That is an opinion editorial by Jonathan Leger, a software program developer and creator of the Relating to Bitcoin e-newsletter. A model of this text was initially printed on Substack.
I used to be raised in a doomsday cult that taught that God was on the brink of wage the struggle of Armageddon and convey in regards to the finish of the present world order. The governments, all dominated by the satan, would get replaced with the Kingdom of Heaven dominated by Jesus Christ. The cult discouraged any form of actual monetary planning due to this worldview. In any case, what was the purpose of investing in a system dealing with imminent destruction?
This excessive spiritual upbringing — and my eventual escape from it — helped me in my path to understanding Bitcoin Maximalism.
Discovering Bitcoin
My Bitcoin expertise started with a dropping commerce in the summertime of 2014. After studying just a few articles about this “magic web cash,” I purchased my first entire coin for about $500. I wasn’t ready for a way risky the worth swings can be, although, and bought at a loss later that 12 months. If solely I had recognized…
The final 5 years have been an intense studying expertise for me. On the finish of 2017, I left the cult with my spouse, who’s at present shunned by her whole household (as required by cult doctrine). I misplaced all of my “pals” as effectively. We needed to find out how the actual world labored and how you can construct a social community outdoors of the ready-made set of “pals” handed to us by the church, as getting near non-members was deeply discouraged. All non-members have been going to die by God’s hand at Armageddon anyway, so there was no level in getting too acquainted. Plus, their depraved methods would possibly rub off on you, so it was finest to maintain your distance for concern that you simply would possibly get hit by a stray fireball when the top got here.
After leaving the cult, I embraced life with the fervor of a wrongly-jailed prisoner embracing freedom upon exoneration. I studied politics for the primary time, since members didn’t vote or take part in any type of campaigning as a result of perception that every one earthly governments have been Satanic. I learn books on how far humanity had superior and the way a lot better off all of us are than in centuries previous, nonetheless imperfect the present world could also be. I used to be excited and optimistic for the long run.
In 2004, I had began and grew a profitable enterprise as a software program developer and web advertising and marketing coach. The instruments our crew developed helped individuals compete with bigger firms for getting web sites to the highest of the search ends in Google, in addition to different associated use instances. For a few years, looking out Google for “coolest man on the planet” returned my web site because the primary end result, demonstrating the significance of the Bitcoiner mantra, “Don’t belief, confirm.”
Regardless of making thousands and thousands of {dollars} in profitable software program product launches, I misplaced most of it by means of poor monetary choices coupled with intensifying competitors from a lot better capitalized firms. On high of that, I went by means of a really costly, acrimonious divorce.
“Love is grand,” they are saying, “however divorce is 100 grand.” I grew up poor and had little formal or private schooling in how you can correctly handle cash or what cash even actually was, so after I lastly “made it” I didn’t know how you can correctly deal with it.
As you may think, it wasn’t all dangerous. The cash afforded me many unbelievable private experiences. However my private and residential life have been a large number, I used to be nonetheless a real believer within the doomsday cult praying for the top of the world, and on stability was very sad. I felt like the rich author of Ecclesiastes, “I’ve seen all of the works which are achieved below the solar; and, behold, all is vainness and vexation of spirit.”
In 2019, I used to be 42 years previous, had escaped the cult and was remarried to a beautiful lady whom I am keen on. I spent a lot of my time finding out markets to forestall repeating previous errors and dealing to develop a retirement plan. I did effectively with shares that 12 months however stored listening to about Bitcoin and the way it was like nothing else. After studying “The Bitcoin Customary,” I lastly understood why sound cash was necessary and why fiat was doomed to fail. I once more purchased into BTC, this time at round $9,000.
Contagion Hits
When COVID-19 first reared its ugly head in early 2020, I did what many individuals did: hearken to the “consultants.” However because the scenes of pandemic theater performed out, I started to know that politics exhibited lots of the identical attributes because the cult I got here out of. There have been leaders that might not be questioned and members who would disgrace and shun anybody who dared to talk up. Their god was “The Science,” their Pope, Anthony Fauci, their clergy, the CDC and politicians. Rights have been eroded and small companies shut down whereas huge field chains and mega-corporations raked in document income, together with Large Pharma. Trillions of {dollars} have been printed out of skinny air, proving true the Cantillon impact that claims the most important beneficiaries of adjustments in cash provide are the individuals and firms closest to the cash printers.
Not like many hardcore Bitcoiners, my funding objectives have been purely monetary, not philosophical. Like so many others within the crypto on line casino, I used to be chasing positive aspects. Due to this, I bought my bitcoin at $45,000 and jumped into altcoins with the idea that I may multiply my funding, which I did. In truth, I did effectively sufficient to have the ability to cease writing software program for a couple of 12 months and a half, which was a much-needed hiatus and gave me much more time for the analysis I used to be doing.
Then got here the market crash of 2022. With inflation clearly not “transitory,” the cash printer was halted, and the Federal Reserve started to boost charges at a historically-unprecedented tempo. Markets reacted negatively, bringing all cryptocurrencies down with them. The worth of bitcoin cratered together with every part else. Low costs uncovered the weak point of overleveraged schemes like Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, sending them into chapter 11. Terra collapsed together with a bunch of different smaller crypto operations.
The purportedly second-largest centralized crypto change on the planet, FTX, stepped in with a promise to rescue the business, solely to change into the most important fraud of all of them when its personal stability sheet was leaked. FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), was accused of stealing buyers’ and customers’ cash and sending it to its buying and selling arm, Alameda, the place it was gambled away on high-risk trades that spectacularly did not the tune of $10 billion.
A large “hack” of FTX adopted shortly thereafter, the repercussions of that are nonetheless taking part in out. Proof of political intrigue emerged, supported by the truth that most mainstream media protection handled SBF with child gloves, some even portray him as a sufferer fairly than a predator. As of this writing, no person has been arrested. By the use of comparability, Bernie Madoff was in handcuffs the day after his fraud was uncovered.
Bitcoin started flying off exchanges whereas Bitcoiners shook their rattling heads at how many individuals had once more ignored certainly one of their most elementary truths, “Not your keys, not your cash.” Whereas I used to be glad to see individuals lastly listening, the injury achieved was great, each in monetary and reputational loss. Since my begin with Bitcoin, I at all times self-custodied my luggage and so was unaffected by any of the collapses, no less than so far as dropping any of my holdings.
Although I by no means misplaced my respect for Bitcoin or the rules of decentralization and sound cash, these occasions returned them entrance and middle to my consciousness. I resumed listening to Bitcoiner podcasts, studying long-form articles, watching movies and reminding myself simply how badly off the present world monetary system actually is.
“It’s simply math,” say the Bitcoiners, and I imagine they’re appropriate. There’s no stopping the debt spiral now. The tip is certainly coming, simply not in the best way I had been taught rising up.
I Lastly Get It: ‘Don’t Belief, Confirm’
Through the time I used to be buying and selling and HODLing altcoins, I believed Bitcoin Maxis have been too excessive. Although I agreed with their views on sound cash and decentralization and agreed that the majority cryptos have been simply vaporware rug pulls ready to occur, I didn’t perceive their disdain for each crypto that wasn’t bitcoin. This was very true for tasks that have been actively being utilized in the actual world to seemingly helpful impact.
As a software program developer myself, I’m conscious that there isn’t any single device that covers all use instances. There’s Home windows, or MacOS X, or Linux for computer systems, Android or Apple’s iOS for telephones, and numerous completely different apps that run on all of these platforms that carry out completely different capabilities, lots of them competing for market share. This competitors encourages innovation which finally makes all software program higher. That free-market precept is one thing Bitcoiners honor, so I didn’t perceive why they jettisoned it when it got here to cryptocurrencies. My assumption was they did so out of self-interest. If individuals invested in different tasks, they wouldn’t put their cash in bitcoin, which damage the Bitcoiner’s personal portfolio.
Then there was proof of labor. It’s energy intensive and relatively sluggish, even when far superior to financial institution applied sciences like SWIFT by way of velocity and assured settlement. Even when the “inexperienced” argument was simply concern, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), why follow proof of labor when different tech had confirmed far sooner and extra environment friendly, making it far more viable for funds methods?
Right now, ultimately, after every part that’s occurred over the previous three years, I lastly get it.
“Don’t belief, confirm.”
The entire Bitcoiner philosophy comes all the way down to these three phrases. Belief has at all times been abused, even when solely by a small minority. However all it takes is a minority of individuals abusing and misusing your belief to trigger you, and everybody else who trusts them, grave hurt. So don’t belief, confirm.
How does this relate to Bitcoiner’s referring to all different cryptos as “shitcoins” and dismissing them outright? It’s easy. The complete fiat forex system is a Ponzi scheme. Fiat is “cash by decree” — it’s not backed by any actual asset and solely has worth as a result of the federal government says it does. Governments use fiat to rob residents by printing cash with out residents’ consent. That is, in impact, a tax that has not been authorized by or voted on by the individuals. It’s theft.
For instance, previous to fiat, governments would want precise onerous forex (often gold) to fund the wars they needed to combat. In the event that they didn’t have the cash, they couldn’t combat the wars with out elevating taxes, which is rarely a preferred proposition. With fiat, nonetheless, the federal government can print as a lot cash as they need, pulling the cash to fund their self-serving conflicts out of the pockets of the individuals who use that fiat forex: no permission obligatory, and with out most individuals realizing what’s taking place.
Fiat additionally retains individuals on a perpetual hamster wheel by means of inflation. If you already know the cash you may have within the financial institution can be value much less subsequent 12 months than it’s this 12 months, you need to preserve making an attempt tougher to earn extra money, 12 months after 12 months, simply to maintain your head above water. This retains the vast majority of individuals as perpetual wage slaves, by no means fairly in a position to get forward, no less than not sufficient to cease and luxuriate in their lives.
With out inflation you would reside beneath your means, save your more money, and belief within the deflationary results of know-how to make your cash stretch a lot additional when you determine to retire. In any case, with know-how continuously making provide chains extra environment friendly by means of enhancements in transportation and automation, every part ought to price much less over time, no more. And but costs preserve rising. Why? Inflation.
So what does fiat should do with cryptocurrencies aside from bitcoin? All different cryptocurrencies are working throughout the present monetary system making an attempt to enhance it, make it extra environment friendly, present higher privateness, and many others. This has some constructive results. For example, stablecoins give entry to the U.S. greenback to individuals in international locations whose forex is present process extreme inflation and whose banking methods are corrupt or unreliable. Nevertheless it nonetheless requires the fiat Ponzi to operate.
You possibly can speak till you’re blue within the face about how a highly-efficient cryptocurrency may give entry to the monetary system to billions of unbanked people, enhancing their lives by serving to them escape their very own inflationary currencies and bypassing their corrupt governments. Nevertheless it doesn’t matter since you’re solely offering these individuals entry to a different fiat forex, and fiat is murdering the free market. You possibly can discuss how issuing tokens give small companies the power to boost cash with out having to pay billions to huge banks to IPO. Doesn’t matter. You’re nonetheless working throughout the fiat system, and the fiat system is the elemental root of all the issues to start with.
To the Bitcoiner, cryptocurrencies are decks being constructed onto the Titanic because it sinks, whereas Bitcoin is the life raft individuals must get on to avoid wasting themselves. The tech of some cryptos is likely to be nice, nevertheless it solely delays the inevitable demise of the sinking ship. Maxis imagine that bitcoin is destined to switch fiat, not shore it up, returning sound cash to the world. As they usually say, “Bitcoin fixes this.”
For Bitcoiners, this isn’t nearly cash. It’s a guidestone that influences each facet of life. It’s a perception system, although I’ll cease in need of calling it a faith, since individuals of each conceivable faith additionally subscribe to its tenants. To those that aren’t Bitcoiners, maxis can look like in some form of cult, nevertheless it’s not a cult. Fairly the other, the truth is.
Bitcoiners are individuals who, like me, have escaped a cult: the cult of fiat. As soon as they have been like everybody else, brainwashed into believing that the federal government may very well be trusted with management over the cash printer, that the Fed was able to central planning of the economic system, and that inflation was obligatory for financial progress.
Plato’s well-known Allegory of the Cage describes a gaggle of people that have lived chained to the wall of a cave for his or her whole lives. All they’ll see is a clean wall and the shadows forged upon it from a hearth burning behind them. They offer the shadows names, believing them to be precise representations of the actual world. One of many prisoners escapes from the cave and, having skilled the precise world, realizes that the shadows will not be true representations of it. He returns to the cave to attempt to persuade the opposite prisoners, however they don’t imagine him as a result of the shadows are all they’ve ever recognized. Bitcoiners are the escaped man.
The Bitcoiner tribe will be rowdy and crass and harsh, however you need to contemplate what they’re out to attain and what they’re up towards. Their endeavor just isn’t for the faint of coronary heart. It’s an actual David and Goliath second. The Bitcoiner stands, golden cash in hand, trying the large within the eye with a defiance that onlookers often understand as insanity. Perhaps it’s insanity, however with out that dauntless high quality, Bitcoin wouldn’t have come so far as it has. And I, for one, will cheer them on as the large collapses.
It is a visitor publish by Jonathan Leger. Opinions expressed are completely their very own and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
