Crypto as the Modern-Day Renaissance

I just read an article that made me angry.

The article was published in a national finance news site. To make a long (and very inaccurate) story short, the author basically said that crypto was designed by anarchists and is adopted mostly by the alt-rights of the world.

She argued that the entire industry and technology were created with anti-state ideology in mind, that the technology is flawed and implied that the people in control are either alt-right fascistic lunatics or anti-state anarchists.

I read a lot of nonsense and FUD on a daily basis. But this one… Really got to me.

The Value of Crypto Is Not Its Price

People can whine all day about how crypto has no value, and that bitcoin is going to zero. We can dismiss these arguments easily, and furthermore – it’s their loss. You don’t have to buy bitcoin; you can do whatever you want with your money.

I don’t really care about the prices of crypto assets. I mean I do- I am invested in the markets and hope, like everybody else, that my investments will increase in value.

The thing that really got me into crypto is the philosophy, and its potential to truly improve the world and our lives.

Crypto is amazing. I’ll talk about the tech later, but it’s more than that. Crypto gives people hope. With now a global pandemic, roaring inflation, the working class working 9-7 and can barely afford rent, and the rich and corrupted getting richer and stronger – There is, finally, a beacon of hope.

It opens the possibility that maybe we will be able to take back control over our lives, our freedom, and our assets. Maybe we’ll be able to stop letting bigger, stronger organizations abuse us. Maybe we can encourage permissionless access to finance and information to everyone. Maybe we can innovate and let others innovate, without getting rammed down by the 5 tech giants that control the internet today.

I am not talking about “taking down states” and lawless world. I am talking about basic rights – the right to participate in the financial system (as an equal, not as a cow that they can milk their 10% interest from). The right to actually own money and property, without fearing that the bank will one day collapse and leave you in the ruins.

The right to use the internet as intended, as free individuals, without becoming living products and targets for advertisers.

Bitcoin is an amazing, permissionless network that allows people to transfer value all across the globe within minutes in an extremely secure manner.

Ethereum and other layer 1 and layer 0 blockchains allow developers to deploy apps that could change the way we do finance, business, insurance, gaming, social networking, and so much more.

There is an Initial Litigation Offering running on the Avalanche blockchain, which will hopefully help small individuals and companies acquire the needed resources to legally pursue large corporations or authorities, who damaged them.

These are just some examples of use cases for crypto today. We can see the impact crypto has over the world, only a little over a decade after its inception.

And crypto is not just about what there is. It’s about what will be able to do.

Yeah, bitcoin might die. Ethereum also. It doesn’t really matter. Some of the smartest people in the world are working on crypto projects. Why? Because they know this crypto is one of the best ways to make a difference in this world. Bitcoin just celebrated 13 years since the genesis block was mined, and with every day that passes we can see how the fundamentals of the bitcoin network help other projects build and make true impact on our world. The possibilities are endless, and the ways to use crypto-based technologies are endless.

We have an opportunity here. An opportunity to improve, a rare opportunity to leave this place better than how we found it. We also don’t need to coordinate it! Every person, company or authority can do whatever they want. It’s all out in the open, all open-source. We can utilize this revolution to simply improve so many things, from property ownership to finance, social media, art, the academy, governance.. The list goes on and on.

It is not just the technology that allows it. It is also the time that we live in, our access to information and worldwide collaborations we can create. The world is going through turbulence, and this is exactly when serious changes can be made, both physically and mentally. I am not saying which changes should win at the end – the best ones will win.

Technology Just Is

A few words about technology.

Technology is great and amazing, and the technologies used in crypto are at the cutting edge of innovation. But technology is tools.

It doesn’t matter who created it and for what reasons.

It doesn’t matter who used it before you.

It doesn’t matter what are your feelings about its existence.

Technology just is. The questions is, whether you can use it to make a good impact on our world, and help people rather than hurt them with it. It’s a double edge sword, of course; But who cares who made that sword? And for what reasons?

We use inventions that horrible people create all the time.

I don’t think it should matter who was Satoshi Nakamoto, who did he/she/they vote for, and who created which algorithm. If it is useful to us, we can use the technology in any way we think can benefit out causes. I am not going to even try to counter the arguments that it’s all anarchists with half communist half Nazi ideologies and lizard eyes (I know, it’s stupid, and those are some of the arguments against crypto innovators.)

With crypto it’s even simpler – everything is open-source and available to everyone to see, copy, use, fork, whatever. You can’t hide malicious intent beneath the surface, because the surface is lines of code that everyone can see and audit themselves.

It’s in Our Hands

There has always been good actors and bad actors. Those who use the internet to raise donations to the poor, and those who use it to sell drugs and spread hate. Those who use guns to protect, and those who use them to kill. Those who use media to teach and educate, and those who use it for fear.

As said, it really doesn’t matter who created the technologies used in cryptocurrencies. What matters is how they effects our world now, and how we can utilize them to improve our world in the future.

If some people want to put on their tinfoil hat on and claim that Satoshi the reincarnation of Joseph Stalin or something, fine. They will keep fighting and losing to innovation, and we will keep moving forward.