Bitcoin is Freedom

What is money, how does the current fiat system work and why Bitcoin is freedom. Don't believe, validate! Go down the rabbit hole!

Money is not money

Fiat currency (dollars, euros and so on) has not been backed by any money for decades. What?! Money is money and I have it in my hand and it is mine and I can touch it and the same naive "hole-in-the-ground-they-can't-take-away-from-me" talk of the pre-socialistic revolution Coal-Baron. Today, unfortunately, it is only an illusion. Equally naive are the notions that we can live without money as a medium of exchange for the foreseeable many generations. But there`s no money like money.

The underlying value of the currency (bank notes) in the early banking days used to be backed up mainly by gold or silver castings, or other precious metal of a certain weight, often in the shape of a coin. In the Czech Republic, we know this form of casting under the czech word "peníze" which is the same exact word for "coins" as it is for "money". Therefore the explanation to our kin is more obvious, having this linguistic crutch. Try to imagine that for our purposes.

In ancient times, this particular metal was chosen freely by the free market (ordinary people who exchanged things and services among themselves) as its universally recognized store of value and medium of that exchange. In smaller transactions, gold and silver money (coins) temporarily proved quite popular. Back than,  money was also a currency. The importance of using something specific as a universally recognized medium of exchange seems to be self-evident. The evolution of the exchange took it from shoes for fish, to shells and beads for fish, to gold or silver for fish, to the promises of sick sociopaths for fish.

Currency in the form of the bank notes entered the stage a little later as an upgrade of the banking institutions where people kept their gold. In larger volumes, gold has a feature to give the owner more than a wrinkle. The problem in larger weights is both its transfer and its safe holding. People began to keep the gold in the large safes in the banks. The bank, at first to make things easier, came up with a bank notes in a proportional value to the preserved precious metal castings of a certain weight and grade. The value of this bank note was stated on the note. Would not take that very long and  bank notes turned into widely accepted currency.

Among other flaws, gold and silver coins and ingots (money) were imperfect in their difficult verifiability of quality. This imperfection got manifested in the possibility of their weight reduction, preferably in the form of non-pure castings, mixed with other common metals. Which almost all rulers enthusiastically exploited at some point. For others that would be officially a capital crime of course. And until the separation of money from the state wont cut them of from this privilege, any government is still going to be deploying this essential government deception on us in a similar form, till now.

The emerging banking system, was imperfect in its corruptibility as well. You only had to trust the banker that he was going to actually hold the money (gold) for which he issued bank notes (later currency) to you. It never takes long and opportunity makes a thief. Or at least a gambler with someone else's savings. Banks never kept as much gold as they promised by bank notes. And the states? They always found a loophole around even the most humanistic institutions in moments of, usually by very own hand started, emergencies. Gold was confiscated or even banned from the people's possession. And we are far from talking the Middle Ages right now. The banking system made this confiscation only easier. And the king of the robbers (the state) gradually trained his best tax collector. The central bank.

Cut - fast forward - the situation after 1971 aka the great state robbery

Already greatly castrated golden standard (underlying currency with gold money) was finally brought to an end by the famous US government theft. President Richard Nixon, who was about to soon resign his office for the troubles he had caused himself in the Watergate case, announced that genial loot in 1971 . He simply told the world through TV that dollar is no longer backed by gold as promised. But dollar was planed to remain globally recognized underlying standard for many world currencies. Which sociopathic old tarts from other states agreed upon at a convention in the infamous Davos, FED (US Federal Reserve) obtained hardly limited monetary power over most of the world. Dollar became the worlds money (basically new gold). What a black humor.

Currency that you are using every day, today, is printed (digitally or in the form of banknotes) by the central bank (each currency has its own central bank) and is not backed by gold anymore. Only by debt. Central bank, in its intricate tangled construct nature, can create as much currency as it wants and also is heroically doing so. In its close collaboration with the state naturally. The house of cards in which we all live is built as follows.

The state (all states) issues a bond with a guaranteed annual interest to finance its ever-ballooning budget deficit, which is completely unrealistic to pay off ever. The central bank credits itself with a few extra numbers, buys these bonds and the state receives dollar or euro or whatever bank notes that were magically created at the central bank and their central magic spreadsheet. These new funds, created from an impossible government promise, gradually enter circulation and gradually devaluate the given currency. It is ostentatiously called quantitative easing. Sometimes it's happening directly, sometimes through commercial banks, sometimes through other institutions, state by state. The one who is closest to the quantitative lick, manages to buy faster as long as things have the same value as before the money print and therefore get richer. The one who is furthest away still has the same amount of currency (they dare to call it money), but everything is somehow more and more expensive and gets poorer. It is called the Cantillon effect.

So what is the consequence for the so-called retail end user? The milking cow of this government-run banking ponzi scheme? Inflation. Currency depreciation and therefore depreciation of savings and the relentless pressure for more consumption, more production, more debt, more madness. You'll be told that they have it under control or how great and profitable it is for you.

That much about the libertarians mantra of the importance  to separate money from the state. The importance of removing the possibility of degenerative manipulation of the fundamentals of money. By both, the state and the banking sector. Without such manipulation, one would, oh dear, have to manage budgets well. Imagine the tragedy. Which, of course, is not the case with a seemingly endless budget on our tail and so, the house of cards is slowly falling apart. The overblown balance sheets of central banks suggest a flood is coming. In the last 2 to 4 years, they have often added more than 1 times as many promissory notes as in whole previous decades. There are plenty of excuses and false claims of its benefits for blebs. Don't trust - verify.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, belongs to no one and it is almost impossible to change its basic core value principles. It was designed that way and released into the world. People finally get their hands on a unique tool to protect against a monstrous fraud called the fiat standard, a system whose development is described in the previous lines.

The way out - Bitcoin

For years we had nothing but frustration and helpless feelings. We could only shout at demonstrations and curse at a system which at the same time was almost impossible not to participate in. Glory to the few self-sufficient exceptions, living far from civilization. Only few knew where the dog was buried.

The system of trade exchange is not bad. It is the natural consequence of a free marketplace of people who want to change among themselves. Ideally with the least number of intermediaries. If we want to include money in the process of exchange as a simplifying element. History shows us that in the end we always want to. It is necessary that this money, its form, are to be chosen again by the free market and free market alone. We from the post-socialistic countries do know very well how destructive and unsustainable central planning is.

At the moment a non-free market is forced to use a currency that is spit out in unlimited quantities among the people by the governments, central banks and commercial banks. A currency that is not backed by any money. Only by fading trust in institutions that regularly break that trust and going to break it as often as they can. Simply because they can. True, fiat currency is also backed by the obligation to use it under threat of violence from the state. Code name of this operation is called "legal tender". This, too, Bitcoin kept in mind.

So what does Bitcoin have to do with all that? Bitcoin is not a speculative investment designed to multiply your locally corrupt currency. Even if it is its side effect at the moment. Bitcoin is a technology created by an individual or perhaps unknown group of programmers from the anonymous cypherpunk (cryptography) movement, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The code was designed so that the first reward in BTC (bitcoin) for mining the first genesis block of Bitcoin went to whoever participated in the network from the outside. There is no internal button to print or to turn Bitcoin off.

Bitcoin combines several, simply brilliant, previously available technologies in such a way to make it a realistically sustainable and functional alternative to the current rat race. An alternative whose basic stones cannot be easily changed. The basic rules of Bitcoin's operation and the final amount of its units (money) are carved by electricity into a basic code that lives its own decentralized life on the open network through the internet. As long as we use some form of electricity and some form of internet network, there is going to be Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is the only thing in the entire known universe that is completely and definitely limited. At the same time, it is transferable from place to place instantly at lightning speed (Lightning network second layer). Without the need for another specific intermediary and regardless of distance. The electronic keys to your Bitcoin (or sats) are only yours and without these keys no one can touch them. Not without fulfilling mathematically, economically and socially quite unrealistic conditions. This and many other features make Bitcoin ideal money (accounting unit) and currency (medium of exchange) at the same time.

Bitcoin is safe from both the state and the banks, but also from itself. It keeps itself and other participants in the grip of Proof-of-Work mechanism, which tightens with time and leverage. Nakamoto was the first in human history to solve the famous Byzantine Generals Problem.

After all the ordinary man has been through. Can we still accept the degree of freedom that is offered to us? Can we switch from an inflationary mentality of destructive consumerism to a new deflationary reality of quality against compromise? Can we not give away most of our life energy in the form of inflation to sociopaths?

We shall see. Today (June 2022), more than a hundred million of us believe that we do. And not just believe, many of us already live this, so far partial, freedom. All we need is only to make a personal sovereign choice and enter the world of Bitcoin. After decades of living under the whip of fiat regime and its so-called elites, we finally have an unique opportunity to escape from this bondage by the other means than joyfully active, sadly resigned, or unconsciously passive collaboration with the global slave monetary system in our hands.

Bitcoin decentralized kingdom without a ruler stated in points:

How all this is possible and how the features of Bitcoin are achieved is discussed in detail at many sources. Some we will come across in the blog later, some I am mentioning at the bottom of the article. Anyway, don't forget to not trust and  to validate. You have to choose your own path. Oh sweet ignorance. Or is she actually so sweet?

• Bitcoin has a definite amount set to 21 million bitcoins (BTC)
  
• each bitcoin is divisible into 100,000,000 satoshi (something like pennies)
  
• does not need an intermediary - payments are made P2P - peer-to-peer - person to person
  
• record of all the transactions (transfers) is owned or rather can be owned by every participant in Bitcoin on so-called "full nodes" - one can personally verify truthfulness
  
• when you store bitcoins in the so-called "cold wallet" no one can ever touch them, only when you freely allow it or if you lose the keys to the wallet and someone finds them - this key is encrypted in 12 or 24 words that you have to store securely yourself
  
• security of the immutability of the code and the impossibility of changing the approved transactions locked in the block-chain are secured by "miners" by a costly process called Proof-of-Work
  
• Bitcoin code is an "open source", each participant can check its functionality
  
  

Shitcoins and the others aka friendly warning

Building on the general enthusiasm around Bitcoin and its successes, a number of alternatives have sprung up promising better or at least faster and, in any case, much smarter uses. 99% of all these projects are scams corrupted by the fiat mentality. The other 1% may even be well-meant, but the code is imperfect, projects are often centralized and the use of the network has not exceeded the necessary mass of users for the network effect of wide adoption. These protocols are collectively called Shitcoins. Their promoters and media call them Altcoins or Crypto. By gradually exploring Bitcoin's rabbit hole, everyone eventually sooner or later reveals this fact quite simply. It's a big "I see" moment.

Shitcoiners - lovers of crypto gambling, usually with a hope to make a quick buck - invented the name Bitcoin Maximalists for Bitcoin's proponents. But this is not a cult or a real -ism. The proponents of Bitcoin are first and foremost lovers of freedom and have little in common with other characteristics of life. Perhaps only a distrust in institutions, bred by centuries of deception aimed at generational livelihoods. In the very moment it turns out that Bitcoin is not resilient enough, that is not fully decentralized and uncontrollable by a single entity or association of entities, the proponents of freedom will migrate under a new protocol that exhibits these qualities. None of this has arisen however and with each additional block of Bitcoin confirmed, the likelihood becomes more improbable.

And fiat ... is shitcoin as well.

Conclusion:

And that's why we still believe that Bitcoin is going to triumph over lies and hatred ✌️ ... or at least become a refuge for a growing number of freedom advocates to balance the power of the slavers.

No it's a beginning.

Sauces:

Bitcoin and the separation of money and state

Andreas Antonopoulos: Introduction to Bitcoin

• I encourage you to watch through Andrease's basics and Q+A
• Andreas is one of the Bitcoin OGs, brilliant educator and speaker
  

BTC Sessions: New to Bitcoin?

• great source of how-to video tutorials for beginners as well as for more experienced users
  

There is an abundance of other sources. Follow our Twitter for hints on what to pay attention to and don't forget to find out on your own. Do not trust, validate. Go down the rabbit hole!

For the most knowledge-hungry, I recommend taking an accredited MIT-level Bitcoin foundation college course, available for free here:

• Saylor Academy - https://learn.saylor.org/course/view.php?id=468

Hidden bonus for those who have made it all the way

• download the free app for artistic augmented reality - here: https://artivive.com/
• open the app and point the camera at the opening image "Bitcoin is Freedom Money" by artist Lucho Poletti
  
  
  

Subscribe to our Newsletter: