All revolutions imply bloodsheds.
This is why revolution flags are always red.Since Spartacus' rebellion (71 - 71 BC) to American Revolution (1765 – 1783); from French Revolution (1789 – 1799) to Hungarian Revolution from Budapest (1956); from Prague (1968) to Carnation Revolution from Portugal (1974); from Mexican Revolution led by Emiliano Zapata Salazar (1910 - 1920) to Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong (1966) to Nicaraguan Revolution ('60 and '70) and to Romanian Revolution from 1989. And the list may continue. All revolutions had their bloodbaths. Their leaders fought for their purposes, but none ever succeeded a bloodless revolution.
Until Satoshi Nakamoto.Satoshi never intended to be a revolution leader, yet his creation --
Bitcoin -- revolutionized the entire world. It took the power from the hands of elites and gave it back to people. People started being able to control their own money without being coerced to involve third parties. Bitcoin eliminated intermediaries and rendered governs and banks as irrelevant for individuals relying on Bitcoin. It disrupted the traditional finances and implemented a new paradigm: "
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash which would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution".
Bitcoin is the first bloodless revolution from history.Nobody had to die for Bitcoin to prevail. Bitcoin revolution implied no violence, no massacres, no any other horrendous aspects which happen during revolutions. It helped those which were starving and the poor to have a chance to live and fight for their lives. It helped connecting people from all over the world. And no political leader can shut Bitcoin down. Revolution continues for more than 10 years now. And, day by day, it earns more adepts.
Many times I asked myself how Bitcoin managed to run this bloodless revolution. And sometimes I am thinking that, somehow, Bitcoin revolution followed
the rules Of Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was an American activist and, among others, he wrote
the rules of a successful revolution. As it can be easily noticed,
none of his rules imply any violence.
Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. -- Since its apparition, Bitcoin was feared by governs, banks and other elites. They felt that they may lose the extraordinary power they had until then and started seeing Bitcoin as a giant enemy, although Bitcoin was just in its first days.
Rule 2: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat and ways he does not know how to fight against. -- Elites never feared they may lose their power over citizen. After all, people are oppressed by governs and banks for thousands of years. Yet when Bitcoin arrived, together with its new paradigm of peer-to-peer financial deals, combined also with a pseudonymity which can be dramatically improved through tumblers and coin joins, all oppressors started to be confused. Next thing they felt was fear. They did not know how to fight against Bitcoin. And, for a decade now, all their attempts to shut it down failed.
Rule 3: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. -- Bitcoin fought against elites with their own powers. As elites simply stripped people for ages of their financial control, so did Bitcoin, which just gave people back the power of their own finances.
Rule 4: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage. -- Governs always wanted to know how much money each citizen has and also how the regular individual spends the money. Satoshi built Bitcoin in a fashion which ridicules State's greed for knowing all financial transactions made by its citizen: all Bitcoin transactions can be seen on blockchain, which is public; yet, the addresses of the sender and of the recipient are just some strings of alphanumeric characters, which give out no names, no surnames, no personal information (assuming that users did not give their personal information to third parties, such as centralized exchanges). Satoshi's invention taunted the State and it looks like it's saying: "Do you want to know how much money I have? Here, you can see that. Do you want to see all my transactions? You can see that too. I made them public, in your face. But what you don't know is
who I am".
Rule 5: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues. -- Therefore changes are needed, even slight ones. Bitcoin passed through changes during last decade. From SegWit to bech32 and from Taproot to various BIPs, Bitcoin changed and evolved during time.
Rule 6: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage." -- Since Bitcoin appeared governs and banks started feeling a pressure which kept constantly growing. In several periods of financial difficulties people used Bitcoin. And the more such terrible events occurred, the more people embraced Bitcoin, which led to a pressure even greater on governs' shoulders, realizing that the power of control is slipping from their hands and people can organize themselves alone, without the intervention of State, banks and other third parties.
Rule 7: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. -- Bitcoin chose its targets even before it was born: the existing financial system, the middlemen, the governs and the banks. Its intentions were shown, in a subtle way, even from its Genesis block, which contained the following message: "
Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks".
We may have many years to live and so will our children and grandchildren. Yet I don't know if we'll ever see another bloodless revolution in the future...
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