𝗪𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗪𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗕𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗶𝗻

In addition to concerns over scaling #Bitcoin to a global population, another early criticism was that Satoshi shouldn’t expect cryptography to solve the world’s political problems.

As one respondent said to Satoshi:

“𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺.”

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝟭𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, Satoshi replied, saying:

And Satoshi was absolutely right.

It’s true that cryptography on its own can’t solve our political problems. But its second and third order effects clearly give us “𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮”, as it changes the entire landscape of what political power is even capable of.

Thanks to cryptography in Bitcoin, your savings can be stored on several private keys that are geographically separated, or even in your head. This changes the incentives for a would-be thief (whether an individual or government), and makes 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 for money easier than attempting to steal it.

And thanks to Bitcoin’s distributed nature, it can’t be stopped from the outside or the inside. Like the hydra of Greek mythology, cutting off a head — in this case, a node — only makes more grow back in its place. And with so many users keeping their money’s protocol safe, malicious code can’t be added to it, either.

Every government ban, FUD campaign, and any other attack just makes Bitcoin stronger. This leaves politicians with the choice to either submit to Bitcoin’s new paradigm — in which they can no longer print money, and actually have to provide a valuable service for their pay — or to have fun staying both poor and powerless.

So while cryptography alone is not a solution to political problems, cryptography in a perfectly scarce, peer-to-peer, digital currency gives individuals a permanent advantage over those who would seek to dominate them.

To commemorate the 15th anniversary of this famous quote from Satoshi, give this a 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲❤️ and a 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲🔄

And let me know your own thoughts about this in the 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀⬇️