"Circularity" - A thread about Bitcoin, religion, mirrors, my rabbit hole journey, and where Bitcoin (and bitcoiners) might go in the next couple of years.

1/ This is the image I had in my mind when I had what I can only describe as a religious experience. You might say I went down the deep end. I would say that I glimpsed behind the mirror.

2/ I drew it in various forms, so the details (e.g. how many outside circles there are) aren't that important. The main idea is important - at least to me.

3/ The Bitcoin "rabbit hole" might look innocuous at first. After all, you're just trying to answer a very simple question: "What is Bitcoin?"

4/ First of all, I believe that falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole is a deeply personal experience.

5/ The rabbit hole has many entries. Your particular entry point depends on circumstance, your background, and your previous experience.

Once you are inside, however, you will stumble upon things that are far removed from your particular point of entry.

6/ Many say that the rabbit hole is bottomless, and I tend to agree. It certainly feels like a journey without end.

7/ However, I believe that Bitcoin - and the rabbit hole journey - is circular.

For whatever reason, this insight was of such profundity that it changed me, my view of the world, and my outlook in regards to the future.

8/ Bitcoin is profoundly circular. It is circular because it is anchored in nature, via the energy expended in proof-of-work. Some even go further and conclude the following:

"Bitcoin is Nature" -- \@FriarHass

9/ You can get stuck in the smaller circles, which is partly why Bitcoin is so hard to understand. If you are a trader, you might get stuck trading. Others might get stuck on the whitepaper, or get stuck on implementation details.

10/ I sometimes drew this image as a mirror, because, well, I believe that Bitcoin is a mirror - it reflects who you are; it reflects your beliefs.

"Bitcoin is different things to different people."
"Bitcoin is whatever it needs to be..."

“Knowledge is a mirror and for the first time in my life I was allowed to see who I was and who I might become.”

12/ The main journey, as I see it now, is roughly as follows:
Idea -> Tech -> Finance -> Social -> Cult -> Idea

13/ There might be multiple stops in-between; that's not particularly important. What is important, is that a cult exists, and some people will take it to the next level. What is the next level? I think it's Religion.

14/ Up to now, the most powerful ideas have been religious ideas.

Bitcoin fixes this. It combines financial incentives, economic realism, mathematics, and physics with fundamentalism and religious devotion. More powerful.

"Bitcoin religion" is real. It has already started.

15/ I believe that Bitcoin is the most powerful idea of our time. It is about to become one of the most powerful memes of our time. I believe that more and more people will be religious about Bitcoin, about the idea of separating money and state through absolute scarcity.

16/ Every cycle new bitcoiners are born. Some of these bitcoiners become maximalists, and some of these maximalists will have religious devotion.

17/ I'm prepared to be wrong about this.

But I ask you, dear skeptics: are you prepared to deal with tens of thousands of zealots, in case I'm right?

Addendum: Discussion with Dustin: Episode 57

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Conversations

• 2022-05-10 Bitcoin Consciousness #6
  on visions and intuitive flow, hosted by Sama Katharo
• 2020-09-02 POV Crypto #160
  on the circular nature and religious aspects of the Bitcoin organism, hosted by Christian and David
• 2019-10-13 Bitcoin Echo Chamber #31
  on Bitcoin as a Religion and other cosmic thoughts, hosted by Collin
• 2019-10-11 Citizen Bitcoin #54
  on the Circularity of the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole, hosted by Brady

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