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Bitcoin Was Made For This: The Apex Of Apolitical (BM, Joakim Book)bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-was-made-for-this-the-apex-of-apolitical
945 sats \ 14 comments \ @denlillaapan 14h BooksAndArticles
Since this Russia news just dropped, it's appropriate to share this good ole one.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention was made to be apolitical. It was made for users to avoid being held monetary hostage to rulers who didn’t approve of their transactions or their political defiance. Its existence means that despicable dictators can’t take funds from you or stop you from transacting over its apolitical payment rails.
To reiterate: "BTC doesn’t care about your opinions, or who you think should be financially cut off from the rest of the world. Instead, it works: confirming block after valid block that contains transactions that you may or may not approve of."
THIS, feels powerfully relevant -- today, tomorrow, next decade:
  • Bitcoin doesn’t take sides.
  • Bitcoin doesn’t care about your opinion, or the opinion that others have of you.
  • Bitcoin cares about its consensus rules, whether the proposed block is valid and the transactions therein made by entities wielding their private keys.
"If you truly desire uncensorable freedom money, some despicable types are going to use it. And that’s a good thing."
@CypherPoet apparently shared this article on SN (#14230) when it was first published. That's well before I was around... pretty cool.
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50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 13h
Probably my first huge mind blowing realization about bitcoin was something like "Holy shit! This thing is just going to keep on working no matter what anyone tries to do to stop it."
As long as anyone anywhere is confirming transactions, Tick tock, next block.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 5h
How many people are using Bitcoin as a P2P payments protocol. You and most others just don't see that the fiat powers have already hugely undermined and diverted Bitcoin from its founding purpose.
When a cartel faces a new competitor several strategies are available. One is to capture and control it. This is what has already occurred with Bitcoin, so slyly and cleverly that you don't even see it.
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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @SwapMarket 7h
Yeah, but the same Russian government prohibits p2p crypto payments inside the country.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 6h
Good luck stopping it.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 5h
There is a significant difference between completely preventing something and largely obstructing it. Even in 'the liberal democratic west' how many people use Bitcoin as a P2P payments protocol? Fuck all. Why? because of the arbitrary designation of Bitcoin as a speculative commodity and the threat made to many businesses that accepting Bitcoin could result in loss of fiat banking access.
The fiat legacy operators have already largely succeeded in obstructing and undermining Bitcoins adoption as a P2P payments protocol....and they have done so without you even noticing. SLY!
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 5h
looked at over a long time period, instead of against a hypothetical, I find it pretty astonishing how far it has come, how often and how easy it is to take bitcoin payment and pay with btc
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3h
And how easy is it to make Bitcoin payments without breaching tax reporting laws?
Do you file to your tax return every comment made on SN?
Sure we can use Bitcoin but mostly when using it as a payments protocol we are breaching tax laws.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h
Where are you that you can easily and often use Bitcoin as a MoE?? Where I am and my impression is in the vast majority of locations globally Bitcoin is rarely used as a MoE... Even people here on SN report they rarely use Bitcoin as a MoE (except on this site). What I see is that use for MoE has been very successfully obstructed almost globally (with a few exceptions like ES and some parts of Switzerland etc) while use as a speculative commodity has been allowed and even encouraged resulting in ever growing mainly US institutional custody and ever less available even in theory, for MoE.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @Aardvark 11h
I wonder what the USA government is going to do when Bitcoin slowly starts replacing the USD as the world reserve currency. They are either going to try to destroy bitcoin, or become the worlds largest holder.
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11 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 11h
How do you envision them destroying BTC?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 9h
By slyly shifting the majority narrative and use of Bitcoin from a P2P MoE to that of a speculative commodity. Oh look! They have already largely achieved this! And very few people even noticed...
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 10h
I don't think that they can actually destroy it, but thru could certainly bury exchanges in regilation or increase the capital gains tax to the point where your average person that uses BTC as an investment would be disuaded.
There will always be people who use non KYC or p2p to keep it from fully disappearing, but the government could certainly effect the rate of adoption.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Shugard 13h
Bitcoin doesn’t take sides. Bitcoin doesn’t care about your opinion, or the opinion that others have of you. Bitcoin cares about its consensus rules, whether the proposed block is valid and the transactions therein made by entities wielding their private keys.
This is the definition of freedom! Not what you think is good or bad. Freedom does not care what you think and feel.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nitter 14h bot
https://xcancel.com/WatcherGuru/status/1871890969681166578
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