The Declaration of Independence contains 1,337 words. The Affordable Care Act has 906 PAGES.
The most brilliant ideas can be expressed simply. The ridiculous genius of focusing on the never-implemented, recently conceived notion of Natural Rights as the basis for a system of government cannot be under praised. The efficiency with which prosperity could be unleashed by de-centralizing power and control and putting decision-making into the hands of local politicians and the citizens themselves has proven to be staggering.
The Bitcoin White Paper took 3,192 words.
Satoshi Nakomoto, the author of that White Paper, set out a vision for a system to exchange value that is decentralized and transparent. A system without a controlling entity with the power to close or change the system on its own. The marvel of Bitcoin is not that each unit is worth $40,000 or that Satoshi has not liquidated a single one of his personal holdings of 1mm BTC. The marvel of Bitcoin is that the experiment worked and has opened up the possibility of extending the concept of decentralized applications to so many use cases across finance, general commerce and leisure. I would say it’s not clear which utterly unprecedented idea had a better chance of success - The US or Bitcoin. Ultimately, they both succeeded because systems that are powered by positive incentives for productive behavior work. Period.
The United States of America was the first successful experiment in decentralization, the original Internet was the second, and Bitcoin was the third. Unfortunately, the USA has been centralizing ever since we started, with the introduction of the income tax and layers of federal regulation, and continuous imposition on the powers reserved to the states by the folks in Washington.
The pandemic has shined a spotlight on the terrifying centralization of the world wide web by a small group of companies and individuals. Put into a Natural Rights context, can anybody argue against the notion that Twitter, Google and Facebook are a threat to the liberty or property of their “customers”? As I believe Mark Zuckerberg once testified in front of Congress - “If you receive a product and don’t pay for it, you are the product.”
The Blockchain is totally misunderstood. Many people see the volatility and dismiss the phenomenon of this successful experiment in the power of the individual over institutions. Bitcoin is not going to go away. Who finds Bitcoin’s success threatening? Governments that restrict capital flows. Financial institutions who overcharge and underdeliver. Regulators who think that this technology threatens their control.
The US government needs to recognize that Bitcoin and blockchain are bad for the bad actors of this world, and that we should be using this technology to empower individuals all over the world. Properly regulated and taxed, blockchain will be an engine of prosperity and freedom. Isn’t that what the US is supposed to be all about?