Bitcoin – a means of redistributing wealth

Source: Liu Jiaolian

If a large proportion of transhumanists could achieve economic independence, amazing things would happen. How can this be achieved?

Many transhumanists [Note 1] have great ideas, but due to lack of time and money, they never implement them. Only the most determined and persistent H+ people will ignore all the drag and keep going. Many people give up when faced with great difficulties, but a few get funding and keep going. A few people have also found jobs and can continue to pursue their dreams...

[Note 1] Transhumanist, transhumanist. According to Wikipedia: Transhumanism (English: Transhumanism, abbreviated as H+ or h+), or translated as transhumanism, transhumanism or transhumanism, is a term similar to human enhancement. It is now an international cultural-intellectual movement that supports the use of science and technology to enhance mental, physical strength, abilities and aptitudes and to overcome unwanted or unnecessary human conditions such as disability, disease, pain, aging and accidental death. Transhumanist thinkers examine the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human augmentation technologies and other emerging technologies for this purpose. In addition, the dangers and benefits brought by these powerful new technologies, as well as the changes in human living conditions, are also the focus of the transhumanist movement.

Obviously, if a large percentage of transhumanists could achieve financial independence, amazing things would happen. How can this be achieved?

There is a way...

We need to redistribute wealth! Here’s how:

Open peer-to-peer money running wild on the Internet represents an impending paradigm shift in the lifeblood of our economy—money. After 400 years of almost uncontested control of the money supply, the world's central banks now face formidable competition that threatens to render them completely obsolete. Not just central banks, any form of fund transfer no longer requires the help of a payment processor. Without the need for banking networks such as SWIFT or SEPA, without the need for any proprietary electronic money, many traditional banking models will become obsolete. We can live without going into a bank if we want to. Unless nearly every government in the world comes together to take control of the Internet, or eliminate it entirely, nothing will be able to stop this development. The genie is out of the bottle.

Bitcoin is the first peer-to-peer currency. As with peer-to-peer file sharing, anyone can participate simply by downloading a client. Bitcoin features are designed to empower users and provide advantages to early adopters:

1. Bitcoin respects no borders. Transactions with your neighbors are the same as transactions with users in the most remote parts of the online world.

2. Bitcoin does not create arbitrary amounts out of thin air like fiat currencies. Bitcoins are generated at a predictable rate through a process called mining. At the time of writing, the number of Bitcoins is 10 million and will never exceed 21 million.

3. A Bitcoin address has no obvious connection to its owner. Bitcoin transactions are anonymous unless the connection can be established through other means.

There are two motivations for wealth redistribution: Since the supply is very limited, if demand increases, the value of Bitcoin will rise predictably; If the number of users increases, early adopters will benefit , as their demand for Bitcoin drives the price up. How much can the price go up? We currently have 50,000 users and a market cap of $100 million. If a billion people use Bitcoin in the future, the price would have to rise by 5 orders of magnitude to compensate. In other words, if you buy one Bitcoin today, you will lose $12 if the project fails completely. But if the project is successful, you'll get $100,000 or more.

This already illustrates how wealth redistribution favors early adopters. Early adopters were able to obtain Bitcoin at a low price. Network effects are expanding the Bitcoin community and the price of Bitcoin will increase. The question now is, if anyone gains, who loses? After all, all currencies today are purely virtual, so this must be a zero-sum game. If Bitcoin rises, capital will flow into the Bitcoin economy. The losers are those who hold other currencies, as they will lose their capital. At current prices, this is completely negligible, as Bitcoin’s market cap is dwarfed by the 10 trillion euros in M3 and higher amounts in USD – since 2006, the Fed It was wisely decided not to publish these figures again. But whether users of these currencies will feel the loss is a question - the ECB and the Fed will hit them hard through inflation.

Image: Bitcoin price since 2010 to the time of writing. Ignoring bubbles, especially the one in mid-2011, Bitcoin prices follow exponential patterns pretty well.

As the Bitcoin community has now learned how to better utilize Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin is increasingly driven by usage, not just speculation. At some stage of market penetration, Bitcoin will replace Western Union and other money transfer services because that is what Bitcoin was designed to do from the beginning. Once the circulation of Bitcoin is closed and businesses can pay their bills in Bitcoin and generate revenue in Bitcoin, the use of Bitcoin will explode. Putting money on the further growth of Bitcoin seems like a very good bet - much better than a dollar or euro-denominated instrument such as life insurance, which is almost guaranteed to lose value and potentially become a piece of paper. .

Of course, Bitcoin has also received a lot of criticism since it became popular last year. Here are the most relevant criticisms, with counterarguments:

* Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme:  Like Ponzi schemes, Bitcoin rewards early adopters . The important difference is that Bitcoin has utility as a payment method, it doesn't promise to pay interest, so there's no obvious point for investors to chase it. Once the bubble bursts, the Ponzi scheme is gone forever. Bitcoin had a bubble in 2011 that burst in July, but has since recovered well.

* Bitcoin is a multi-level marketing (pyramid scheme) scam: As mentioned above, there are similarities, but there are also important differences. There are no individual rewards with Bitcoin like in an MLM, and if you own Bitcoin you don't have to do anything to profit from the price increase.

* Bitcoin has no intrinsic value: Nothing has intrinsic value. Everything has value, it's just that people value it differently. People tend to think that things with traditional value have intrinsic value, such as gold. Bitcoin doesn’t have a long legacy yet, but that will obviously change over time.

* Deflation is a bad thing: If falling prices were a bad thing, the semiconductor industry would be in crisis from the start. In a fiat currency system, a credit crunch is a bad thing: if everyone starts paying back loans instead of investing or consuming, productivity will be used to destroy money (this is the nature of paying back bank loans). As a result, the economy suffers, with market forces and deflation from defaults forcing people to work harder to repay their loans. Governments propagate the myth that deflation is bad, justify the creation of new money, and generate revenue from seigniorage and monetization of government debt—inflation taxes—under the euphemistic name of “monetary policy.”

As with any investment, Bitcoin has risks:

* Since Bitcoin is virtually anonymous, its applications to criminals are obvious. If it is restricted to this group of people, its value will be stuck (cannot continue to develop). The investment will not be lost, but there will also be no profit of 5 orders of magnitude.

* Elliptic curve encryption or the hashing algorithm used is broken: Depending on how it happens, this could be a complete loss or just a break until an alternative is implemented. There are already plans in place for this situation.

* Governments ban Bitcoin: This is a very real possibility as many governments plan to create a cashless society with proprietary electronic currencies where every transaction will Be monitored, taxed, and possibly vetoed in real time. The ban may be a major setback, but in such an environment, Bitcoin is very attractive to everyone as a cash alternative. Bitcoin could even profit from the ban.

* The price of Bitcoin can be volatile at times. There is no guarantee at any time that you won’t get Bitcoin at a cheaper price in the future. As a long-term investor, you must be able to ignore such short-term fluctuations.

There are many ways to obtain Bitcoin. Once you have Bitcoin, you want to withdraw it. If you just want to keep them, create a paper wallet, print it out and store it in your safe. Don’t forget to print another copy as a backup. Then withdraw the coins to the address shown and delete the paper wallet from your computer so it cannot be stolen by malware. that's all! When it's time to spend your Bitcoin, you can scan a QR code on your computer or mobile device to enter your wallet.

Cryonics will find the brain wallet option interesting: since the private key is just a very large (256-bit) number, it can be created deterministically with a passphrase. This is a string of words that are meaningful to you, possibly with something like your Social Security number added to it. Since you can remember this string of words now, you should be able to remember it when you are resurrected. So as long as you can keep your memory, you can use your funds even if everything else you have in the Dewar is taken away. What's more, you can prove that you are the owner of the Bitcoin address and therefore the owner of the funds on the Bitcoin address. This is accomplished by signing a message with your private key. Now, anyone can verify your ownership with this message and your public key. Depending on how Bitcoin goes, even one Bitcoin could be a fortune when you come back to life, so investing that small sum now to have real incentive to come back to life in the future seems like a smart move .

Bitcoin’s true value lies in its use as a form of payment. You need an e-wallet to spend them.

Transhumanists tend to be freethinkers, which means they usually cannot agree on anything. This is both the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the H+ movement. But if we can agree to use Bitcoin, and use our personal networks to spread it, then there are enough of us to make Bitcoin’s success – and therefore the price – a self-fulfilling prophecy.