Much of this was inspired by the conversations that go on here. All
feedback welcome. Writing this for bitcoin magazine. Basically an
elaboration of my previous post:


The Declaration of Bitcoin’s Independence

We have been brought to a point where it has become necessary to dissolve
the bond between currency and institution. We are not required to declare
the causes which impel us to push for the separation, but we will oblige.


We hold these truths to be self-evident. We have been cyclically
betrayed, lied to, stolen from, extorted from, taxed, monopolized, spied
on, inspected, assessed, authorized, registered, deceived, and reformed. We
have been economically disarmed, disabled, held hostage, impoverished,
enervated, exhausted, and enslaved. And then there was bitcoin.



But we are in an age of appropriation, and nothing is immune. Today bitcoin
is not only volatile in its value, but in its very essence. Bitcoin is in
the crucial stages of development. Its code can evolve in several
directions. It’s under threat from those who don’t understand it; it’s
under threat from those who do understand it, but fear it.



The crusade to absorb bitcoin into the seams of the State has begun. There
is a conscious effort to co-opt. The goal is to swallow bitcoin, process
it, intergrade it, devolve it, and keep it stagnant in the gears of a
failed operating system. Bitcoin’s potential is being hijacked. They have
their own idea of what they want bitcoin to be. They have their own plan
for its potential, and they have an investment in that plan. But our
consent is withdrawn and the power of our ideas is too strong.



Do not underestimate DNA; nothing is born completely neutral. Follow the
protocol: it has anarchistic implications. Bitcoin is inherently
anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines
governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally
humanitarian. There’s an elimination of 3rd party intrusion. It’s purely
peer-to-peer. The blockchain is free speech. It’s decentralized, voluntary,
and non-aggressive. Bitcoin is not supposed to work within our current
mechanisms. Bitcoin needs not entities of authority to acknowledge it,
incorporate it, regulate it, and tax it. Bitcoin does not ask permission.



Bitcoin is an animal of anonymity. Bitcoin basks in shadow. Satoshi’s
facelessness is symbolic of this. Privacy is the point. Bitcoin is meant to
function outside of regulatory systems. It does not pander to power
structures, it undermines them. It is not a cog.



Bitcoin means to channel economic power directly through the individual.
This is reflected by Satoshi’s symbolic birthday, which falls on the same
day that Roosevelt signed the 6102 executive order, which forbade the
hoarding of gold. We repeat. Bitcoin is not intended to be integrated; it’s
intended to be a ghost outside the machine.



The voices of the people who are working to preserve the purity bitcoin’s
ethos are being drowned out. But actions speak louder than words. Bitcoin
is utility. The cypherpunks are building anonymous systems. The
crypto-anarchists are making institutions arbitrary. The internet is
anarchy. And cryptocurrencies are the printless fingers of the internet.



Bitcoin is not just a currency, a commodity, or a convenience. Just like
the printing press gave religion back to the people, just like the internet
gave information back to the people, Bitcoin will give financial freedom
back to the people. We declare bitcoin’s independence. Bitcoin is
sovereignty. Bitcoin is renaissance. Bitcoin is ours. Bitcoin is.



On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 1:24 AM, Philip Glover <imphilipglover@???>wrote:

> I think cryptocurrencies offer us a language to express value through
> market action.
>
> It's awesome.
> On May 8, 2014 3:05 PM, "Michael Goldstein" <michael@???> wrote:
>
>> "Technology embodies values. Satoshi had values."
>>
>> I thought Peter Todd summarized it quite nicely during the radio
>> discussion in Austin a couple weeks ago. Bitcoin as a technology does not
>> have political values, but its qualities are such that to value Bitcoin to
>> any degree (including not at all) is voicing a political opinion. If
>> Satoshi valued anything but individual freedom of speech and association,
>> he was really bad at voicing that by creating a protocol like Bitcoin.
>>
>> I have argued here that as it stands, valuing Bitcoin is valuing
>> anarchism, regardless of how you want to label or rationalize it:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPY-5SR-jPQ
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Amir Taaki <genjix@???> wrote:
>>
>>> Luke, I also respect your contributions and have advocated your work
>>> because I believe you come from the heart and your ideals.
>>>
>>> Our ideals are not this political affiliation or that ideological dogma.
>>> Our ideals are a shared set of values around openness, fairness,
>>> empowerment of the common user and freedom of information. These values
>>> are the basis for the internet and why it's a success story. They are
>>> also the reasons why the printing press was able to reform Europe taking
>>> power away from corrupt catholic churches who had institutionalised
>>> their religion and turned it into a tool against actual followers of god
>>> who were being misled into following fake rules that were added in by
>>> men.
>>>
>>> Today we now follow suited men who sell us false doctrine and have
>>> elevated themselves up as beyond mortal men with the mirage that they
>>> hold a secret knowledge or power that we as people don't possess. When
>>> Christ kicked the money changers from the temple and washed the feet of
>>> the poor, it was a statement about who we as people should stand with.
>>> They are thieving from us, the people, everyday and now Bitcoin as tool
>>> is going to bring back technology into our hands. And I'm glad for that.
>>>
>>> So tell me, why should I embrace these white knights coming to
>>> legitimise Bitcoin with their surveillance and censorship palming it off
>>> with their gibberish newspeak. These people are real motherfuckers and
>>> what motivates them primarily is greed at your expense.
>>>
>>> They don't see Bitcoin as empowerment. They see Bitcoin as convenience,
>>> and are willing to compromise the empowerment aspect for more
>>> convenience. Bitcoin will grow, but the question is in which direction.
>>>
>>> I'm confident that Bitcoin will play an established and central role in
>>> our future financial infrastructure. My objective now is to maintain the
>>> integrity long enough for Bitcoin's empowerment aspect to play out, and
>>> grow it in the right directions that give us the power. Just like the
>>> struggles now to keep the internet uncensored and neutral, so too must
>>> we struggle to keep Bitcoin uncensored and neutral.
>>>
>>> And it's funny because all this talk of Bitcoin as being
>>> politically-neutral is a way of downplaying the values I've been talking
>>> about above. You can never be politically neutral. That's a fantasy.
>>> Technology embodies values. Satoshi had values.
>>>
>>> On 26/04/14 13:11, Luke-Jr wrote:
>>> > Amir, I think you contribute much to bitcoin, and I value that. But
>>> Bitcoin is
>>> > *not* libertarianism. Bitcoin is *not* anarchism. Bitcoin is *not*
>>> > "volunteerism". Bitcoin is *not* a movement for financial freedom - or
>>> any
>>> > political movement at all. Bitcoin is a technology, which can and
>>> should be
>>> > embraced by people of any political affiliation. Adoption by people
>>> with views
>>> > contrary to your own is not an attack on Bitcoin, it is growth.
>>> >
>>> > On Saturday, April 26, 2014 5:33:48 PM Amir Taaki wrote:
>>> >> I get what you're doing, but we both know that really isn't the case.
>>> >> Allaire speaks from his heart, and they hired Mike Hearn.
>>> >> I don't think we'll ever know the whole truth as that's not how these
>>> >> proprietary cultures work.
>>> >> Check this quote by him:
>>> >>
>>> >> "A lot of the safeguards that businesses and consumers take for
>>> granted
>>> >> in their everyday interactions and payments don’t exist in bitcoin
>>> [...]"
>>> >>
>>> >> or
>>> >>
>>> >> "if your goal is to ensure widespread adoption of bitcoin, there needs
>>> >> to be rules around its use, he says, arguing that it’s not good enough
>>> >> to imagine bitcoin can exist above society."
>>> >>
>>> >> This doesn't sound like descriptions of systems that empower users to
>>> >> self-regulate. This is the exact speech used behind many surveillance
>>> >> and censorship tools to push them on us. Things like "anti-fraud"
>>> >> blacklists or researching correlation techniques on consumer activity.
>>> >>
>>> >> If this tech is developed it will be deployed or pushed upon places
>>> like
>>> >> Coinbase. Coinbase is the only business (or US?) in the valley with a
>>> >> banking relationship which they have due to a special relationship
>>> with
>>> >> JP Morgan and one of their bankers on their board.
>>> >> And that's where these products that work against their users will
>>> come
>>> >> into play. Maybe the industry doesn't have enough balls, and big
>>> Bitcoin
>>> >> businesses with a large following (CoinBase, BitPay, ... whoever)
>>> start
>>> >> "self-regulating" by spying, tracking and censoring their users.
>>> >>
>>> >> On 26/04/14 06:31, Peter Todd wrote:
>>> >>> On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 10:37:11AM +0100, Amir Taaki wrote:
>>> >>>> reducing the risk is newspeak for censorship
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> protection against fraud is codeword for surveillance.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Maybe it is; maybe it isn't.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I hope Circle is just implementing all the decentralized technologies
>>> >>> we've been talking about for ages that let people chose on their own
>>> >>> terms how to reduce the risks involved in their transactions; best
>>> case
>>> >>> is all this talk about moving Bitcoin away from its libertarian
>>> roots is
>>> >>> just PR material. After all, Dark Market is an example of that
>>> approach,
>>> >>> yet could also be marketted as "bringing Bitcoin into the mainstream
>>> >>> with anti-fraud, lower costs, greater privacy safeguard, and
>>> protection
>>> >>> against identity theft".
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I'm not very hopeful that's the case, but lets hold off on the
>>> torches
>>> >>> and tar until they publish hard details on what exactly they are
>>> doing.
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
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