Bitcoin is now 14 years old, and like almost all teenagers, the orange coin is mostly misunderstood and misunderstood.

Bitcoin is digital money, Bitcoin is electronic gold, Bitcoin is only for criminals, Bitcoin is bad for the environment, Bitcoin is this, Bitcoin is that.

Some are one step further. You accepted that Bitcoin is, and now you're wondering why Bitcoin is like that and not otherwise?

Why are there 21 million, not 42? Why 10 minutes, and not one? Why does it need energy and why is it not the most perfect private?

All of these questions are legitimate, but there Space and time are limited - both here and in Bitcoin - I will concentrate exclusively on the last question: the question of privacy. Or vice versa: the question of transparency.

Why is Bitcoin transparent? And does it have to be that? To answer this, we first have to ask ourselves another question: what is the meaning of Bitcoin? And why is Bitcoin available at all?

If someone would force me to answer this question in one word, my answer would be as follows: integrity.

The first news from Satoshi make it clear that he wanted to kill several birds with one stone: micropayments, credit bubbles, middlemen, and much more. But the biggest fly is probably the return to healthy money: money with integrity.

On a purely personal level, anonymity and integrity are anonymous, that is, contrary. If we believe that someone has integrity, it means that someone is known to us and that he or she has acted with integrity in the past. If a completely foreign person sends us a message without any references to history or identity, then it is impossible for us to say anything about the integrity of that person. Integrity and history are connected as well as integrity and identity, whether pseudonym or not.

Integrity means wholeness, completeness, integrity. On a moral level, integrity is synonymous with fairness, righteousness and light-heartedness. In computer science and in terms of data, integrity means correctness, completeness and consistency.

Bitcoin is one Information construct which uses the latter — IT (and physics) — to restore the former — completeness, integrity and wholeness — on a monetary level. And through this restoration, it also allows one return to a higher morality: Fairness, righteousness, and light-headedness.

Why all this ramblings about morality? And what does all of this have to do with transparency and privacy?

Quite simply: the data integrity that Bitcoin brings with it comes only partially from the private sphere; the sphere that holds the private keys of all users. The other part, the part that ensures the integrity of the public sphere, the integrity of matter itself (a matter that may be called bitcoinium) comes from complete, demonstrably undamaged, and completely insightful information.

Transparency is the flip side of verifiability, and it is this verifiability that allows us to own money without having to trust others.

Data integrity without a private key, without secrets. That is what Bitcoin brings, and that is why it needs energy because energy is obvious. No public data integrity without energy; no trust without public data integrity.

“But what about XY,” I hear you screaming from the back ranks. Your dear XY, whether Shitcoin or CBDC, needs special private keys to ensure data integrity, if there is integrity at all. Usually this happens via a so-called “master key”, which is created by ceremony or Fiat. Whether it is a single key or a key body is irrelevant. It is relevant that you have to trust this key. And there it is again, the root of all monetary evils: trust.

You have to trust the master key, the ceremony of creation, the people who hold the key, and so on and so on. Integrity is no longer obvious because parts of the history are no longer open and can no longer be seen by the public.

And that brings us to privacy: why isn't Bitcoin perfectly private? Why can't it be?

If everything were absolutely private, it would be very difficult to check the integrity of the whole system, at least in a simple and obvious way. How much bitcoinium is in circulation and has nobody really cheated? Did someone conjure up a little too much bitcoinium from their hats or cheat someone else? Was any Distribution legitimate and fair of new Bitcoinium? And is what was poured out still available?

Thanks to Bitcoin’s transparency, we can no doubt prove that the only Satoshi that has ever disappeared was Satoshi Nakamoto. All other Satoshis are bookable and can be checked without any third party trust.

But yes, Bitcoin should, can, and must become more private. Monitoring makes many of our freedoms useless; it is a direct attack on human dignity, which should be inviolable.

Anyone who believes that surveillance is harmless should be aware that any surveillance, whether explicit or not, controls and changes behavior. A quick glance at any “hidden camera” show clearly shows this: Everything changes when you realize that you have been filmed. The voice in the shower falls silent, the dancing in the living room stops.

“Dance like nobody’s watching, encrypt like everyone is.” Encrypt as if everyone was watching. At least on the Internet we learned that.

It took around 30 years to switch from HTTP to HTTPS, but we did it. And yes, it took Edward Snowden's revelations until we got serious. And we may need similar revelations for Bitcoin's HTTPS, but it must and will come. And it will also become increasingly serious because CBDCs are inevitable.

In the next few years, maybe in the next few months, the first CBDCs will take action, and with them total surveillance and control. “With CBDCs, the central banks will have complete control over the rules and regulations,” so Agustín Carstensin 2020. Rules and regulations regarding money — of our money. Who can spend it and who can't? Who can save it and who shouldn't? Who can act with whom and who is excluded from trading? Who can get which goods, and who had already consumed too much meat, too much petrol, too much gas, or too much nicotine this month? Who can still buy fertilizer and who has had enough? Who still gets a role of toilet paper, and who already had a role too much? Dear Agustín, the big head of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, wants to answer all these questions for you and me. Central, authoritarian, and irrevocable.

Bitcoin is the opposite pole and offers refuge. And because it offers refuge, it will also be regulated and banned. ”There must be regulation,” so Christine Lagarde, Head of the European Central Bank. “This [regulation] must be applied and agreed ... on a global level, because if there is an escape option, this escape option will be used.”

You have to let that melt on your tongue: The head of the “Bank of Central Banks” wants to make cash worse and demands total control over all transactions in the world. The President of the European Central Bank believes that all escape doors should be locked, because otherwise people would flee this wonderful CBDC system. Beautiful new world.

We need Bitcoin and we need privacy. Healthy money is not enough. We must also be allowed to think and act in private. Without free thinking, no free action. No free society without freedom of expression; no prosperity without free trade.

We need HTTPS for Bitcoin and we will need it soon. And yes, this HTTPS will not be perfect either. But it will be better than the status quo, and hopefully “good enough.” Lightning is already better than on-chain, both in terms of speed and privacy. And higher (or other) layers will be even better.

I think as before that Agustín Carstens the End boss of Bitcoin because he is the head of the “Bank of Central Banks”. The BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, does what Bitcoin automatically does in the Fiat world every 10 minutes makes: it compensates for payments, it is responsible for the “settlement”.

Bitcoin is a settlement layer, and Bitcoinium is what “is set”. One of the first insights into Bitcoin was that there will be Bitcoin banks, since the protocol will never be able to serve all transactions on earth. Hal Finney had this insight in December 2010:

Easier and more efficient. The Lightning network is already there, as local matching will always be easier and more efficient than a global one. And very soon there will also be the Bitcoin-based banks that Hal Finney spoke of. Keyword: (Fedi) mint. Light, efficient and private from the start. However, it will not be perfect again, because the Chaum’s dream of eCash brings a house with it: a construct that houses the Bitcoin-supported bank. And you have to trust the guardians of this house very well, at least to a certain extent.

But all of this does not change the most important property that Bitcoin brings with it: integrity. An integrity that will profoundly change our society. And as soon as healthy money is an integral part of our society again, hopefully trust will return. Trust in us. Trust in the future. And hopefully also the trust that nothing bad happens behind closed doors, but only something private.

Bitcoin trusts that most people are good, otherwise the whole system would not work. It trusts that a swarm of honest people is stronger than any attacker, even if we know nothing — or very little — about these people. Integrity through pseudonymity; that's the key.

This article was written at 795,921 and published originally in print for the fourth issue of the EINUNDZWANZIG magazine. You can buy a printed copy (in German) at twenty one shop.