He explained how he single-handedly crushed the online poker monopolies, until
one day he found Bitcoin. Then he described the first time he read Satoshi’s
white paper and how he could understand the code, reading it like an everyday
language. I had never seen a person with such personality, who was just as
passionate as I was. It gave me goosebumps. A couple days ago, I watched another
video of Taaki rise to the top of the Bitcoin subreddit. Many people said they
missed the kind of spirit that Taaki brought to the table, along with others
like him, such as Cody Wilson. Whether we like to admit it or not, we think
Bitcoin is going through an identity crisis. Or maybe it is we who are
suffering, and we do not understand the ghost in the machine? Large banks and
research labs are currently dedicating their resources to figuring out the
virtual currency's protocol, with a total of 42 banks backing the creation of
digital architecture and using concepts like Ethereum to connect a bank-to-bank
system. The crypto community has applauded news of this nature and pushed it to
the forefront. Many say these developments differ from the cries for freedom and
privacy of cypherpunks such as Julian Assange, Eric Hughes, and early Bitcoin
adopters.
As an anarchist, I came to believe in Bitcoin and I hoped it could
change the paradigm of money, something we could use to "vacate Wall Street," or
use as a counter economic tool against the state. As time has progressed, I've
continued to study the attributes of distributed consensus and what the
blockchain could really do. It could create autonomous organizations,
decentralized governance, borderless identity solutions, and so much more—a
Swiss Army knife of financial and ideological disruption. How could I resist?
The Bitcoin protocol to me was something that could help defeat the banks and
give this world a taste of pure free markets. But I came to realize early on
that the code and the primary objective is not truly for me to decide. Satoshi
created and left this cryptocurrency for everyone, including people of
every ideology, religion, and human quirk. As much as I love to see Taaki’s
position come to life with ideas such as Dark Wallet, that doesn't mean everyone
does. Or when Cody Wilson voices his opinion about the state of the
cryptocurrency, it doesn't mean everyone in the community will agree. The
realization that Bitcoin is everyone's is sometimes hard for me to
swallow, but I did so long ago. Bitcoin is an experiment for all people, whether
anarchistic or statist. The protocol will continue to operate. But what is it
meant for? Is it for the banking industry to speed up daily monetary
transactions? Is it meant to save the traditional financial institutions vast
amounts of revenue? It can easily be perceived this way after the 2015
blockchain revelry. Or was Bitcoin created for us, so we can “be our own bank?”
We continue to hear the slogan, and we still hear stories about the digital
currency ending corruption in our economy.
All this could make someone new to
Bitcoin awfully confused when they enter an arena in which one side cheers for
banks to buy into the technology, and the other side cheers when libertarians
gather to discuss bringing an end to the damage caused by fractional banking and
centrality. Nearly every blockchain story or cryptocurrency tale still provides
a brief introduction to the 2008 economic crash. Yet some people still applaud
the banks who used deceit and corruption in scorn of the good in society. Now
these same banks suddenly value fintech over legacy. The tables are turning. As
an anarchist, even without cryptocurrency, I understand that stateless ideas
cannot create change over night. I do not stand in the way of people's lives and
try to get them to view my ideas as “better” by using coercive speech or force.
Instead of preaching down to everyone, I hope for emulation. I work my hardest
to practice what I preach and I hope one day someone copies my methods. This
same method can be applied to the community who adopts Bitcoin and assigns it
for particular utilities. Just as the block size must be decided by consensus,
so will be the identity of cryptocurrency in the world's eyes. It will carry no
ideology. It will only collect the identity our individual actions put into it
over time.
Every now and then, I hear someone say the “libertarian phase” of
Bitcoin is over, especially in the past two years. This is far from the truth,
however, as many of us still operate behind the scenes and in the forefront of
the community, creating and using applications that promote anarchism.
Developers continue to build platforms that allow individuals sovereignty over
their wealth, as opposed to third-party intrusion. Despite this, many people
would still like someone to hold their hand and keep things centralized.
Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, a great majority of society still believes
in centralization, protectionism, nationalism, and what I believe to be societal
failures. These ideological behaviors, which continue to coexist within the
Bitcoin community, reveal the conflict between believing in the state and
not accepting it. In the middle, other people swim both ways in the stream.
Swimming my own way through the current is the best possible method for me
hoping others will see he value of and want to copy my direction. In time, the
ways in which we identify the protocol's utilities will grow. As Mises explains
in Human Action](https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human%20Action_3.pdf),
each person uses their actions to serve a purpose within the network. Bitcoin
was created to be a tool neither of the supporter of central authority, nor for
the exclusively anarchistic. We can guarantee there will always be people like
Taaki, and others like me who want to use it to spread disruptive behavior, just
as you can bet there will continue to be many who love Bitcoin while wanting the
opposite of my stateless hopes. The element of conflicting human ideologies
continues, as does the growth of the technology we use. I'm here because of the
disruptive potential this code brings to the world. I personally hope it will
help end global monopolization and corruption. Images courtesy of Crypto-
graphics.com