This is an opinion editorial by Phil Snyder, professor, video director and editor.
According to Merriam-Webster, a nation-state is: “A form of political organization under which a relatively homogeneous people inhabit a sovereign state.”
Is that what Bitcoiners are — or are becoming? Like it or not, Bitcoiners are political by default. If you believe in sound money and act upon that belief through investing financial resources, time, energy, intellect, emotion and will into space, you are in direct political opposition to the current world system. But are we relatively homogeneous? Yes! If we allow that homogeneity can be an abstraction rather than limited to physical genetic origins. What binds us as a nation is our shared allegiance to such eternal values as love, peace, fairness and liberty. What preserves us as a nation is that we voluntarily submit to the rule of law embodied in the Bitcoin protocol — a code of honor that rewards the practice of those values and punishes breaches of the contract written in that code. Do we inhabit a sovereign state? Again, I believe that in the abstract the answer is “yes.” Bitcoiners, by definition, are sovereign individuals. We declare ourselves sovereigns over our own wealth and destinies by eschewing the Keynesian economics model and its fiat money system enshrined in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that corrupts everything it touches.
We are what Abraham Lincoln describes in the Gettysburg Address as “…a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” This kind of talk is “fightin’ words” when it reaches the ears of the King Georges of the world, who declare themselves sovereign over us. We are revolutionaries in the true sense of the word and are at war with those who seek to enslave us. Though we commit no physical violence, our very existence and our thought crimes are anathema to the fiat elites. We can point to January 3, 2009, as the day the nation was conceived with the Genesis block. Since then, we have been gestating and developing as body and soul, hidden in the womb of cryptographic code and protected from prying eyes. But the day of birth is coming soon with the requisite labor pains. It looks like we have escaped the abortionist, but will we succumb to fear at the crisis of birth as enemies unleash all the weapons at their disposal? The ESG disinformation peddlers, the global banking establishment, their minions in governments and their vicious enforcers are not going to simply declare victory and let us be on our way in peace.
There are some who talk of forming a Bitcoin political party, which may sound good at first, but Bitcoiners are international, citizens of the world. If you follow the logical progression, you could even say we already have a world government, one that isn’t beholden to any other government with aspirations of world domination. “Bitcoinia” is genuinely sovereign, and that bestows on us the potential to be sovereign individuals as well. We have, if you will, plural citizenship. I’m a citizen of the USA, of Bitcoinia, and the Kingdom of God (a.k.a., the Kingdom of Heaven). One is natural, one is digital and one is spiritual — a trifecta of sovereign allegiances.
As we all know, Bitcoin is something new, unique, and powerful enough to change the world for the better. I would declare the same for “Bitcoinians.” As a nation, we are also utterly unique — and yet we are the most diverse union of peoples in history. There are many things we disagree on, i.e., how to evangelize nocoiners, what swear words to use as adjectives when describing altcoin scammers, and just how much privacy we are willing to give up for institutional adoption and hyperbitcoinization. We are an unlikely collection of some of the wealthiest, most well-educated of every race and creed, together with some of the unbanked poorest of the poor — all yearning to breathe the fresh air of freedom and drink the pure water of our God-given liberty. We long to make our own life choices, and not to be treated as chattel by a cabal of amoral self-anointed overlords.
But who, until now, ever thought there could be a functioning decentralized government with no dictator, president, or prime minister? Even in a libertarian’s wildest dreams this might seem an impossibility. And yet, here we are. The possibilities are endless, and the potential for good in this world “simply” by fixing the money are beyond measuring. This isn’t to say that this miraculous protocol is a panacea for all the world’s ills but is a great base from which to launch ’till Christ returns.
We have abundant reasons to be optimistic and even giddy at the prospects of all that can and will be accomplished in this revolution. We are witnesses and participants in an unprecedented historical turning with promises of ending endless wars, worldwide productivity, and fully unleashed economic prosperity. How does that look in real life? Enjoy the show, folks!
This is a guest post by Phil Snyder. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.