bitcoin has seen tremendous growth over the past fifteen years since its inception, and with it have come numerous monumental changes to the culture of the ecosystem at large, as well as the smaller individual communities that comprise it. This is obviously something to be expected, as the network has grown from a small niche in a corner of the internet to a global phenomenon that is now becoming a serious political issue across the world.
bitcoin is no longer a small niche object in a corner or a toy that only a few autistic nerds play with; it is a global economic asset and a monetary network that transfers billions of dollars around the world every day. Obviously, things have changed in the process of that growth, but I think that change of direction has had substantial negative consequences.
bitcoin has always been perceived as having a libertarian or right-wing bent. Some of the early users and communities that formed around bitcoin were based on libertarian philosophy, and it makes sense when you look at it from a theoretical perspective. Libertarianism is ostensibly about the individual asserting and maintaining their own freedom and independence in their lives. But that was not the only group of people, or the only philosophy, that was present in the early history of bitcoin.
Many people came to bitcoin through left-leaning movements like Occupy Wall Street, the large-scale protest movement that was born in response to the same Great Financial Crisis that gave birth to bitcoin itself. They also saw the need to disintermediate banks in the global economy in the wake of the disastrous consequences that resulted from their reckless and irresponsible gambling with the savings and investments of ordinary people in the course of the functioning of the economy. They also saw the need to take control over that economy out of the hands of the governments that selectively deregulated it to allow that gambling to occur in the first place.
Both groups got here for the same reasons: disintermediation, the removal of megabanks and governments as middlemen in everyone’s financial transactions, and, ultimately, the functioning of the global economy as a whole. But in the collective cultural mindset, it is libertarianism, the right wing of the political spectrum, that has become widely associated with bitcoin.
The problem with this is that, in general, most of them have not remained faithful to the beliefs they proclaim.
bitcoin was designed to be an open, middleman-less system where anyone can use it. I'm not talking in technological terms here – people reading this understand perfectly well that on a technological level, bitcoin requires restrictions to maintain the decentralization that gives it value in the first place, and that compromising those restrictions is a death shot. I'm talking philosophically.
On a technical level, scaling bitcoin to make it available to as many people as possible is an ongoing challenge, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Those are limitations imposed by the nature of the technology.
On a human and personal level, bitcoin requires no restrictions. It is an open, voluntary consensus system, whose nature and function are defined entirely by that voluntary consensus created by the voluntary interactions of all its users and participants. Many so-called libertarians seem to be deeply offended and bewildered by this.
The actions of a significant portion of the active community, at least online, act in complete contradiction to the principles of libertarianism: freedom, independence, and voluntary interaction. Many right-wing or libertarian Bitcoiners encourage exactly the opposite: they harass, intimidate, and pressure people into adopting their worldview.
Their actions reflect conformity and pressure to act a certain way or believe certain things, rather than respect for individual choices and beliefs that differ from their own. They attempt to instill the idea of being a Bitcoiner, or being involved in bitcoin, as equivalent to holding to their beliefs and worldview. They constantly engage in smear campaigns, in many cases bordering on or crossing into harassment, to try to enforce this equivalence of their worldview with “being a Bitcoiner.”
While I don't think this is actually the dominant attitude of people in this space, it definitely prevails in some sub-communities and is certainly the dominant attitude perceived in public on internet platforms. And it is in complete contradiction to the espoused beliefs of libertarianism, individual freedom and respect, and self-determination over how people want to live their lives.
The only place I see the actions, not the words, of individuals reflecting such beliefs is (I'm sure ironically for some readers) on the left. Progressive and left-leaning Bitcoiners seem to be the only people willing to meaningfully engage with people who think or see the world in radically different ways without being shamed or pressured into adopting their own worldview. They are the people working to pave a path for adoption by people of diverse viewpoints and backgrounds, with different needs, and trying to ensure that bitcoin can help as many people as possible.
In contrast, right-wing Bitcoiners tend to shame, attack, and discourage people who have different worldviews than their own. They typically scoff at attempts to address those people's needs or problems with bitcoin. The common chant or reaction is “bitcoin isn't for everyone” or “poor people will never use bitcoin self-sufficiently.” It embodies an “I've got my thing, so pull the ladder behind me” attitude about things.
People often talk about appealing to technical arguments, but the vast majority of those making such claims often fail to articulate coherent technical reasoning to support their “forget about these people” argument. They appeal to fear and uncertainty to bolster their arguments, rather than raising coherent, articulate technical concerns.
Many of these people wrap themselves in fantasies of power, wealth, and influence. They tell themselves that because they were “smart enough” to buy bitcoins in the first place, they deserve that position in the world, and others who weren’t “smart enough” don’t deserve it. It’s almost a fetishization of becoming the people bitcoin was supposed to remove from our lives.
Yes, bitcoin has technical limitations. And yes, that almost certainly means that third parties will not be completely disengaged from our lives, but that doesn’t mean it’s something we should accept and defend. Something that makes us delight in thinking about being that middleman or nodding along and magically saying “the market will sort this out,” pretending that governments don’t exist, always looking for new private entities to subjugate and turn into designated lackeys that impose control over our financial transactions and our lives.
Speaking of government interference in markets, this is something else that right-wing Bitcoiners compromise on in terms of principle. They make excuses for, or even openly encourage, influence on services and products in this space, while simultaneously attacking anything that tries to escape the reach of enforcement or regulation. It’s a state of cognitive dissonance, one that appeals entirely to the market to magically prevent “poor” Bitcoiners from being abused and taken advantage of in the same way as the financial system, while simply pretending that the mere existence of bitcoin will prevent the government from forcing large private players to act as an enforcement arm of that abuse.
When people talk about community escrow solutions, like ecash or other Lightning-based systems, that can work in a cost-effective but not highly centralized way (at least at scale) in places like Africa, they are ridiculed. They are painted as scams waiting to happen or completely unviable solutions, while at the same time critics strut around as if bitcoin is just going to magically win, as if there aren’t problems to solve to make it more accessible in a way that can be scaled to provide a risk-free means of use to more people.
I already have mine, so fuck you.
The libertarians who defend bitcoin have completely missed the original goal of its creation: to disintermediate people's financial lives. They applaud the influence of Wall Street, the complacency of politicians, and the increasing institutionalization of the entire system as progress.
“Let’s get our seat at the table now, don’t ruin the game!”
They no longer care about improving the lot of people as a whole, or ensuring that everyone has the freedom to experience and live their lives as they wish, or to structure their communities and societies as they wish, on the basis of a neutral, unmediated system. They applaud conformity, homogeneity, a bend to their worldview. They see bitcoin as a way to bend the world to their beliefs, their will, their way of life. Most no longer see it as a framework for diverse experimentation and differentiation.
It is the progressives, the leftists, those who came through paths like Occupy Wall Street, who still seem to care about making bitcoin the best it can be for everyone. It is time for this to be acknowledged and for people to disengage from the parasitic pressure to conform.
For the nerds who understand the reference, infinite diversity in infinite combinations. That's what bitcoin should be.