Good Morning Everyone,
I can see the initial etchings of an interesting trend that i believe is worth paying attention to. The trend is of intelligent people that did not understand bitcoin and why the world needs it, but are slowly but surely being awoken to its power and necessity and demonstrating the psychological flexibility to change their mind. Which is a competency I have a ton of respect for, but few demonstrate.
One of the most notable people recently is David H Hansson who goes under the twitter handle @dhh. David is the creator of Ruby on Rails, an open-source web framework that he created in 2003 which has enabled many of the major platforms you have most likely used or at least know of like airbnb, Twitter, Github and Shopify. He also co-founded a company called base-camp and most recently one called Hey - which is to use his own words, focussed toward “turning email into something you want to use, not something you’re forced to deal with.”
DHH is a super interesting character, and given his background and verifiable vision, certainly at minimum specific to technology, the fact he did not see why the world needs bitcoin speaks volumes.
He put his thoughts on “paper” in an article called “I was wrong, we need crypto”.
While I don’t believe he gets everything right in this (and I actually reached out via email to offer some alternate views), there is no doubt he has seen the light, so to speak, and clearly has a line of sight now to the critical need in the world for bitcoin, much to his surprise.
As he says:
“I still can't believe that this is the protest that would prove every Bitcoin crank a prophet. And for me to have to slice a piece of humble pie, and admit that I was wrong on crypto's fundamental necessity in Western democracies.”
He goes on to outline exactly as we have discussed recently - that tyranny is the ultimate marketing campaign for bitcoin. Nothing promotes censorship-resistant, un-confiscatable money like having your bank accounts frozen and being unable to buy groceries because you donated $25 to a good cause.
His specific reasons for the skepticism and inability to have a line of sight to the “why” i think is a very common one amongst individuals in privileged and seemingly well ordered and functioning societies - which is simply that they don’t need it - Yet!
He explained as follows:
“To say I've been skeptical about Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto universe would be an understatement of epic proportions. Since the early 2010s, some of my most ferocious Twitter battles have been against the HODL army with the laser eyes.
There's just so much to oppose: Bitcoin's grotesque energy consumption, the ridiculous transaction fees and low throughput, the incessant pump'n'dump schemes in shitcoins, the wild price swings in the main coins, the obvious fraud that is Tether, the lack of real decentralization in most of the current web3 infrastructure, and on, and on, and on.
Beyond all these very real problems and challenges, my bigger beef was actually fueled by a lack of imagination. I could see the fundamental promise of a digital currency free of banks if you were living in a failing state like Venezuela or an overtly authoritarian one like China or Iran, but how was this relevant to the vast number of Bitcoin boosters living in stable Western democracies governed by the rule of law?”
The level of confusion that the shitcoin casino and all the bs around “web3” and the noise relating to energy consumption and politically motivated rhetorics has had on the minds of the many, including proven technology visionaries like DHH cannot be over stated. If someone like dhh dismissed it, then it is safe to assume many others have too for similar reasons.
He ends the article highlighting a phenomenal twitter thread that I’ve been meaning to write about and share for a few days. Which outlines the critical nature of our ability and freedom to transact, and how everything flows from this.
He wrote:
“But wherever this leads us next, it's clear to me now that I was too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom to transact that it's currently our best shot at protecting.”
The thread is below, I strongly urge you to read it.
It is clear that many people have been distracted by rhetoric and personalities and have failed to do the work in understanding the protocol and learning from history. As the global power grab continues to gain steam, we should expect more people to join dhh and begin to rethink and challenge their former assumptions.
Sooner or later, everyone is going to understand why they need bitcoin. In the exact same way as they did the internet. It’s the whole reason i began writing this letter! What is obvious to me and many others now, will at some point in the future be obvious to everyone. My hope is simply, that it is not too late.
Get educated. Stay open minded. Take custody of your bitcoin.
This is the way.
Hope you all have a great day. I will talk to everyone tomorrow.
AK
Share this post