This transition may take a while. It’s the biggest change in the nature of property since the advent of agriculture.

Our pre-agricultural ancestors (hunter-gatherers) were egalitarian. One’s possessions were those that one could carry. If someone was too overbearing, the other tribe members could kill them. If another tribe was overbearing, everyone could pack up and leave.

But once our ancestors started farming, things changed. If someone threatens you, you can leave, but you can’t take the farm with you. If you kill the farmer, you get the farm. In the face of this dynamic, people created ever larger defensive coalitions, culminating in the modern nation-state. Each State is more-or-less bound by natural geographical features like mountains, rivers and oceans. (Prisoners of geography).

The State, wielding a violence-monopoly over a geographic area, is the arbiter of who can own what. Ownership is contingent on what the State will allow. Once bank credit replaced physical monetary media during the gold standard era, the State’s power over its subjects’ money was total. The State no longer needed to resort to boots-on-the-ground violence to take your money. It can backdoor you by freezing your funds.

To protect themselves from confiscation risk (not to mention debasement), people diversify, storing wealth in assets in different jurisdictions. Under the current circumstances, this was the best one could do… before #Bitcoin came along.

In Bitcoin, for the first time, we have true intellectual property. Ownership is knowledge. You either know the keys or you don’t. There’s no bank to backdoor you. There’s no official to appease. You can leave and take all your money with you, in your head.

This is the most profound change to individual ownership capability in 10,000 years—long enough for not only cultural change, but natural selection. It may take generations for the full ramifications to play out.