Bitcoin as a Religious Phenomenon- a quasi transcript
Talk available here —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jIwzM1FAe8
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As with my talk Bitcoin Psychopaths vs Bitcoin Sociopaths this is not a transcript per se, more a cleaned up version of the talk notes I created whilst preparing this talk. The spoken version given at Baltic Honey Badger 2023 in Riga can be found in the link above.
Around 2020, I came across Pascal’s wager.
Pascal’s wager is a philosophical argument that Blaise Pascal made for believing in God. He claimed we should believe in God, not because of the threat of eternal damnation or because of the wonders and complexity of the world are evidence of creation by a higher intelligence but that we should believe God exists because it is the best bet.
Pascal’s argument in a nutshell, was this: we are incapable of knowing whether God exists or not, yet we must “wager” one way or the other. If you believe in God and therefore act with virtue, follow the Ten Commandments or whatever is required to be virtuous, if he does not exist, your sacrifices are pretty small, but if he does exist, your gains are infinite- an eternity in heaven. The opposite is true; by wagering that he does not exist you may benefit from not having to forgo certain indulgences or vices, but if you are wrong, then your losses are infinite- eternity in hell.
When I heard about Pascal’s wager, I immediately thought of Bitcoin, because the same logic applies. If you invest no more than you are willing to lose in betting that Bitcoin will succeed, then if you are wrong, you lose a small amount of money; if you are right, the upside is potentially infinite. If you bet against Bitcoin, you retain a small amount of money if correct, but if you are wrong, you missed the opportunity of a lifetime to change your circumstances. Pascal’s argument for religion also carries for Bitcoin; it makes no sense to be anti-Bitcoin.
Then the next year I went to the Bitcoin Miami conference. This was my 10th Bitcoin conference, and I’d seen crowds of around a thousand people, but I’d never seen anything like this. The line to get in stretched for almost a kilometer, and once inside I learned there were about 10,000 people there. Who were these people? They’d obviously never come to a Bitcoin conference before, why were they here now? I went into the main hall not long after arriving to watch the talks from Micheal Saylor and Nick Szabo and remember thinking to myself, why are there over 5000 people in this room, young people, listening to these old guys talk about money? The conference had a festive atmosphere with art, music, a DJ, basketball courts, and other fun stuff. Why arent these newcomers outside in the bar, listening to the DJ or playing on the basketball court?
I couldn’t make sense of what was going on, the crowd and atmosphere was too young, relaxed, and casual for a finance or computing conference, too interested in content-rich talks and presentations for a music festival or party. Some weeks after the event, it clicked. I know what this reminds me of, one of those Christian festivals where it looks and feels like a music festival, but something feels different: the atmosphere is different, and when you enter the main stage area, there are also 5000 young people listening to another old guy talking instead of partying, but this time he’s talking about Jesus.
And this made me remember Pascal’s wager and start thinking, we make these jokes like Bitcoin is a cult, Bitcoin is a religion. But no one has ever really sat down and thought, seriously, strategically, analytically, well what if it is? What does this mean, is this beneficial or harmful, and what should we do to understand and harness this phenomenon to ensure Bitcoin succeeds?
The logical objection to this of course, would be; Bitcoin cannot be a religion. There is no mention of the supernatural, God or Spirituality in the writings of Satoshi, the Bitcoin Whitepaper, The code of Bitcoin Core, or anything like that.
Of course it can. Human history is full of examples of people exalting material things and giving them spiritual and supernatural significance. Ancient human societies worshiped animals and the elements like the wind, sun, and the moon and believed these things had spiritual significance, that they were not just the hand of God on earth but actual manifestations of spiritual beings. And today, this behavior continues. Things like extreme fandom, football hooliganism, and authoritarian states are examples of physical, secular things taking on a spiritual flavor. In fact, there is a school of social science called Implicit Religion that studies these behaviors and posits that those who lack conventional religion may be better understood by looking at them through the lenses of what we know about religion, that they may share parallel structures of beliefs, activities, and behaviors.
Implicit religion looks at religion as a social technology, a collective behavior that we engage in, to achieve important social outcomes. Religion is different from Spirituality. Spirituality is the individual pursuit of one’s own transcendental truths. It must be undertaken on your own. Although inspiration can be drawn from various teachers or writings, ultimately, its end goal is a subjective truth that each individual must discover for themself.
Religion, on the other hand, is a collective endeavor, the pursuit of spiritual truth in combination with other people. There are clear objective truths- commandments, scriptures, or edicts put forth by prophets or priests who received these directly from God. These truths cannot be discovered; they must be taught by the religious hierarchy.
Religion is a methodology to organize society around the pursuit of spiritual truth. And it is an important social technology that has been an integral part of all successful civilizations. If we look at models for understanding what drives human behavior, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs this is not surprising; as our civilizations grew beyond hunter-gatherers focused on obtaining basic needs such as food and shelter, the more important things like social connectedness and the search for purpose and meaning became to individuals and to the structures that kept them together as unified, productive societies.
Implicit religion highlights four key functions performed by religion in filling these gaps: Social Connectedness, Meaning Making, Rules for Moral Action, and Creating the Sacred Amoungst the Profane.
Social connectedness means a way to relate to others, build a community, and satisfy a need to be connected socially. The outcome it provides for society is a sense of being united with others in pursuit of a common cause.
Meaning-making means providing a framework to make meaning out of the randomness of the world that we experience. Things happen for a reason, and there is a higher purpose for our existence beyond merely being born, reproducing, and dying, but instead the disciplined pursuit of a pure idea. The outcome it provides for society is a coherent philosophy and purpose about which to orientate our lives.
Rules for Moral Action means establishing that there are actions that are objectively moral or immoral and that there should be clear rules and guidelines to help us remain on the moral path. The outcome it provides is translating the philosophy and purpose we discussed earlier into clear rules and guidelines to achieve it through our daily actions.
Creating the Sacred Amoungst the Profane means conveying that the world we inhabit is profane or that the natural state in which we are incarnated causes suffering. The purpose of religion is to provide a beacon, a liferaft, or an oasis where man may take refuge, refresh and reorientate himself, and then reenter the profane world with vigor and clear direction to make it a better place. The outcome it provides is a prototype of the benefits and better world we are trying to create, an example we can experience of what this better reality we aspire towards looks and feels like.
If we examine the behavior of Bitcoin’s social layer, the behavior of those actively involved with it, Bitcoin culture, if you will, how do we see these 4 things manifest?
Bitcoin conferences, meetups, and online communities clearly exist to provide Social Connectedness. Their attendees often share an intense interest and conviction for Bitcoin not shared by their peer group or significant other. These meeting spaces offer an opportunity to feel a sense of connection, reinforcement, and community with like-minded others and a space where cooperation and relationships may bloom and grow.
Right from Bitcoin’s inception, Satoshi Nakamoto’s writings make clear that it was more than simply an interesting experiment in computer science, but something that had ideological roots. As Bitcoin has grown over the years, it has been associated with many ideological causes, Libertarianism, The Silk Road, Wikileaks, as a vehicle for protecting human rights or addressing financial inequality. For its adherants, Bitcoin itself has evolved to be more than simply a valuable tool to achieve these ends, but the end in and of itself, “Bitcoin fixes this,” “Fix the money, fix the world,” and many other less succinct sentiments convey that Bitcoin -is- the cause, that its success is the catalyst for a cascade of positive changes in the world. Bitcoin provides a coherent purpose about which its believers may orientate their lives and experience a sense of being connected to a higher cause or purpose.
Bitcoin in and of itself could be cast as a set of Rules for Moral Action. Game theoretical incentives have thus far successfully encouraged participants in its ecosystem to act in the interest of the collective, and the existence of an open monetary network whose supply is unable to be inflated by any one person, but able to be changed and sculpted by anyone are often cited as reasons Bitcoin is a morally better money. However, what I find more interesting in this regard is the emergence of Bitcoin Maximalism. Although a relatively new phenomenon, it is fascinating in the sophistication of its lore and the maturity of its codification of rules for moral action. Their specificity and rigidness is unlike anything else in the wider cryptocurrency space; you will not find anything remotely like this level of detail to articulate how Ethereum, Ripple or anything else should or should not be used to ensure they realize the ideological causes their participants desire. Regardless of whether you agree with these rules or believe they are representative of the sentiments of the broader superset of Bitcoin owners, never the less they provide a clear set of rules for moral action that remove ambiguity about how Bitcoin as a cause may benefit or suffer based on our day to day actions.
The emergence of the “Fiat” pejorative to my mind, is one of the clearest examples of a modern articulation of the concept of the Sacred Amoungst the Profane. Its users suggest that the world we inhabit is a “Fiat” world, profaned by the use of money built on iniquity or immorality, which corrupts everything through its influence and is the ultimate source of all evil on earth. Equally interesting is the way that Bitcoin is exalted and portrayed by Bitcoiners as a shining example of an alternative, a functioning prototype where we may not only find refuge for our finances but also inspiration for a new financial system and even unrelated aspects of our lives such as dietary choices, moral or family values, and art or architecture. Again, this phenomenon is relatively new and varies in scope and extremity, but clearly, Bitcoin is now increasingly seen as an oasis of the Sacred Amongst the Profane in more than simply monetary terms.
Bitcoin has become an Implicit Religion, an example of a secular object that human beings embrace with more than simply intense interest but in a manner that we call religious. This shouldn’t be surprising; some have described Bitcoin as being akin to a man-made force of nature, like the sun or the ocean, that human beings worshiped in the past. Something not controlled by any person, that has a habit of brutally humbling those who think they can master or control it, and that has the potential to immensely change impact one’s fortunes based on its unknowable movements or temperament. It is human nature for our response to these phenomena to be one of reverence and worship, something we have done for many thousands of years. Bitcoin, like God is an ethereal thing that we cannot perceive directly with our senses, and man’s nature is to try and bring such things that we intensely desire a closer relationship with into our world through these well-established patterns of behavior.
Given all this, it would be futile to think that this religious coloring of Bitcoin culture will diminish or that anyone can stop it. Therefore, it is wise to briefly look at the example of religion in history to understand the positive and negative aspects of Bitcoin taking on a more religious flavor. Why do people benefit and willingly participate in religion beyond consequences in the afterlife, and where religion has been misused or the cause of adverse outcomes? Many of these are already recognizable side effects of association and interest with Bitcoin and are likely to become stronger as time goes on.
Religion provides a sense of community, belonging, being loved and understood, and connection to others. These natural human needs make us stronger, happier, and more productive when they are met. It provides meaning and purpose to our lives, giving us strength and motivation to endure hardship and answering the existential dread, “Why am I here?” It provides hope that if you follow the virtuous path, a better world is waiting for you.
Religion provides a common framework, reference points, or memes believers share. These allow people to establish common ground about which to reason with others and to find common ground that unifies people from wildly disparate backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. This common ground motivates them to cooperate and work together where this would otherwise be unlikely or impossible.
Religion generally encourages virtuous behaviors, abstaining from vices or selfish pleasures in the name of altruism, prosocial behaviors, and delaying immediate gratification for a future benefit. This makes the individual and those around them better off and has a magnetic appeal when experienced consistently.
Religion provides structure and ritual. It provides clear examples through rules and stories about what good or bad means; it simplifies and codifies the process of achieving positive outcomes through consistent, disciplined action. It helps unify groups through consistent, widely understood rituals and observances, which allow them to structure their lives interconnectedly, increasing social cohesion.
Religion has also led to adverse outcomes, the first of which is ostracism. Those who are conspicuously and devoutly religious can be seen as unusual or even evil by those outside the group. This can lead to persecution or exclusion from other groups or broader society.
The flip side of this dynamic can also manifest itself in zealousness and contempt. Believers can look down on non-participants as profane and casual participants as lacking conviction. This causes another type of social division between insiders and outsiders and can also be off-putting to potential believers. The idea may be appealing, but the rhetoric and behavior of the social group around it may drive away those who otherwise would have participated.
Religion as distinct from Spirituality, encourages a hierarchal relationship to truth. There are ordained priests, prophets, or experts who have a greater claim on this truth, and we look to their mandates and examples for guidance rather than seeing it as equal to our own interpretations. This can remove the need to research and come to one’s own conclusions, and in turn, a sense or responsibility for one’s actions. This hierarchal structure is also prone to abuse by sociopaths able to obtain positions of authority, groupthink, and creating echo chambers where obvious falsehoods are ignored by participants afraid of rocking the boat and participants hold and defend beliefs for emotional rather than logical reasons.
Finally, in the extreme, the idea that one’s actions and convictions are in the name of a higher cause or unquestionable truth can lead to bullying, intimidation, or direct physical violence by participants who believe the importance and righteousness of their ideas justifies these tactics where more reasonable approaches have failed.
Religion is an ancient social technology familiar to us and has been successful enough to endure for millennia. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is very new, a technology that we are still trying to understand and comprehend fully. Part of that is an awareness that Bitcoin is not simply a technology or a monetary unit but also for a growing percentage, an -idea-, a principal, and a cause.
Often, when we try to market or present Bitcoin in a positive light to others, it is as a financial investment, “Pay attention to this because it will increase in price”. However, if we examine what has been discussed here, this is only telling part of the story; there are rich, tangible benefits to Bitcoin, the idea, distinct from any promise of financial return, some of which have likely led you to be reading this sentence.
Bitcoin, fundamentally at its core, is an incorruptible source of truth. That is its power. This is an excellent foundation for a monetary asset but also for many other things, including the basis of all religions. It’s only natural then, that people fall back on time-tested patterns of behavior when looking for how to relate to such a thing, those we would associate with religious worship and reverence.
Is this good or bad? It is likely some of both, but maybe this is not the question we should be asking. Instead, we should revisit the words of Blaise Pascal and ask, “If we were to weigh the gain and the loss of wagering for the existing financial system, or an alternative that provided hope, meaning, connectedness and a tangible taste of a better world, which would you be more likely to choose?”
