I agree that we should have more than one mascot for the Bitcoin Project, to emphasize its distributed nature. I propose that these should be Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Woodsman, and Scarecrow from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
If you haven't read the original book, you can download it from
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55 .
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is regarded as an allegory to our current Federal Reserve System. An extensive analysis can be found at
http://freedom-school.com/the_wizard_of_oz.pdf . In brief, here are some of the stronger points that suggest this allegory:
- “Oz” is the abbreviation for “ounce”, which is the unit of measure for gold bullion. At the time the book was written, the U.S. currency was on a gold standard.
- The yellow brick road again suggests the nearly endless stacks of bricks of gold held at Fort Knox, which back the U.S. currency.
- Dorothy's shoes in the original book were actually silver, not ruby. She walked on the yellow brick road via silver, which is what many of the coins of the day were made from.
- Emerald City is dazzling to behold, and green throughout. Even the sky is green when within the city as is the sunlight that streams from above. However, this is only because all visitors are forced to wear green spectacles when in the city. If you remove the spectacles, the city is revealed to look no different than any other city. The green of the city is taken to be analogous to the “greenbacks” which are the paper currency of the U.S. If you remove the ink, though, the bills are revealed to be nothing more than paper.
- The Wizard's palace is spectacular, and the Wizard himself is terrifying and daunting. Surely nobody can oppose him. However, the Wizard is actually just an ordinary person. He is a fraud pretending to be more imposing than he really is. The Wizard is considered to be an analogy to the Federal Reserve, who controls the U.S. money supply and answers to nobody. However, if people collectively did not have confidence in the dollar, its value would be exposed as pure fiction and the Federal Reserve's power would immediately fade.
These four main characters of the story, with their intelligence, heart, and courage, overthrew the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. In fact, before the Wizard fled after being exposed, he handed the rule of Oz to Scarecrow, since he was the most intelligent person in the land. As you can see in the illustration above from the original book, the Scarecrow sits on the throne of Oz.
Because of the analogy, and the near instant recognition that the general populace has of these characters, I can think of no better mascots to represent the spirit of Bitcoin.
