I am a Bitcoin maximalist from first principles, not by choice. I reasoned myself into maximalism, and you can too.

Bitcoin is a cryptoeconomic system. Both parts are required. “Crypto” is not enough; you need the “economic” part too.

If you don’t understand why, read this book:

All competing systems need a monetary token to ensure the integrity of public information without a trusted third party.

Without a monetary token, trust in a quorum or similar is required. A small group of people holding private keys that rule the system.

Using private information is the conventional way to secure public information cryptographically. It is also the conventional way to ensure its validity and integrity. Someone holds a private key, and this person or entity is responsible for keeping the key secret. Consequently, the security/integrity of the encrypted/signed public information relies on this trusted third party. Here is the riddle to be solved: how can we create public information with similar security and data integrity guarantees without the use of any private information?

Inalienable Property Rights

PoW is the only thing that can build up an irrefutable history of events without relying on trust.

Without the reification of information, trust is required. PoW puts truth into history. It is the only consensus mechanism that works without trust.

Money is a requirement. If the native unit is bad money, the network will have bad security. All money competes for liquidity. Without money, no security. Without security, no value. Without value, no immutability.

This has to grow organically.

PoW makes electricity a requirement. All electricity competes for utility, or, more accurately, all utilities compete for electricity. Electricity equals shield thickness, nothing else.

Electricity is singular. You can’t use the same kWh for ten different things. You have to split it; you have to decide. Energy can’t be copied.

Money is singular. You can’t store a week’s worth of your money in both gold and silver. Again, you’d have to split it. You have to decide. Value can’t be copied.

Consequently, network effects emerge. It is better to hold the hardest & most secure & most liquid money than some random shitcoin. It is better to mine the hardest & most secure & most liquid money than some random shitcoin. Especially if your intention is to sell it anyway.

Once you hold a certain money, you are incentivized to use and protect said money properly. Not your keys, not your coins. Not your node, not your rules. Not your hash, not your say.

The design space of money is limited. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and there is no need to reinvent perfectly sound money.

In fact, bitcoin pretty much perfected most - if not all - important characteristics of money. The design space of money is limited, as is the design space of a wheel or stackable containers.

Bitcoin is pretty much perfect: absolutely finite, insanely divisible, no mass, can be teleported, can be held in your head, with infinite value density. Permissionless & easily/cheaply verifiable by anyone. Issuance schedule set in stone, linked to time.

Without demand and long-term holding, the value of all shitcoins trends towards zero in bitcoin terms. Consequently, the security of all shitcoins goes to zero in the long run. Non-PoW chains are insecure & centralized by default.

While Bitcoin’s supply schedule is unchanging, the network is not. Upgrades have been made in the past, enabling Lightning and other things. More upgrades will follow as users opt-in to these upgrades.

Sats are the finite and teleportable atomic unit of Bitcoin’s base money. Everything else is being built on top. Payments are already better, faster, and more private than they were before. Identity and authentication can be built on top.

The immaculate conception of Bitcoin as base money is as important as its organic growth, both in regards to supply distribution and security. It grew in the shade, and Satoshi disappeared. This can’t happen again.

Bitcoin is our best shot at the separation of money and state. The government monopoly of the issuance and control of money is the source and root of all monetary evil, as Hayek argued.

Things are fucked, and Bitcoin fixes this.

It’s time to stop playing games. There is bitcoin, and there’s shitcoins. The former is time, the latter is a waste of your time.

Bitcoin is freedom money. All other monies enslave you in one way or another. Only Bitcoin makes the individual sovereign.

« Back to /threads