To understand why 1 Bitcoin could be worth
a million dollars, we have to understand why bee colonies are collapsing. Yeah, let me explain. In 1997 a curious Mycologist by the name of
Paul Stamets observed a unique behavior demonstrated by honey bees. The bees went out of their way to consume
water containing mushroom spores. “Hmm that’s interesting” thought Paul. 15 years later, Paul started to connect the
dots. Honey bees were dying at an unprecedented
rate due to colony collapse disorder. The bees were dying in part, by infestations
of Varroa Mites which transmit deadly viruses such as Deformed Wing Virus and Lake Sinai
Virus.
Chemicals used in modern agriculture poisoned
the bees so their immune systems are too weak to fend off the Varroa Mites. As bees travel around they spread the Mites
to all nearby bees leading to a 70% decline in Bee populations since 2005. Who cares about the bees? Bees are a bedrock species responsible for
pollinating a large percentage of our food sources (avocados, almonds, etc). If we lose the bees, there are countless downstream
effects such as lost jobs, destroyed ecosystems, and reduced food security. Back to our mycologist Paul, who in 2012 made
a monumental realization: fungi are known to support immune systems — the bees must
have instinctively known to drink the fungal water. Paul tested his hypothesis and soon after
demonstrated that using a simple antivirus “mushroom medicine,” we can reduce the
effects of Deformed Wing Virus / Colony Collapse by 80%.
Varroa Mites are hard to kill — fiat currency
regimes benefit from a monopoly on violence They spread viruses on everything they touch
— market distortions, cronyism, regulatory capture
They have negative downstream effects — capital misallocation, increased time preference,
limits human productivity, increases risk of catastrophe. Bitcoin (mushroom medicine) prevents the spread
of our destructive financial hegemony (Varroa Mites) which will usher in a new era of human
achievement (Just like saving the bees has secondary effects such as ensuring food security). Hey guys, I'm Drew. I turn the most important articles on bitcoin
into documentaries so more people can learn from them. This video was based on "Bitcoin is the Mycelium
of Money" by Brandon Quittem. This is Part 3. Subscribe if you want to support this mission. We’re heading into a period of uncertainty
never before witnessed by our civilization. The fiat money experiment is on shaky ground
and our social systems are beginning to break down.
Globally, we’re facing unprecedented debt-to-GDP
levels. The Fed, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan,
and the Bank of England now appear to “own a fifth of their governments’ total debt.” Central banks are running out of moves. In a last ditch effort, European Central Banks
are pushing negative interest rates. Are we really going to allow the hegemonic
banking system to CHARGE depositors for storing our digital fiat in their insecure banks? How about China? China’s real estate market is shaky and
long overdue for a correction. Capital controls and seeking yields in a cooling
economy have led to inflated real estate prices in China. What happens when the market corrects and
everyone rushes for the door? Better have a plan ₿.
And the US? The US is currently over $22 Trillion in debt,
however don’t expect the US to default on their obligations. Countries around the world are seeking to
eliminate physical cash. Cash is a fundamental tool for privacy and
is a requirement to maintain an open society. Without physical cash (or Bitcoin), citizens
are at the mercy of the financial surveillance machine.
A slippery slope indeed. You also can’t forget China’s Social Credit
System. Soon China’s surveillance technology will
be exported all around the world. Current attempts to fix the political-economical
machine from the inside are unironically powered by the “waste heat of war machine”
We need a systemic change . Something cut from a different cloth. It is my hope that in the future, we’ll
look back on our current “fiat banking experiment” with disgust. How could we live under such an archaic regime
for so long? Just like fungi transforms dead and dying
organic matter into new life, Bitcoin will transform our decrepit banking system into
a robust financial foundation upon which new growth can occur. The Great Filter of Cryptocurrencies
Can bitcoin survive long enough to reach its full potential? Cypherpunks, Anarchists, and Voluntarists
have been trying to create private, non-government money for a very long time. In fact, modern attempts date back more than
30 years, since the early days of Chaumian Ecash, to E-gold, and B-Money. Despite moderate success of private money
before Bitcoin, eventually they were all shut down by overreaching governments and/or business
interests.
The Great Filter theory was developed after noticing our lack of success finding intelligent
life in the universe. The theory predicts: during life’s evolutionary
process, there are some obstacles that are extremely unlikely or impossible to overcome. That obstacle is “The Great Filter.” For example, what if every time an advanced
civilization created nuclear bombs it ended up destroying itself? In this scenario, it might be statistically
improbable to survive long after inventing nuclear weapons. For Cryptocurrencies, The Great Filter is
surviving nation-state level attacks. Bitcoin is the only monetary species that
has a chance of surviving the great filter. More on this below. Why would a nation-state or entrenched business
want to attack a competitive form of money? In short: he who has the gold, makes the rules. The two main benefits of controlling the money
supply are the ability to inflate the money supply (shadow tax) and the Cantillon effect
. The Cantillon effect describes the uneven
expansion of the money supply. When the central bank prints new money, those
closest to the money (banks and big corporations) profit from new “cheap money.” By the time the rest of the population receive
the new money, price inflation has already begun.
The government goes to great lengths to protect
their monopoly Like E-gold in the 1990s, any competing cryptocurrency
can thrive in times of peace. However, when sufficiently agitated, those
in power will lash out to protect their interests. History is littered with examples. Between 2006–2008, the US government expanded
the definition of the ‘money transmitter license’ (under the Patriot Act) to target
E-gold. In its peak, E-gold was processing over $2B
worth of purchases per year. Unfortunately, the US government took advantage
of the centralized nature of E-gold, busted down the door, and shut it down. In fact, Congressman Sherman from California
recently called for a complete ban of Bitcoin. Sherman is surprisingly enlightened. by the global superpower du jour. Time For a New Strategy: Be Unstoppable
In 1984, famous Austrian Economist, Friedrich Hayek, unknowingly laid the foundation of
Bitcoin’s evolutionary strategy: be unstoppable.
With chilling foresight, Hayek predicted Bitcoin
some 25 years prior. Satoshi obviously read Hayek and he understood
“The Great Filter of Cryptocurrencies” In 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto released an implementation
of Hayek’s “unstoppable money.” In order for the full potential of Bitcoin
to be realized, it needs to be so resilient that even nation state level actors cannot
successfully kill Bitcoin. This meant preventing any party from having
full control over the system. Over 1.3b years of evolution, fungi have perfected
the art of staying alive. Unlike plants, fungi do not rely on sunlight,
instead they find/create their own food. Fungi do not have a centralized point of failure,
which makes them resilient to attacks. Since complex life evolved on our planet,
we’ve experienced 5 great extinction events where 75–96% of all life on earth perished. During each cataclysmic event, fungi inherited
the earth due to their anti-fragile nature. In an effort to survive “the great filter,”
Bitcoin mimics effective evolutionary strategies observed in the fungi kingdom. How could you kill bitcoin? Turn off the internet? Make it illegal to use? Tax it to hell? Any cryptocurrency that cannot (feasibly)
survive a nation-state level attack is pointless.
Simply delaying their inevitable demise. Satoshi designed the Bitcoin super-organism
to survive “The Great Filter” and to resist corruption. This lofty goal kick-started an evolutionary
path separating bitcoin from all the other cryptocurrencies and “blockchain projects.” Does this mean Bitcoin is guaranteed to survive
the great filter? Not necessarily. It’s impossible to know until the day it
suffers a coordinated attack by a state-level actor.
However, Bitcoin is the only existing cryptocurrency
that stands a chance. Let’s explore some positive trends in Bitcoin’s
survivability toolbox. Code is free speech. Each country has their own competing jurisdiction. Nation states compete with each other. So it’s unlikely to see top nations cooperate. If the United States bans BTC, China has an
incentive to adopt. Nations not benefiting from the current US
Dollar regime have an incentive to adopt BTC as well. By anchoring Bitcoin to real economic value
(energy), the only way to change the ledger is to “re-do all the work” aka spend the
same amount of money in the form of electricity. Ideologically motivated “hardliners” act
as an immune system.
Surviving the scaling wars (NYA/S2X) demonstrates
this. Bitcoiners “provide cover fire” until
Bitcoin gets through the door. Bitcoin has a growing network of alternatives
to the mainstream internet (mesh networks, HAM radios, and satellites). Maybe even routing transactions through a
mycelial network(which is theoretically possible). Bitcoin spreads like a mind virus. Even if somehow the current form was “killed,”
the idea will live forever. This buys time for Bitcoin to get stronger
and harder to kill.
So far, we haven’t seen any serious state
level attack on Bitcoin. However, if Bitcoin continues to absorb value
there is an incentive to attack it. In the future, we’ll call this period in
Bitcoin’s life the “great peace.” Bitcoin only needs to convince a few super
powers that the reward of adopting it outweighs the risk of attacking it. This game theory is similar to having a sign
in front of your house that says “Security system installed” or “big angry dog lives
here.” Doesn’t matter if you actually have a dog
or security system, the threat alone acts like a deterrent to would-be attackers.
Bitcoin has a sign in the front yard that
says “Beware of Honey Badger.” This sign reminds nation states that they
cannot easily kill Bitcoin. If nation-states attempt to destroy their
monetary competition, they’ll highlight the very need for bitcoin in the first place. And yet, the longer they wait, the stronger
Bitcoin becomes. First, it’s important to understand that blockchainers, stable coiners, security tokenizers,
and corporate chainers do NOT compete with Bitcoin. They are attempting to satisfy a separate
niche. By and large, the “blockchain industry”
is a Red Herring, leading businesses and governments to false conclusions. It serves as a distraction and unwillingly
provides cover fire for Bitcoin. Does that mean we should shun the blockchainers? No. They simply mistake Blockchain Hype (Mushroom)
for Bitcoin (Mycelial Network). I explain that in Part 2 of the series. But we should first attempt to educate them
as most people were not born Bitcoiners. That being said, deliberate scammers deserve
to be flamed.
Blockchainers tie up government resources,
train future developers, confuse incumbent businesses, and lull banksters to sleep. Zuckerberg will soon put a “crypto wallet”
in everyone’s pocket. Instead of competing with Bitcoin, ZuckBucks
may actually attempt to compete with the United States Dollar. Either way, it gets people comfortable with
non-state money on their phone similar to WeChat and Alipay. the first place. Blockchainers and scammers claim Bitcoin is
old and can’t scale. It’s Beanie Babies and myspace. They paint Bitcoin as a friendly, but limited-use
fungus, that “brought us the blockchain.” While the blockchain zeitgeist chases their
tail, Bitcoin is quietly growing underground, fusing with the “roots” of the legacy
finance system, building resilience, recruiting volunteers, infecting curious minds like a
mushroom, and preparing for “The Great Filter.” If we’re lucky, Blockchainers will distract
global superpowers just long enough for Bitcoin Hey guys, Drew again.
This is part 3 of the series, so subscribe
if you want to see part 4 when it comes out 🙂 And check out part 1 and 2 here:.
