The Fight Won't Be In The Shadows:
"First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win"
This is a well know quote around this space. Countless times repeated, it has almost become a mantra for many bitcoiners. And yet, a question remains: How do they fight you?
Many, myself included, assumed that the fight would come in the form of ostracism. We assumed that our enemies would use their powers, those of nation-states, to block the access of their citizens to on-/off-ramp mechanism - when not directly banning and illegalizing the possession, paticipation and use of the Bitcoin network.
Such form of attack, however, is futile. By hindering the flow of money out of the FIAT system, Bitcoin's adoption could be pushed back for quite some time, maybe even decades, but never stopped. Brewed in a environment full of misfits, with core principles deeply rooted in self-sovereignty, and shielded by cryptography, Bitcoin was born in the shadows. As such, it cannot be stopped by casting it back into the shadows. If anything, that'd make it stronger, furthering the development of privacy enhancing features. Even today, half of the Lighting Network is run over Tor. Restrictions would only mean more LN, more RoboSats, more VPNs, more Tor, and, ultimately, more people pulled into the shadows.
The events of the recent days, have made me realize that we won't be fighting in the shadows. Our enemies, following the teachings of Sun Tzu, have chosen the terrain that it's more favorable to them, under the light.
The attacks won't be bans and blocks. The attacks will be ETFs from investment managers, custodial services provided by banks, paper Bitcoin, fractional reserves, re-lending, and the whole plethora of FIAT-fuckery techniques. The fight will happen in plain sight, where they control the narratives pushed by the mass-media. It will happen on the parquet floors of the financial markets, on the high offices of the banks, on the halls of their elitist forums and the corridors of the parliaments; where they know how to manipulate, deceive, lie and lobby. We will not be fighting for not being pushed out of the system, we will be fighting for not being phagocytized by it.
#Bitcoin #macroeconomy #thentheyfightyou #reflections #longformat #plebchain
