Do you like Bitcoin? Harness your values ​​| Andrew Bailey & Troy Cross

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Bitcoin is an ark, they say, in a sea of ​​growing liquidity. Millions already have tickets. But where is he going?

Satoshi designed a ship that steers to a certain extent. It is more profitable to post full blocks than empty blocks, to cooperate rather than attempt a 51% attack and run Bitcoin rather than a fork. It all works by design. The adoption game theory, according to which early adopters are rewarded, guides the ship to a safe and prosperous port.

Andrew M. Bailey is Associate Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College. Troy Cross is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Reed College. Crypto Questioned is a forum for discussing the ideas and philosophies that drive the cryptocurrency industry.

But these incentive structures give only an approximate course. Perils remain. Mining could, in principle, centralize and hold the network hostage. Addresses could be blacklisted. Transactions could be censored. The protocol could even be changed to expand the offer, destroy confidentiality or allow surveillance.

Beyond the wait, what can you do to find out where the ship is heading? Bitcoin cyber hornets are known to be aggressive on Twitter, pricking Bitcoin’s perceived enemies, both foreign and domestic. You too can point out the dangers of the crows’ nest.

(Alonso Reyes / Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)

There is another quieter way, which is more like a nudge behind the wheel. The network needs to be supported; that the work in progress provides opportunities for bitcoiners to steer the ship properly. You can do it. And our thesis is that you should. Mine your values.

By mining your values ​​we mean, in part, mining bitcoin in a way that embodies your own ideas of what Bitcoin should become. But we also hear it as a more abstract slogan for discovering and implementing these values ​​in other ways that support and direct the network.

Here are three examples of values ​​that can be extended. Give easy, medium, and advanced suggestions under each:

Cypherpunk

Suppose you care about privacy and censorship resistance. Despite Number Go Up’s dominant narratives, your fascination with bitcoin stems from the way it empowers individuals rather than institutions. If so, you need to take custody of your bitcoin, join your UTXOs, and encourage your family and friends to do the same. Ruthlessly boycott bitcoin platforms or services that punish users for joining and patronize those that respect fungibility. Does that appeal to you? If applicable:

Environment

Suppose, like many bitcoiners, you have a long-term view of things. You care about the future of our planet. While media portrayals of bitcoin issuance are sometimes exaggerated, you are troubled by climate change and would like to see Bitcoin lead the way towards a carbon-free future. If so, you should invest in green bitcoin mining. Mining is a series of competitions to earn fixed rewards. The more investments in green mining, the less profitable it is to exploit carbon-intensive methods. In principle, sufficient green mining could simply eliminate carbon-intensive mining while securing the network that all bitcoin relies on. Here is what you can do:

Easy: Use trades that minimize carbon emissions with offsets. When available, buy green co-investment instruments to invest in green mining in proportion to your holdings Medium: Buy shares in publicly traded mining companies engaged in sustainable methods, such as Bitfarms (BITF) or Hive (HIVE). use green energy and join a mining pool committed to clean energy like Terra Pool. If you have access to private equity markets, invest in fledgling green mining companies before they go public.

Economic

Suppose you are concerned about preserving value in the face of monetary expansion. You are deploying bitcoin not as a get-rich-quick scheme, but as a scheme to not get-poor slowly. If so, you need to run a full node, use it to validate transactions and thus enforce Bitcoin rules including the very large funding cap. The plan in action:

Easy: Get a Raspberry Pi or take that old laptop out of your closet, turn it into a full knot, and use it. Upgrade software wisely and only report approval for network upgrades that preserve decentralization Medium: Host a Lightning Wallet on your own node. Validate chain transactions yourself and use LNbits to bring friends and family on board without relying on centralized institutional custody. Advanced: Again, consider mining yourself or investing in a mining company engaged in decentralization.

These values ​​and the proposed implementations will not necessarily work for everyone. The beauty of self-reliance is that you are free to express your values, not ours or anyone else’s. So here’s an exercise: Write down some of your most valuable values, then think about how to implement them into your bitcoin strategy, perhaps drawing inspiration from our own suggestions above:

I like ______I can promote ______ in bitcoin by doing X. Therefore, I do X.

Some arguments end with a theoretical statement. A practical syllogism, on the contrary, ends with action. When you perform this practical syllogism, what action is the conclusion? How are you going to help steer the ship?

We do not recommend charity. Harnessing your values ​​in the manner suggested above is not a selfless gift. Green bitcoin mining is profitable. Self-preservation protects you from various attacks and counterparty risks. And applying the key economic properties of Bitcoin with your own full node is essential to preserving the value of your bitcoin.

The co-captain of the ship comes at a price, however. It takes some thought. You need to think through and take responsibility for what your values ​​really are and what you would like bitcoin to become. It takes a certain amount of self-education.

Each of these actions becomes easier to mine, to execute a node, to take care of yourself, but none will ever be as easy as just clicking buy on Coinbase. It requires a minimum of research. When using a product or service, you need to be mindful of whether it is your preferred future or whether you are unintentionally helping to steer the ship in a direction you would rather not go. The price you pay is the price of citizenship wherever citizens play a real role in governance.

This price the inevitable cost of deliberate and active citizenship is minimal. But the payoff is immense. It is, in short, the intrinsic reward of autonomy, the satisfaction not only of living your values, but of making a difference for our collective monetary future. It is precious. But we admit that it can also be difficult to appreciate, so accustomed to a speechless financial existence we are.

In our monetary system, all but a few are mere customers, users making decisions within a system that is simply given to them as the rules of a game. Meanwhile, a priestly caste of central bankers, regulators and decision-makers in fact shape the rules of this game, the rules of the currency itself, its rate of issue, its initial distribution, the conditions of its transmission, its loan, etc. Their privilege, which most of us live our entire lives unbeknownst to, remains closely guarded by specialized vocabulary, degrees and laws.

Bitcoin solves this, we like to say. But a possible future for Bitcoin is that these privileged few, seeing bitcoin as inevitable, use their monetary weight, political power, and technical know-how to take the helm. Block by block and commitment by commitment, they are shaping bitcoin in the image of the existing monetary system, serving the same constituencies. Another possibility is that we don’t let them. Claiming your sovereignty and living your own values ​​could lead to a Bitcoin that collectively reflects the values ​​of its users, rather than the values ​​of nation states, banks, or companies that might attempt to capture it.

Our argument may remind you of similar calls to participate in electoral politics. Every four years or so, experts remind us that every vote counts and that they all had to do their part. Many bitcoiners may harbor some suspicion and take a cynical view of voter turnout. The obligation to participate which has been emphasized is not like that. You probably did not choose your government; it may very well be prior to your existence and care very little about the consent of the governed.

You chose to be a bitcoin, and you choose to stay that way every day you don’t sell. What you are urging is that you follow these choices in a way that may not be obvious. advocated participation in a collective enterprise which is, today, still small and where individuals can make a significant difference.

It’s tempting to think of bitcoin as removing the human element from money, not only disintermediating banks and governments, but people as well. Bitcoin, we say, is only mathematical, and for many of us, it is a comfort. But we must resist the temptation to think of bitcoin as code only. Layer 1 is the Bitcoin network. Layer 0 is, and always will be, people.

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