What BTC Was Meant For
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks
-from the Genesis Block of Bitcoin
Almost 15 years have elapsed since BTC was launched as an experiment in P2P trustless, decentralized digital money for everybody under the backdrop of one of the worst financial crises in recent memory, and now it is in the spotlight again as the world is once again on the brink of more bailouts and more collapses. Unlike in 2009 when BTC was the topic of conversations on backroom 90’s style online Bulletin Boards amongst libertarians, cypherpunks, and computer geeks, now it has taken the world by storm and is discussed in mainstream news outlets, by government officials and corporate boardrooms.
Unlike in the past when it was kind of a cool fantasy of P2P digital money for the unbanked and the tech-savvy, it has now become something that a good percentage of the population is actually aware of or at least knows someone who has some or actively uses it.
Even governments like the one in El Salvador have a President who is actively buying up BTC as an investment and as a hedge against the possible collapse of the USD-based monetary system that has been in vogue since the early part of the 20th century. Whether he will be successful or not remains to be seen, but his rise as a sort of government Bitcoin Messiah of sorts is certainly interesting, and something nobody ever dreamed of happening in the early days of the cryptocurrency space.
With this “mainstreaming” of Bitcoin comes a lot of fear by bankers, regulators, and governments, who it would appear really do not want P2P digital money for everyone but who instead seemingly want total control of the financial system and total control of the population’s spending habits in the form of Central Bank digital currencies fueled by “smart contracts.” This battle has been heating up a lot as of late as the SEC and many governments and banks seek to regulate crypto and even close off fiat gateways into and out of crypto.
One thing we cannot ever forget is that BTC and the cryptocurrency space itself were created as an escape hatch from the current financial state of affairs.
I know that there is some debate about the reason behind Satoshi’s message in the Genesis Block, but to me, it is a clear indictment of the current financial system as it was in 2009 and as it is today. Not much has changed. The same predatory financial class of bankers and governments mismanages funds at the people's expense, and they still engage in the insanity of fractional reserve banking, which makes the risk of bank runs and a lot of suffering very high if they occur. It was not created just to be regulated and managed by the same people that it was created to free humanity from. And the battle lines are being drawn. Where will you stand?
