Bitcoin is the Singularity

Why it’s easy to sound crazy when you talk about crypto

In his book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, futurist Ray Kurzweil describes the Singularity as:

“… a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Although neither utopian nor dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself.”

Many people think the Singularity begins at the moment when machines become smarter than humans. Elon Musk has warned that Artificial Intelligence is “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

The robots are coming.

What if we’re all watching the wrong door?

Why ideologists won’t stop talking about crypto

The “crypto” in cryptocurrency comes from cryptography — the art of writing or solving codes. The first tribe to embrace Bitcoin was the cypherpunks — a distributed group of hackers who advocated cryptographically enhanced privacy as a route to social and political change. From A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto (1993): “Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. … We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy … We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, [and] we’re going to write it … Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act.”

In Bitcoin, cypherpunks found a long-imagined path to an anonymous digital cash that could be minted, shared, or traded without government action or control. Libertarians rallied to the cause, finding common ground with the cypherpunks in their drive for personal freedom.

Bitcoin and blockchain are revolutionary technologies, and not in the pitch deck sense. They are technologies purpose-built to support revolution.

Why people who own crypto won’t stop talking about crypto

I am not a cypherpunk or a libertarian, but I do want you to buy some Bitcoin. And some Ethereum, and some altcoins. Crypto undeniably has characteristics of a pyramid scheme. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created, so people who plan to hold Bitcoin long term — often called HODLers — love to watch the price go up when new money comes in. A rising tide lifts all boats, to the degree that US market leader Coinbase, which violates core cypherpunk dogma by storing users’ private keys — which means Coinbase has your money, not you — maintains an uneasy peace with ideologists because they keep new money pouring into the system. Many people have observed that we’re in a bubble. But as an increasing proportion of available Bitcoin falls into the hands of HODLers, the floor is rising too. And the best way to keep it rising is to keep talking about Bitcoin.

And it’s not just Bitcoin or even cryptocurrency. Many useful products and services built on blockchain and powered by tokens will benefit from the “double network effect” I wrote about previously, marrying the devils and angels on our shoulders — our selfish and selfless motives — in the service of making them grow.

In short, the fundamental characteristics of crypto are what keeps everybody talking about crypto.

The technology is dictating how we behave to ensure its survival.

And what could be smarter than that?

Thanks to Jason King and Will Pangman for chats that inspired this post.