Dear rabbitho(d)lers and other intellectual gifted,
I wrote this essay originally in german for Twitter but a friend translated it into english now. It clears up most Bitcoin misconceptions and offers new perspectives to Maxis as well.
Can you go with that logic? Does Bitcoin have the potential to free humankind not only in an economic but also in a spiritual way?
People (especially like Peter Schiff;)) are being told by this text
- why Bitcoin has an enormously high intrinsic value ✅
- what money really is and why you dont have to have a "touchable" thing for good money ✅
- why Bitcoin mining is no waste of energy but a conversion from electrical to emotional energy✅
- how Bitcoin can set us free on so many levels and lead to higher consciouness, maybe even world peace ✅
Let's start and then give me your thoughts please
On the origin & meaning of the "value" of money and what the "intrinsic value" of #Bitcoin is (Part 1).
Could Bitcoin even be understood as a digital social contract that converts human quantitative greed into qualitative need? (Part 2)
Let's focus on the impossible attempt to describe Bitcoin in just one sentence first and from there explore its depth in terms of its true value (Part 1) and his potential for the future (Part 2).
Well, with Bitcoin, all participants acting as pseudonyms have agreed on a verifiable quantity-limited monetary system which, through decentrally organized open-source computer technology, produces a strongly value-storing medium of exchange with the highest possible degree of technical security against third-party access and manipulation in our current epoch.
This always up-to-date security is guaranteed, among other things, by the openly visible source code, the decentralized network architecture and the revolutionary "proof-of-work" algorithm. Without getting too lost in technical details:
The maximum number of circulating #Bitcoins is also fixed in a technically unchangeable way, just like the creation of new ones: defined to a maximum of 21 million pieces, where the last of it will be found in the year 2140. Until then, the amount of newly generated Bitcoins halves mathematically every 4 years (the so-called "halving"). Everyone can participate in the search for these Bitcoins by using technical devices with Internet access ("mining hardware").
What does that mean?
Well, with this, the Bitcoin ecosystem allows us an unprecedented predictability and functionality as the basis for a completely new kind of monetary system:
Where before long times ago a king or currently the central bank could manipulate the money supply or quality (e.g. the gold content of a coin or currently the inflationary ECB printing) at will, stop transactions (even block accounts) and ruin the savers ("the small man") in historical regularity, by means of #Bitcoin human trust necessity and monetary uncertainty is now replaced by mathematics and technology!
From the investor's point of view Bitcoin itself becomes automatically rarer and rarer with time and is thus pretty much exactly the opposite of our current fiat money system, which constantly devalues itself through uncontrolled money printing and must ultimately end up (hyper)inflationary - at the expense of the working population.
Therefore, isn't it wonderful to have such a free, fair and transparent as well as democratic money system with Bitcoin, in which every person can participate without government permission and the fear of confiscability of his property? It is the first time in history that this is the case!
Who claims that nobody needs something like #Bitcoin, claims likewise that we have a basically working money system, which can be trusted functionally and personally and which must therefore remain alternative-free.
Naive nonsense, of course, which historical evidence at any period of history disproves. But as long as man believes to have to lock his front door (because he cannot trust his fellow men), he also needs a monetary system detached from trust! #Bitcoin fixes this! 😎
In order to make further deductions, some philosophical principles must be discussed below. For instance, the question why Bitcoin has a value at all, yes, what it even means that and why we call something "valuable". Otherwise, the genius of Bitcoin will not become clear.
For this purpose, let's start with the question of the superficial (not individual) meaning of life, since everything is built on this. Don't worry, this can be expressed in a surprisingly simple way for all sentient beings in one sentence: namely, the pursuit of well-being or the avoidance of suffering.
Ad hoc proof: Would you have read this far if the text would cause you a lot of discomfort or would not promise you any additional gain? And if you don't stick it out to the end, it's mainly because the budding discomfort outweighs the expected (feel-good) gain.
One makes oneself therefore mindfully aware: Every decision of your life depends in the end on whether and how much well-being and/or suffering avoidance you expect for yourself and/or others from something!
In reality, this only seemingly banal aspect of the human existence is of essential importance and explains (almost) everything. So let's call it "well-being axiom".
This knowledge means that all our actions are ultimately based on faith and hope, namely that of attaining and maintaining as much well-being as possible - for which, however, there is never a guarantee, but only maximum high or low probabilities. Many believe to know, but do not know that they only believe.
So,based on that - what is money now?
From an objective point of view, money is the believed chance (subjectively always a felt knowledge) of the convertibility at any time of a certain (assumed value-storing) good into a certain form of well-being (for instance in form of services, goods or other possessions).
Such a medium of exchange and value storage is necessary in order to be able to prosper from the sweet fruits of one's labor as loss-free as possible, even in the distant future.
If, for example, a medieval farmer reaps a rich harvest, he cannot permanently store surplus grain for bad years without it spoiling. Therefore, he needs a medium to store the work he has done but is not currently using himself, and to be able to retrieve it at any time with as little loss as possible.
The medial tool for this we call money and its best representative is (through Bitcoin maybe "was"?
) historically pure gold. If our farmer achieves enough harvest surplus to correspond to the value of a gold coin, he will probably choose it.
But what is the basis of the attributed "value" of such means of exchange and stores of value, here clearly defined as gold?
In the end it is based only in the belief. And with it the trust (/confidence/faith) to get still something at least as much well-being producing for his performed work stored in this or that medium of exchange also in the future!
Briefly: The higher the (always individually considered) chance of well-being through a scarce good, the higher its "value" is assessed - that is why water is so cheap, although it is essential for the well-being of everyone, and why the million dollar Picasso is so expensive, although it isn't essential for the well-being of hardly anyone! This also plausibly clarifies the "classical value paradox" that has always preoccupied economics, in that this consideration clarifies John Law's 300-year-old approach to it (also called the "water-diamond paradox" - i.e. the fact that water, which is essential for life, is usually dirt cheap, but a diamond, which is not essential for life, comes across as pricelessly expensive for many; cf. Wikipedia).
So the medieval farmer converts his surplus, let's say 50kg of grain, into a corresponding gold coin. But he does this only because he "knows" (in truth, he only believes and hopes) that he will also get about 50kg of grain or its equivalent for this gold coin in 10 or 20 years.
He decides in favor of the store of value which, in his opinion, guarantees the most well-being and has the highest probability of retaining its value (or the lowest probability of losing value), which was generally known at the time: the purest gold.
It is therefore not primarily the labor-intensive won material and its rarity per se which should/could/must lead for example with gold automatically to a value - rather it is the confidence attributed to the gold and proven for millennia! The historically experienced general acceptance as well as scarcity of the gold creates and confirms the confidence and the belief (as felt knowledge) not to occur in excess also in the future and thus to maintain the exchange value.
So the real value is not in the material itself (platinum, for example, is much rarer than gold), but in the positive experience associated with it as a proven medium of exchange and value storage over a long period of time: indestructible trust!
Accordingly, good money does not necessarily require something material in the hand, such as a gold coin, but only the individual certainty of its value.
And nothing monetarily known and proven allows us such an unmanipulable certainty about its current as well as future scarcity and nature as #Bitcoin! Everything, even gold, is theoretically infinite in space - Bitcoin on the other hand mathematically only 21 million (divisible to the smallest) times (the "Sats"), so that we have a new monetary certainty, which can replace previous monetary confidence!
The necessary residual trust (worldliness is never completely without it) is technically diversified decentrally into the solar system (see @Blockstream satellites), so that this monetary system would probably tend to survive even the demise of the planet on which it once saw the light of day. Yes, #Bitcoin is that powerful 😍!
The typical gold coin thus corresponds to the old type of tangible materialized trust, while Bitcoin institutionalizes digital trust, i.e. brings it into a socially recognized form - namely by the fact that the forces leading to trust of a proven medium of exchange and value storage (such as scarcity, divisibility, forgery resistance, low storage & transport costs, etc.) are programmed into #Bitcoin genuinely, i.e. innately!
So the "fundamental value" of Bitcoin is huge intrinsic trust, which no payment instrument has ever given us before! *mindblowsound
What more stable long-term foundation of a monetary economy can there be for a society still seeking its salvation in materialism?
As longer the Bitcoin network works, the more this trust is confirmed and condensed. And with increasing trust, the value dependent on it also increases, possibly becoming the global currency standard against which everything must be assessed.
Consequently, no energy is wasted during Bitcoin mining, but a conversion takes place. This conversion consists of a transformation of electrical energy into emotional energy called trust - which admittedly cannot (yet?
) be represented as an extended physical formula, can easily be grasped in the mind by everyone.
{
Actually, one would even go further and define the underlying trinity of the well-being axiom in the form of "hope -> faith -> TRUST" as the social basic currency, by which any economy, also the social interaction, is formed. Man invests and withdraws his respective not unlimited available "Trustcoins" (sort of trustpoints) in ideas, persons, relations, domination relations, objects etc., by which his reality is constituted decisively and he hopes for returns in the form of well-being.
If he experiences these, he continues to trust these persons or edifices of ideas. Great or lasting discomfort in connection with it, on the other hand, leads to an "investment loss" of trust and he withdraws his "trustcoins" from the thing.
Who understands this thought in its depth, could build a completely new, sociological foundation on it. But we do not want to unbalance these ideas now completely.
}
With the support of this theoretical model sketch the success of Bitcoin can be explained and also invalidates the reproach of wasting energy - because the spent energy is the unavoidable price for not being able to trust each other and the resulting necessity of an unmanipulable-transparent as well as calculable-free monetary system!
And this price is even still quite favorable in view of the distortions which the slavish central bank system together with war and debt bondage imposes on mankind - and from which #Bitcoin CAN unchain us, provided that this gift is recognized and accepted and still enough time remains for the reversal!
"ALTRUISM OUT OF SELFISHNESS" - BITCOIN AS A CATALYST FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION? (Begin of part 2)
Be aware, it will now become an even deeper level of thinking:The traditional narrow-mindedness of "Master Clever-Dick" (cf. Jakob Böhme 😍 ) could call it speculative dream danceritis, but I actually see the potential for the following as a real possibility - which as I fear (like so many gifts) will just not accepted by humanity. But it is presented to them.
Because here Bitcoin starts to become really interesting not only for the happiness of the individual, but as an overall economic system also for society as a possible tool towards a more valuable being - away from superficial consumerism towards qualitative awareness!
Bitcoin as a hinge to a post-materialistic, even moneyless society?!
Well, every Bitcoin owner who hodls for years (i.e. does not sell them) makes the experience that his coins increase in exchange value every 4 years after the mentioned halving not only theoretically but also practically.
As a result, however, Bitcoin develops a more actual understanding (awareness) of the things that really seem valuable and worthy of spending with each of these processes. Frugality, renunciation of consumption and the focus on pure functionality are rewarded noticeably strongly and accordingly developed further quite automatically out of self-interest thinking.
He spends his ever more valuable Sats/Bitcoins increasingly only for what he really needs: formerly superficial-quantitative consumerism transforms itself so self-interest-conditioned into meaningful-qualitative consciousness! What stroke of genius Nakamotos (the inventor) respectively the good (higher¿?) intention behind it!
Instead of boastful pride, a vehicle is now increasingly purchased under the aspect of true utility - after all, today's Lambo would be tomorrow's fleet!
In this way, man seeks his salvation less and less in the outside and more in the inside and develops a heightened sensitivity for the conditions of sustained well-being.
In the long run, companies are forced to produce long-lasting products of the highest quality that people really need and desire if they want to survive in business.
The decline in product fraud (e.g. planned obsolescence), overproduction and waste of resources is only a logical consequence of this development, as is the increase in environmental protection and clean energy.
People's self-realization would take place less and less on the outside than on the inside; clothing, for example, would at best be acquired for the sake of weather resistance and no longer for the purpose of clowning around as a proud peacock - function would replace dazzle.
In such a deflationary, four-year cyclical Bitcoin economy, the individual as well as society pays extremely close attention to every expenditure and its deeper consequences, thereby developing a more critical awareness of oneself and the broader effects of one's own actions.
Society will finally ask itself existential questions: Do we have to spend our hard-earned money on death and destruction? Or are we not slowly getting tired of militarism?
So, for self-interest alone, Bitcoin pushes people to critical self-reflection and drives them downright into consumer asceticism with the usual ascetic consequences of voluntary renunciation: the development of heightened consciousness and otherworldly well-being!
In this way, Bitcoin actually curbs greed in people and could possibly initiate the transition to a money-free society:
Man would then no longer seek the incentive for creative power in the desire for external wealth, but would find satisfaction and lasting well-being in himself, fulfilled in his innermost being through service to his heart; service to his neighbor. Bitcoin finally proved to him that money does not bring lasting happiness and that only the prospect of never again suffering a lack of the now few basic worldly needs is sufficient.
Bitcoin could therefore also be understood as a digital social contract that at least offers us the possibility of transforming human quantitative greed into qualitative here - an "altruism out of egoism" that is, as it were, forced by framework conditions.
In this model of thought, Bitcoin thus functions as a socially positive transformation tool, not as a civilizational terminus.
At the same time, its economics is still designed to reward even those who recognize the flaws of the current monetary system, draw the long-term consequence early, and knowingly ride out the initial volatility. So Bitcoin is also a reward for studying substantial systemic criticism - the earlier the recognition, the higher the reward!
And no matter how educated or enlightened you think you are: Bitcoin studies always teach you humility through its extreme inter- as well as transdisciplinary information complexity (in it, strands of economics, computer science, philosophy, game theory and the like converge in an almost unmanageable multi-aspect way)!
Thus, I do not yet know of a solution to the problem of having to re-trust the honesty of the private key administrators in the case of Bitcoins held by the public sector. So is free money only functional as a private currency, thus enabling the transition to a stateless, personal responsibility-based, possibly anarchistic, form of society? (Keyword private-city Bitcoin citadels).
And if all these considerations are still so wrong, one could at least train in the Bitcoin mind gym. ;-)
END
PS: I have kept everything theistic-spiritual in the main text intentionally small. However, whoever has the endurance and capacity to have read this far and to have understood the basics, can be expected to read this concluding part.
For me, Bitcoin actually represents a gift from God, with which humanity receives the tool to successively overcome its mammonid slavery - worldly greed could be healthily throttled through Bitcoin.
Because the gift in Christ has usually rejected the human child, therefore the Father now offers us this (perhaps very last) way, without radical repentance and conversion to give up our old vice life, driven by greed and intemperance, little by little and to recognize the higher, truly pleasant reality in and behind the being, to accept and to transcend into the own everyday life - God's plan B as last great gift to mankind? May we know to appreciate it collectively _()_
PPS: All honor is due to Him, the lord himself, I am only His tool and writing servant, as my modest energy give it. Who would like to be grateful about this writing, should therefore go to the Lord and not to his servant!
(first published on my johannesx.substack.com but there are issues now about "Flagged as Potential Violation" of their guidelines
)
