Well, it looks like the Trump Pump is going off spectacularly. Everyone is cheering, cheerful, happy, and feeling on top of the world. Stop working. Yes, the number is rising, and everyone’s net worth (on paper) is increasing by the hour, but this is no matter for celebration.
This is Bitcoin’s entry into the challenge. These institutions, this administration, these high-net-worth individuals, are not your friends. They are not here for the same reasons that people are trying to build a critical network centered around sovereignty and freedom. They are just here to make money, and to maintain this disparate level of influence and control over the world around them.
These people don’t care about the potential for self-care to expand, or access to privacy, or for Bitcoin to do anything to bring these tools of freedom to the masses. They care about Number Go Up, that’s all. If this trajectory truly turns out to be what it looks like it could happen, it would represent an existential crisis for Bitcoin. All of these people are buying their seats at the table, and those seats have a much greater influence than the sum of the average person who has been working hard to accumulate Bitcoin for the past few years.
Bitcoin consensus is determined by the economic actors that actually use it. If Bitcoin becomes a simple financial asset dominated by the legacy institutions and actors it was built to free us from, it will decide by consensus in proportion to its level of use. The only option left to us is to convince them, or get sidetracked by giving away a much less valuable (and therefore less useful) network.
Those people who take control of the network at this early time, before the work necessary to make this network viable and scalable has been done, are sprinting down the road to ossification. From people who see no viable option but to be already wealthy, or choose to choose a trusted third party to interact with the protocol and network. And none of these people will care.
Why do they support protocol upgrades that improve the scalability or privacy of Bitcoin? They make a living, all they know how to do is insert themselves as an intermediary between the average person and the assets they want to interact with, and make money by looking for rent as that intermediary. What incentive might they have to remove themselves from this profitable situation?
Bitcoin users shouldn’t get complacent just because current holders watch their net worth increase during this bull market. There is still much to be done, otherwise Bitcoin will never live up to a fraction of its potential as a tool for spreading true freedom.
So what do you value most? Enrichment or assistance in spreading a tool to liberate a people currently subject to the whims of tyrants and rent-seekers?
This article is a takes. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.