Bitcoin Libertarians Have Lost the Plot

Bitcoin was designed to be an open disintermediated system, where anyone and everyone can make use of it. I am not speaking technologically

Bitcoin’s astronomical growth over the past fifteen years has brought monumental shifts in the culture of the overall ecosystem, as well as the smaller individual communities that make it up. This is to be expected as the network grew from a tiny niche thing in the corner of the internet to a global phenomenon now becoming a serious political issue all across the world.

Bitcoin is no longer a tiny niche thing in the corner, or a toy that only a few autistic nerds are tinkering with, it is a global economic asset and monetary network transferring billions of dollars all over the world every day. Things have obviously changed in the process of that growth, but I think that changing shift has come with substantial negative consequences.

There has always been a perceived libertarian or rightwing bent to Bitcoin. Some of the earliest adopters and communities that formed around Bitcoin were based on the libertarian philosophy, and it does make sense when looked at from a theoretical perspective. Libertarianism is ostensibly about the individual asserting and maintaining their own freedom and independence in their life. But that was not the only group of people, or the only philosophy, that was present early in Bitcoin’s history.

Many people came to Bitcoin through left leaning movements such as Occupy Wall Street, the large scale protest movement that was born in response to the same Great Financial Crisis that birthed Bitcoin itself. They too saw a need to disintermediate the banks in the global economy in the wake of the disastrous consequences that resulted from their reckless and irresponsible gambling with everyday people’s savings and investments in the course of operating the economy. They too saw a need to remove control over that economy from the hands of the governments that selectively deregulated it to allow that gambling to occur in the first place.

Both of these groups came here for the same reasons, disintermediation. The removal of mega banks and governments as a middleman involved in everyone’s financial transactions, hell, the operation of the global economy as a whole. But in the collective cultural mind it is libertarianism, the right wing of the political spectrum, that has become widely associated with Bitcoin.

The problem with that is at large most of them have not actually held to their proclaimed beliefs.

Bitcoin was designed to be an open disintermediated system, where anyone and everyone can make use of it. I am not speaking technologically, people reading this absolutely understand that on a technological level Bitcoin requires constraints in order to maintain the decentralization that gives it value in the first place, and that compromising those constraints is a death shot. I am speaking philosophically.

On the technical level scaling Bitcoin to be as open to as many people as possible is an ongoing challenge, and will remain one for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Those are constraints posed by the nature of the technology.

On a human and personal level, Bitcoin requires no constraints. It is an open voluntary system of consensus, with its nature and function defined entirely by that voluntary consensus created by the opt-in interactions of all of its users and participants. Many so-called libertarians are seemingly deeply offended and unnerved by this.

The actions of a massive portion of the active community, at least online, act in complete contradiction with the principles of libertarianism. Freedom, liberty, and voluntary interaction. Many rightwing or libertarian Bitcoiners encourage the exact opposite of that, they bully and intimidate and push people to adopt their worldview.

Their actions speak to conformity, and pressure to act a certain way, or believe certain things, rather than a respect for individual choices and beliefs that differ from their own. They attempt to infuse the idea of being a Bitcoiner, or involved in Bitcoin at all, as being equivalent to holding their beliefs and worldview. They constantly engage in shaming campaigns, in many instances bordering on or crossing into harassment, to try and enforce this equivalence of their worldview with “being a Bitcoiner.”

While I do not believe this is in actuality the dominant attitude of people in the space, it is definitely predominant in some sub-communities, and is most definitely the perceived dominant attitude in public on internet platforms. And it stands in complete contradiction to the espoused beliefs of libertarianism, individual liberty and respect, and self determination in how people want to live their lives.

The only place I actually widely see the actions, not the words, of individuals reflect such beliefs is (I’m sure ironically to some reading) the left. Progressive and left leaning Bitcoiners seem to be the only people willing to engage in any meaningful way with people who think or view the world in radically different ways without defaulting to shaming or pressuring people to adopt their own worldview. They are the people working towards opening a path to adoption for people of diverse views and backgrounds, different needs, and trying to ensure that Bitcoin can help as many people as possible.

In contrast, right leaning Bitcoiners tend to shame, attack, and discourage people who hold different world views than them. Generally deriding attempts to address such people’s

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