The below is a direct excerpt of Marty’s Bent Issue #1076: “Yet Another Reminder That Many Bitcoin Critics Are Subpar.” Sign up for the newsletter here.
via NYT
The above snippet comes from the Opinions section of the New York Times, and it is a stark reminder of just how bad many Bitcoin “critics” turn out to be. In his piece that dropped today, Binyamin Appelbaum claims that the gold standard – something humanity used for THOUSANDS of years – was disastrous, called private keys passwords, claimed that the US Government can easily brute force ECDSA and confiscate anyone’s bitcoin, and that individuals don’t use bitcoin in a non-custodial self-sovereign fashion because it is “too hard”. A pretty impressive streak of objectively wrong statements.
The frustrating part isn’t that Binyamin was so terribly wrong, it is that he was so very confident while spreading his fake news in the New York Times. Confident enough to exclaim that bitcoiners are nothing more than “Libertarian cosplay” participants. I usually wouldn’t waste a day’s issue of this dirty rag on one particular critique from a single New York Time Opinions piece writer, but pointing out the juxtaposition of this article with the New York Times’ coverage of the Met Gala was irresistible.
The New York Times likes to paint itself as a leader pushing forward social justice and progressive values while speaking truth to power during chaotic times. However, if you look closely – particularly at this bitcoin hit piece and the Met Gala coverage – you will find that it’s the New York Times that is engaged in cosplay and not bitcoiners.
Since January 3rd, 2009 bitcoiners have been working diligently; writing code, building businesses, educating, and erecting physical infrastructure to provide the world with a peer-to-peer digital cash system that will serve anyone who can access the software. In the process, the network has provided billions of unbanked and those already banked with the opportunity to access a digital app where they can store their wealth. Not only that, but the Bitcoin network gives you the ability to have an extremely high degree of certainty that your share of the overall network cannot be debased. The app has only gotten easier to use over time as more and more people are drawn to the network and work to make it more efficient and user friendly. The same can not be said for the incumbent monetary system, which is only getting harder to use.
As central bankers and governments around the world continue to lose their grip on the very interconnected monetary systems of the world – causing social in-cohesion – they are getting more serious about the monitoring of who is sending money to who and how much they can spend. A result of this is increased data collection and filtering that is making it harder for individuals to interact with the economy. It’s getting harder to use in this technical sense, but it’s also getting harder to use in a practical sense as the amount of overall units of money increases rapidly, pushing the prices of many good up as a result. Either completely boxing individuals out from the digital monetary system all together, or decreasing their quality of life materially by making things more expensive.
Bitcoin fixes this problem by giving individuals the world over an open and sound monetary system, yet the New York Times, which is supposed to be cheerleading the advancement of human rights, chooses to bash bitcoin while running this article during the same day…
Legitimate gushing over an elite costume party where celebrities and politicians alike signal their support for social justice while dawning outfits worth tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars with a full life cycle of 12-hours. And the wardrobe wasn’t the only thing the celebrities at the Met Gala were waving in the face of the poors, they were also waving their actual maskless faces right in front of them too. Apparently if you adorn an outfit worth more than your average annual salary in the United States you are naturally immune to COVID. And as long as you signal your disdain for the state of the world by including political phrases like “Tax the Rich” and “Peg the Patricarchy” on your costume, you are absolved from not actually doing anything. That is enough effort. You can go on feeling good about yourself.
The funny thing is that Bitcoin is going to win in such a fantastic way because it is rooted in proof of work. A proof of work that the LARPing elites dependent on the Cantillon Effect cannot compete with in the long run. We’re going to wake up one day, Bitcoin is going to be as easy to use as the mobile phone or laptop you are reading this rag on, the incumbent monetary system is going to be more burdensome and less reliable, and those who the progressives think they are helping are going to thank Satoshi for Bitcoin for providing them with the opportunity to build themselves a better life.