change the entire world in a
decade, without asking for
anyone’s permission.”
Meeting Roger in person,
Erik immediately detected
that they shared more than
just basic libertarian politics.
They both occupied a more
idealistic
place
on
the
libertarian
spectrum,
less
interested in reducing taxes
and
more
interested
in
stopping
government-
sponsored wars—looking up
to the same thinkers who had
motivated Ross Ulbricht. At
the same time, neither Roger
nor Erik was the type of
anarchist-leaning libertarian
who fought against authority
figures
and
societal
expectations of all kinds.
Both men always looked
presentable—usually clad in
slacks and polo shirts—and
generally
approached
conversation with a respectful
and deferential tone.
At the conference, the two
men had commiserated about
the fact that even in the
libertarian
world,
where
Bitcoin should have had the
easiest time winning fans, it
had been slow going. Both of
them had run up against lots
of libertarians who doubted
the American dollar, but did
not see Bitcoin as a more
stable or solid alternative.
The problem for many
libertarians
was
their
ingrained belief that money
had
to
be
backed
by
something with real value,
like gold. One of the patron
saints of gold bugs, the
economist Carl Menger, had
argued that all successful
money
arose
from
commodities that had some
intrinsic value, even before
they become money. From
this
perspective,
Bitcoin
appeared to have no chance—
there was no independent
demand for these virtual
tokens on the blockchain. But
Erik argued that it was the
very virtual nature of Bitcoin
that made it so valuable.
Unlike gold, it could be easily
and
quickly
transferred
anywhere in the world, while
still having the qualities of
divisibility and verifiability
that
had
made
gold
a
successful currency for so
many years.
By the time they left New
York, Erik and Roger had
hatched a plan to start
winning over some of the
libertarian doubters. Their
goal was to get some actual
Bitcoins into the hands of all
of the fifteen thousand or so
people in the Free State
Project. Roger offered to
donate the coins himself. It
took some negotiations with
the board of the Free State
Project. Given its concern
about
privacy,
the
organization didn’t want to
hand over the e-mails of
members. But Roger offered
to send the board the coins so
that it could send the coins
out itself. To deliver the coins
—0.01 Bitcoin for each
person—Roger and Erik used
a new program that Erik had
been
developing
with
a
programmer he knew in
Colorado.
Part of the goal was to
show how Bitcoin could
allow transactions that were
not possible, or at best not
easy,
in
the
traditional
financial
system.
Roger
transferred his donation from
Japan to New Hampshire
without any fees or wait.
Meanwhile, the size of the
payments
sent
to
each
member was small enough
that the fees involved in
sending such a payment,
using PayPal or a check,
would have been greater than
the payment itself. On top of
that, the Free State Project
could send the money to its
members without needing any
personal
information—
showing that this was, indeed,
digital cash.
The whole thing was
worked out by the beginning
of October and, as part of the
deal, the Free State Project
began accepting donations in
Bitcoin. The announcement
from the Free State Project
made the board members
sound like converts: “Our
eyes are on the long-term, the
future, and Bitcoin is very
exciting for our project and
human freedom in general.”
BITCOIN HAD THE good fortune
of hitting hard times at a
moment when there was a
renewed
willingness
to
rethink the foundations of the
existing financial system.
On one side of the
spectrum,
the
2012
presidential campaign of Ron
Paul was gaining steam in the
fall of 2011, thanks in no
small part to his discussion of
the Federal Reserve and
monetary policy. He argued
that the central bank had
encouraged the real estate
bubble with low interest rates,
and had done more damage
by printing money after the
crisis hit. Around the time
that Erik was selling the Free
State Project on Bitcoin, Paul
likened the Fed’s money
printing to a drug addiction.
He warned that if it wasn’t
reined in, the central bank
would do itself in.
“The Federal Reserve will
close
themselves
down
eventually when they destroy
money,” Paul said on the
campaign trail.
Meanwhile, a month after
the
Bitcoin
conference,
protesters took over Zuccotti
Park in Manhattan and began
what
became
known
as
Occupy Wall Street, taking
aim at the government’s
decision to bail out the big
banks but not the rest of the
population.
The
Bitcoin
forum was full of people
talking
about
their
experiences visiting Zuccotti
Park
and
other
Occupy
encampments
around
the
country to advertise the role
that a decentralized currency
could play in bringing down
the banks. The people who
had been attending the New
York Bitcoin Meetup went to
Zuccotti Park with flyers and
cards offering an introduction
to Bitcoin. Soon enough, a
few branches of the Occupy
movement began accepting
Bitcoin
donations.
The
anticorporate
Occupy
sentiment was even more
widespread in the European
Bitcoin community, where
libertarianism had less of a
foothold. An anarchist bar in
a hip neighborhood of Berlin,
Room 77, had been one of the
first establishments to accept
Bitcoin and it became a
regular gathering spot for
many of the European Bitcoin
developers who were working
with Gavin Andresen.
The
different
communities where Bitcoin
was winning support were not
always in agreement about
what kind of future they were
working toward. For many
members of the Free State
Project and the Ron Paul