Bitcoin And Freedom

Bitcoin has a complicated relationship with politics.

In its early years it attracted a lot of libertarians — people who wanted to minimise state power and saw Bitcoin as a tool for that. The Bitcoin-is-freedom narrative carried a distinctly anti-government flavour that put off a lot of people.

That association has softened as Bitcoin has broadened. Today the holder base includes conservatives and liberals, libertarians and social democrats, people in authoritarian states and stable democracies, activists and pension fund managers.

The freedom argument for Bitcoin has always been more practical than ideological, even if it wasn’t always presented that way.

It’s not an argument for abolishing government. It’s a much simpler observation: some people, in some situations, need to transact without asking anyone’s permission. And Bitcoin is the first form of money that makes that possible.

Dissidents in countries where financial access is a tool of control. Journalists who need to pay sources without creating financial records. Refugees who need to carry savings across borders. Workers in countries with collapsing currencies who need somewhere to store wages. People in relationships where a controlling partner monitors the shared bank account.

None of these situations require an ideology. They require a form of money that works when institutions can’t be trusted — either because they’re compromised, controlled, collapsed, or simply unavailable.

Bitcoin’s freedom properties don’t belong to any political tradition. They belong to anyone who has ever been in a situation where those properties mattered. Most people in stable democracies never will be. But that’s a privilege, not a universal experience.

Tomorrow: what censorship-resistant money actually means in practice.

— The Daily Bit