*In this multi-part special edition of The Freedom Analects, we will be featuring the excellent written work of author John Vallis titled “Money Messiah: God, Bitcoin, and The Evolution of Consciousness.” This essay beautifully depicts the deeper aspects of value and money, their indispensability to human action, and demonstrates why corrupt money is such a destructive force. John’s original work is available in its entirety here.
Bitcoin and ‘Incorruptible’ Money
It is for this very reason that markets have always sought the most ‘incorruptible’ money available, as incorruptibility allows for optimal transmission of the information which money is meant to carry, and thereby best preserves its ‘truth-finding’ function, and the proper ordering of hierarchical relationships into the future.
Incorruptibility is the only thing that will allow the original ‘value signal’ to remain pristine, by excluding any extraneous information, and propagate throughout the market in perpetuity, to continue contributing to the manifestation of the greatest possible benefit.
The problem, however, is that the usefulness, power, even sacredness of money presents a conundrum; if money is the most useful tool in the human social domain, will it not be subject to endless attempts at corrupting or coopting it in some way? What would result if those attempts were successful? It would be equal to corrupting the will of every person who agrees (or had agreed, or is forced to agree) to use that money. In doing so, the sanctity of the unspoken (and largely unconscious) agreement on which the money’s use is predicated, would be strained, if not broken entirely. The result would be even worse if this corruption occurred unbeknownst to those people.
This is why money is in constant evolution, because the utility of it can extract the very best from us in our attempts to obtain it fairly, or the very worst from us in our attempts to obtain it unfairly (we are, rightly, judged by the manner in which we pursue money, or anything else for that matter). This has placed an enormous pressure on money, fostering a historical process of converging on one which seemed to ‘work’ for a time, and then finding out that it’s qualities were not sufficient to keep the worst of us (or in us) from figuring out ways to corrupt it (because of the power which doing so granted).
The only way to preserve the integrity of the money, such that what is ‘written’ into the invisible data contained in prices, is not ‘written over’ across time, and to ensure that work done earlier in time is always valued more than work done in the present moment (as all else equal, the former serves as foundation for the latter), is quite simply, not to change the relationship between the money and the individual — that is, not to increase the total supply, and not to inhibit the ability of the individual to use it in whatever manner they choose.
That is, to instantiate and preserve the ‘truth and freedom’ in the money, so to speak.
This ensures that the relationship between the money, and the sacrifice which it’s attempting to represent, doesn’t change, and that therefore everything is ‘judged’ the same way.
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This is the stunning achievement of bitcoin — the ability to instantiate, for the first time, a constant — a (possibly) unchanging metric — in the realm of inter-subjective ‘value’.
Bitcoin’s ongoing (and upgoing!) price discovery, seems to be a testament to the extreme value of such a collectively agreed-upon (and verifiable) ‘truth’.
If such a measure can remain impervious to change, will it become the highest-fidelity representation we’ve ever had, of the principle which seems to most animate, propel and order our experience of reality — the truth that permits liberation?
The Bitcoin Era
Whatever the ultimate answer is to the above question, it seems clear to me that bitcoin is the next, if not the final, stage in the evolution of money (and the antithesis of fiat).
Bitcoin propagates pristine information, without prejudice, which reflects the values of all those who use it, as revealed in the interaction facilitated by its exchange. It does this by having discovered the necessary constituents for the establishment and preservation of a perfect measure — an inviolable mirrored representation of our own absolute limitation.
This system of truthful communication, which incorruptible money establishes, is not an end, but is instead what permits the heretofore optimal relationship for individuals to have with one another, toward maximizing the benefits of voluntary cooperation.
But how, in the face of those who would seek to undermine this sanctification of freedom and truth, is bitcoin able to resist? How is it to maintain these seemingly miraculous characteristics?
How is it to be, and stay, ‘incorruptible’?
It’s beyond the purview of this exploration to go into detail regarding the likelihood that any of bitcoin’s ‘attackers’ would be successful. Many have explored this topic, and I suggest you consult their analysis.
For simplicity here, we’ll assume that ‘economic’ actors, that is, those seeking financial gain from any kind of attack, are largely neutralized via bitcoin’s architecture and incentive structure — playing by the rules is more profitable than attempting to break them (because in breaking them, all value attempting to be accessed would likely rapidly disappear).
Satoshi:
“If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth.”
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Non-economic actors, colluding nation states intent on stopping bitcoin from disrupting their monopoly on money, say, is a more contentious topic. It remains to be seen if such an attack could be successfully carried out, and whether or not it would prove fatal, or even sustainable. There are many variables at play, and ultimately, it may come down to revealing which incentives, taken in aggregate, are truly most powerful.
The archetypal ‘good vs evil’, if you will.
Believing that bitcoin could survive any such attacks, is a belief that the incentives to use it as tool to leverage, would win-out over those which would seek to destroy it. Given that its potential benefits are so great, and are open to anyone who chooses to avail of them, I suspect the incentives to play by the rules will ultimately trump those of the (albeit powerful) minority who might seek the protocol’s demise.
But even if both of these assumptions prove accurate, is it not still contradictory to say that something which we humans have constructed, imperfect as we are — corruptible as we are — is ‘incorruptible’?
I believe it is.
Bitcoin dramatically reduces the incentives that have enticed corruption, but they have not, indeed cannot, be eliminated. Any aspect of bitcoin CAN be changed, which means it can be corrupted (even accidentally).
But will it ever happen? What is ‘holding it together’?
Of course, the answer is, ourselves.
In Part 10, we will discover how ‘faith’ plays a role in the integrity of man-made order…
Thank you for reading Money Messiah (Part 9).
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Money Messiah (Part 9)