Bitcoin of the Realm
Decentralized currency is the beginning of the end of nations
When the price hit 30k I kicked myself. Since 2012 I had known about Bitcoin. A minor splurge of $100 in my early college days, had I held through now, would be worth about $600,000 today. These kinds of non-stories, of the almost-crypto-millionaire, are now ubiquitous. Anyone with a few spare bucks in 2009 and an internet connection could have conceivably solved their financial troubles with minimal downside risk. I’m not as sorry as people who got in early and sold at $5, or $100, or $1,000. They were sitting pretty with 5k, or 10k, or 20k a few years ago, and now have something like a self-inflicted case of bad conscience. What other kind is there? Bad beats.
As of this writing, 1 U.S. Dollar (USD) sits at a healthy 1/32,000th of a Bitcoin. But sure, your dad still thinks it’s just a meme. Maybe it is; an extremely valuable one. Every time the price surges, a new swath of eager investors, tag-alongs, and “filthy casuals” wanting to cash in (or out) on the frenzy jump in. No doubt, some of them are hearing The Good News just now. Some even know what Bitcoin is. Fewer grasp why it matters.
I’m not here to give investment advice, analyze the fundamentals or soundness of Bitcoin. This isn’t a Bitcoin explainer. There are thousands of blog posts by experts who can attest to its merits one way or the other. The best time to invest in Bitcoin was 11 years ago. The second best time is now. But I don’t give investment advice.
This newsletter is about the future of governance.
The Revolution
Behind the hype is something more fundamental than the chance to make a lot of money. Bitcoin represents an existential and irreversible threat to every government. Like Pandora’s box, the events set in motion by Bitcoin’s anonymous father, Satoshi Nakamoto, cannot be undone. Has he unleashed great evil on the world? Only time will tell the full implications. But if cash is king and the sovereign rules by divine right, then a decentralized cyptographic store of value is downright satanic. As any Bitcoin maximalist or evangelist will tell you, we are in the midst of a (highly profitable) revolution. Jesus too, was a revolutionary.
In God We Trust
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s - Matthew 22:21
When Jesus’ disciples asked wether they should pay the Roman tax he had them produce a tribute penny engraved with the emperor’s visage and commanded as above. Some point to this moment as one of the earliest invocations of the separation of church and state. What do the pious care for the markings of a false idol? After all, admission to the kingdom of heaven draws on no distinction between rich and poor. This core truth, that the profane worldly pleasures of somatic experience stack up to zero on God’s scale, is what made the Catholic Church’s system of indulgences especially grotesque; and why televangelists spreading prosperity gospel strike us as deeply unchrist-like. Rather, a different cold calculus listed and delisted souls from His grace before the arrival of Christ. Nietzsche said the invention of Justice was the tracking of credits and debits, gifts and offenses, committed and returned in kind. Jesus came to wipe the slate clean. Everyone gets to start with a new ledger.
A newly minted Bitcoin acolyte feels the same way about Bitcoin as a newly minted Christian feels about the Lord God Jesus Christ. They’ve miraculously managed to fumble through their entire lives an ignorant wretch, and now, by grace in line with divine providence, they see the light, the path, the way. A way, certainly. Wether a Bitcoin convert truly experiences something akin to a religious conversion is debatable, and I wont overstretch the simile. But once you “get it”, your world will never be the same. Besides, they’re not mutually exclusive memes anyway.
Fed Printer Go Brrr
Like Christianity and Bitcoin, the U.S.-backed fiat Dollar is a meme. They are all ideas which propagate based on shared belief in their value. With enough people taking stock in them, each forms its own self-perpetuating, robust, faith-based network. You can say Bitcoin is backed by math and code, but its value is fundamentally tied up in the number of network participants and their perception of its worth. Of note: among these memes, Christianity is the least fungible.
He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation - James Garfield
This year the Fed printed hecka Fedcoin. In 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet soared from $4.2 to $7.2 trillion. Wanton printing has had the attendant effect of lowering the value of the U.S.D. If money is America’s god, then debasing the currency should be a cardinal sin. Defacing the currency is prohibited under federal law. Diogenes the Cynic was exiled for defacing coins. What you need to learn about indulgences is that it’s ok when The Pope does it.
One Coin to Rule Them All
The Reformation was triggered in part by observation of the excesses and hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church and clergy. We all remember from grade school history that it also was made possible by the invention of the printing press. I’ll save the Gutenberg Galaxy talk for later. The gist: technological innovation has once again opened the floodgates to a new kind of information that will upend the powers of old, by shifting that power back to the hands of the many. Each centralization is proceeded by a more explosive and greater decentralization, until at last consolidation begins anew.
I don’t know if Bitcoin will be the final store of value over the next 10, 50, or even 500 years. In all likelihood, it will be superseded by a more innovative cryptocurrency that shakes off some of its rudimentary, unprescient faults. It may be that no crypto reigns supreme and we get a plethora of competing markets, vying for your faith. Since reformation, the church splintered into uncountable variants and sects. For now, there is one dominant truth, and one most valuable currency in the world.
Glory be to god. Death to the false idols.