How Bitcoin Instills Cardinal Virtues – Bitcoin Magazine

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This is an opinion piece by Mitchell Askew, a Christian and conservative Bitcoiner who produces Bitcoin-related social media research and content for Blockware Solutions.

“You don’t change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you.”

This is one of the many mantras circulating in the Bitcoin community. I am two years away from the start of my Bitcoin journey and can personally attest to the legitimacy of this statement. Although my experience with Bitcoin is relatively short, people can grow a lot in two years, especially those in their early twenties. Bitcoin is a never-ending quest for knowledge and anyone who joins the expedition will in due course find themselves embracing the cardinal virtues.

The cardinal virtues, deeply rooted in Christianity and in philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, represent a universal foundation of moral direction. The virtues are prudence, temperance, justice and strength. They were nicknamed “Cardinals” from the Latin root “cardo”, which means “hinge”, as in: all other virtues depend (rely on) the four cardinal virtues.

I explained how anyone who honestly pursues the Bitcoin mission of separating money and state has a strong incentive to behave according to the cardinal virtues.

Bitcoin urges caution

Act with or show care and thought for the future.

Source

You won’t understand what Bitcoin is the first time you hear about it. You also won’t get a firm grip the second, third, or fourth time around. In today’s fast-paced world, few people have put in the hours necessary to have a solid understanding of how Bitcoin technically works. Of those who have, even fewer have taken the time to study all encompassing areas of Bitcoin, including, but not limited to, economics, personal finance, computing, financial markets, and more. energy, the history of money and the theory of geopolitical games.

To say Bitcoin will have a profound impact on the world is an understatement. To begin to have any idea of ​​what the impact will be, one must exercise caution. According to Michael Saylor, “there are no informed critics”. Those who immediately dismiss Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme no different from those of Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried, are simply exposing their intellectual laziness.

A common theme among Bitcoiners, popularized by Austrian economists such as Saifedean Ammous, is the concept of time preference. Having a low time preference means you are willing to put more emphasis on your future well-being than your current well-being; it is literally the definition of caution. Those who engage in speculative altcoin markets, or attempt to trade the unpredictable short-term volatility of bitcoin, rather than HODL, the least uncertain asset ever, are inherently unwise.

By spending the hours necessary to have a basic understanding of Bitcoin’s technical fundamentals and its broad implications on society, you have shown caution.

Bitcoin instills temperance

Habitual moderation in the indulgence of appetites or passions.

Similar to caution, Bitcoiners achieve temperance through low time preference behavior.

Unlike the common FUD propagated among non-coinmakers, Bitcoin is not full of whales looking to get rid of their positions in search of fiat-denominated profit. Additionally, Bitcoin’s exponentially growing adoption coupled with its steadfastly scarce supply means that each wave of newcomers realizes that it’s wise to acquire as much bitcoin as possible before the rest of the world gets away with it. seizes.

When bitcoin becomes your individual unit of account, you begin to weigh each potential purchase or experience against the opportunity cost of acquiring more bitcoin. This has led many Bitcoiners, myself included, to embrace minimalist lifestyles. The key point here is that this declination of materialistic goods in search of more bitcoins, while perhaps initially triggered by a desire to satisfy future greed, brings awareness that an abundance of materialistic goods is not necessary. .

By removing many of the “wants” from your personal budget, i.e. moderating the indulgence of appetites or passions, and limiting yourself to “needs” in order to save bitcoin wealth, you adopt the cardinal virtue of temperance.

Bitcoin Instills Justice

Just treat or good deed; give everyone their due.

The greatest financial fraud of all time is the fiat money system. For too long, the existence of central banks has provided governments with the ability to fund the ideals of the ruling class at the expense of cash savings and future economic productivity. Prior to the rapid acceleration of inflation over the past two years, most Westerners were completely unaware of the backdoor thefts that occur with the expansion of the money supply.

Bitcoin grants inalienable property rights to all its users. No government agency or company has the power to dilute the value of every unit in the network, and when properly stored, BTC is virtually impossible to confiscate. Bitcoin is an open and neutral network that does not discriminate based on religion, ethnicity, gender, race, or vaccination status. No one is prevented from running a node to verify the authenticity of each ledger transaction.

By guaranteeing irrefutable access to an inextricable and non-dilutable form of property, Bitcoin represents the fairest patrimonial and monetary network in the history of humanity.

Bitcoin Instills Courage

Courage in pain or adversity.

Bitcoiners develop their courage in two ways.

The first is to encourage HODLing through volatility. As of this writing, bitcoin is down more than 70% from its all-time high. This is the fourth time in Bitcoin’s thirteen-year history that we have experienced a decline of this magnitude. Bitcoiners are clearly showing courage in the face of this adversity, as evidenced by the on-chain data. An all-time high of over 66% Bitcoin supply hasn’t budged in a year or more. This courage is not unprecedented either, as this measure has also reached all-time highs in previous bear markets.

I feel a positive feedback loop is happening here. When you can see for yourself that other bitcoin holders aren’t bothered by extreme price drops, it helps to become more confident in the future of the network and thus continue to HODL.

The second way Bitcoiners develop courage is to encourage Bitcoiners to take an action similar to the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence. While holding bitcoin isn’t outright illegal in most countries, it certainly doesn’t put you in a favorable position with the most powerful entities in the world.

History has shown that the regimes that control the world’s reserve currency do not appreciate this position being usurped. As such, there is a non-zero chance that Bitcoiners will be declared traitors in a dramatic last-ditch attempt by the United States government to maintain control of the monetary system.

However, this end can be avoided by winning the adoption race as Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten eloquently describes in this article.

This is a guest post by Mitchell Askew. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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