Ep17 - Can Bitcoin Free Us From Government Tyranny?

Can bitcoin free us from government overreach? Can it restore the financial stability we've been losing since the creation of the [[https://www.federalreserve.gov/][Fed]], on December 23, 1913?

Even if you've been living in a cave for the last five years, you've heard of bitcoin. But most of us only know about it from the hype surrounding this new "digital currency." It's true that bitcoin offers an exciting and risky investment opportunity. 

But, there's another side to it.

In 2008, during the worldwide financial crisis, [[https://nakamoto.com/satoshi-nakamoto/][Satoshi Nakamoto]] published a famous white paper, [[https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf][Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System]]. In it, he provided the technical details for a new peer-to-peer cash system. 

But his intent wasn't to create a new way for college students to pay for pizza on the Internet. Nakamoto had an ideological motivation.

Nakamoto saw the financial crisis as evidence that the current financial system had problems. Powerful governments, banks, and other institutions controlled it. And the average person had no choice but to trust those in control to do what's best for everyone else.

The following quote from Nakamoto sums it up best:

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. - Satoshi Nakamoto

In the financial crisis, Nakamoto saw that we can't trust the politicians and financiers.

A philosophy of trust forms the foundation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It's freedom, transparency, and credibility that creates that trust.

It's the foundation of trust that has many believing that bitcoin can replace the Fed. Or at least offer a competing system. One that gives us the ability to insulate ourselves from the Fed's poor monetary policies.

The current financial system is an opaque, closed system that benefits insiders. At the same time, it's making the lower and middle classes more dependent on the government. Nakamoto's vision of bitcoin is that of an open system beneficial to all.

In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott start a discussion of bitcoin. They do so by looking at the philosophy of liberty underpinning its creation. They discuss whether we need bitcoin, the conditions necessary for its widespread adoption, and the risks to adopting it.

This episode only scratches the surface of the bitcoin discussion. It's an excellent place to start learning about what Paul and Scott think about bitcoin. You'll hear about their attitude toward government monetary policy. And the value and necessity for liberty in our lives.

This episode won't be the last about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Paul and Scott guarantee more will follow soon.

Image by VIN JD from Pixabay