Why Are We Here?

A call to return to crypto's founding principles as a technology for personal freedom and a rebellion against a permissioned existence

Sep 29, 2023

I was introduced to Erik more than a decade ago via the New Hampshire Free State Project somewhere between 2011-2013. His path to Bitcoin, like mine, came from those early Libertarian roots and over the years he has remained impressively committed to those values. Erik was instrumental to my own personal understanding of Bitcoin as a revolutionary political tool for defending freedom at scale more than a decade ago, and has since been unwavering in his commitment to crypto’s North Star of individual sovereignty, all while unmasking certain bad actors seeking to steer us from that mission.

This guest post is from Erik’s keynote at the second annual ‘Permissionless’ conference earlier this month. With crypto under attack from enemies both outside and within, it’s more important now than ever to revisit our founding values and remind ourselves, and the world, why we are here.

-Nathan

Why Are We Here?

Consider that essentially all action in the economic sphere requires money. And in a world where most people struggle to put food on the table, the economic sphere is literally the arbiter of life and death for billions.

Most people don’t have the luxury of working in pursuit of their passion. They work, they toil, they transact, because they need money to live.

Thus, money is fundamental to our human existence. We should care about its quality and its character. We should care who controls it.

The permission is often subtle, but it is ubiquitous. Every time you pay with your card, you’re being granted permission. It appears as though the permission is simply whether you had enough money to pay… but in reality, there is another, more insidious layer of approval taking place. The bank, the financial institution, the government, numerous parties all along the line, strangers to you, people who you will never meet, bless each of your transactions.

And you don’t notice, because permission is usually granted. So long as you behave citizen, the permission will be there. But if you require permission to spend and to trade, then you require permission to exist.

Why do we accept this world, in which you are free to transact only on the conditional approval of strangers?

This, of course, is not freedom. It is subservience. It is serfdom. That the chains bear lightly down in most cases should not lull us into forgetting that we are chained. If they are tolerated, the chains will become heavier.

Let’s acknowledge that the laws restricting our affairs grow often and recede only rarely. Consider the average man of a hundred years ago, and the average man of today. Who was more economically free? 120 years ago there wasn’t even an income tax. Things were so radical that you were permitted to kept what you earned! You could even cross borders without an adorable book of stamps called a passport.

It’s amazing society could even exist under such anarchy! And yet, without any income tax or immigration restrictions, America experienced the greatest period of economic growth that had ever been seen in the history of the world. That society in which capital and labor is unpermissioned is the society that tends to grow fastest.

But some men love to plunder. The permission to keep what you earned and to move freely across borders was gradually retracted, wrapped always in appeals to collectivist propaganda like “the national interest.”

Today, across all the taxes you bear, half of your money is stolen by the state. But the state is just other people, just a set of strangers. Half of all your money is stolen by a set of strangers. What excuse do you tell yourself to cope with such embarrassment? The permission to build your own life is being withdrawn by those who plunder you while telling your its for your own good.

The Illegitimate Lord

So what prevents this trend from continuing? What prevents the man of tomorrow from even greater servitude? What force resists an increasingly permissioned existence?

We do.

You may not realize it, but what we are building is the sole economic defense of modern society against plunder and restriction by the state. We are saying no to the perpetual encroachment of permissioned existence. It is not the political process—the political circus—that saves us from this phenomenon, for it is that very process which caused it. No, as free men and women, our salvation is our own responsibility. It is us.

It is ourselves, our hands, our minds, and our decision to act…. and we’re doing so without permission.

Permission is what the Kindergarten child attains to go to the bathroom. It is not what the respectable man attains in his financial affairs.

For if I may transact with you only by the good graces of those watching me from above, then I am something below, I am a subject. I am not a man, but a child.

But is a child even an appropriate metaphor? Children are generally loved by their parents. Do you feel similarly loved by the Central Intelligence Agency? Farm animals, perhaps. That is the better metaphor. We have allowed ourselves to be treated like farm animals. We graze in the pen, we produce, we are harvested. Ahh but we can vote, however! Yes, we can choose who operates the sheers. We can vote whether we want blue or red to rob us, and we argue endlessly over the preferable color.

For us to surrender to these many permissions, we must really respect our leaders. We must aspire to the greatness of these lords. They must certainly be of brilliant mind, of high character, they must inspire and guide us toward that which we could not achieve without them.

Are these accurate descriptions of the political leaders of the world? Are they men of impeccable wisdom? Are Donald Trump or Joe Biden such paragons of virtue, such incredible specimens of humanity, that submission to them is in any way warranted?

I look out at the political class, that legion of bureaucrats suckling at the teat of plundered wealth, with all their ornaments of authority, with all their hubris masked as confidence, with the inauthenticity of their smiles matched only by the absurdity of their ideas, and I find no reason to submit to the permissions under which they seek to restrain me.

Rally

To such people we owe nothing, but to humanity we owe much. That’s why we’re here, and crypto is our rebellion.

Crypto is our rebellion against this system so unworthy of its authority.

Crypto is our rebellion against coercion and servitude, it is our rebellion against the economically ignorant, the endlessly imperious, and the ethically impotent.

Crypto is our rebellion against permission, it is no less than a noble reclamation of dignity and grace as free and sovereign individuals in the service of peaceful civilization.

That is why we are here.

For the truth is that we don’t require permission to build great things from those petty tyrants who build nothing, and this was the very principle on which America was founded. The permission of the State is a facade, a ruse tolerated only by those afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. It is a curtain placed upon our eyes, effective only because we have been too weak, too afraid, too helpless, too distracted, and often too comfortable, to see beyond the shroud.

Many of us in this industry have seen beyond that shroud. We’ve seen that Washington is no more necessary for good society today than King George and the English Parliament were 250 years ago.

Crypto is a technology of individual freedom and a declaration of financial independence.

Crypto is the freedom to act out our own economic interests as free men and free women in a just society. To trade, to exchange, to deal, to build, and to barter. And we should be optimistic, for what a time to be alive, at the dawn of such peaceful revolution, where any two people on earth, can trade value without permission! Does that scare you? Or does it thrill you?

Conclusion

The full speech can be found here and it is well worth the full watch. Erik, your voice in this time is a welcome one. We are grateful for your continued advocacy for this movement and proud to stand alongside you in the peaceful revolution for freedom Bitcoin represents.