Motive Power

There appears to be this notion by certain people in the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community that it’s less about supporting BCH the coin, and more about supporting the idea of peer to peer electronic cash. Similarly, there are those that wish to frown upon anyone wanting to see the fiat value of BCH increase, aka “number go up”. In this article, I’d like to talk about both.

First off, I think it's been established that BCH and peer to peer electronic cash are one and the same. In fact, there are quite a number of cryptocurrency projects that can claim to be some version of peer to peer electronic cash. Whether it’s BCH, BTC, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, etc., each of these digital currencies allow you to send funds from one person to another without requiring a trusted third party.

Each of these coins also utilize the proof of work mechanism as described in Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper, which only works because of the economic incentives that are in place to insure their viability. To put it another way, it’s the value of the coins themselves that incentivize miners to secure the network and prevent it from being 51% attacked. But it doesn’t stop there. The economic incentives are part of every facet of these projects. In addition to the miners, everyone from the developers, to the evangelists, to the entrepreneurs, do what they do because they are seeking the benefits of their actions. Sure, not everyone is driven solely by a desire to increase their net worth, as many of us are also driven by the desire to make the world a better place, but in most cases, it’s probably some combination of both. With that said, I guarantee that without the potential for a coin to go up in value, said coin would be dead on arrival. Miners wouldn’t mine, devs wouldn’t dev, investors wouldn’t invest, marketers wouldn’t market.

One could argue: “We just want peer to peer electronic cash, man, and since we don’t know which project has the best chance to succeed at the moment, we’re going to support multiple projects.”

This is a perfectly valid argument, of course, but unless you’re just a passive investor who wants to manage his risk profile, I’d argue this isn’t the best strategy.

Let’s say, for example, you want to open a restaurant. You don’t know exactly what kind of restaurant, but you know you want to serve food that people enjoy while making some money in the process. Is the best strategy to spend your time learning how to make sushi, and burritos, and pastas, so on? Or would it be better to do some research, figure out what has the best chance of success according to your definition of the term, and focusing on that?

I know it’s not a perfect analogy, but that’s kind of how I see the cryptocurrency landscape.

For my part, I believe the system created by Satoshi Nakamoto is a game changer, and among all the projects trying to bring his vision to the masses, I see Bitcoin Cash as having the best chance to succeed. As a result, it is the coin I’ve invested my time and money into, which brings us to the issue of “number go up”.

I’m not ashamed to admit I want the price of BCH to rise. Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent my hard earned money accumulating BCH, and I obviously don’t want to see that value disappear. It’s what motivates me to participate in the community and write these articles and try to inform others about the benefits of using BCH. I’m sure it’s the same for developers who are building the BCH ecosystem, and merchants who choose to accept it and hold it rather than converting immediately to fiat. I see nothing wrong with this mentality.

I want a peer to peer electronic cash system that can service the entire world. I want more economic freedom for every human on the planet. But I also want financial freedom for myself and my family so that I can spend my time working on those things I’m passionate about instead of working for “the man”.

I’m not advocating the BCH community should just turn into a bunch of lambo moonboys. This is not what I’m saying at all. We don't want to blindly promote BCH like the people who fell for the OneCoin. But when someone accuses me of “just wanting the fiat value of BCH to go up” as if this is some horrible sentiment, I have trouble taking you seriously. I think it’s in the best interest of the BCH community to focus on building and increasing adoption, but I also think there’s no reason to shun someone because they want to see “number go up”.

One more thing…

I recently had this idea in the middle of the night that really stuck with me. I debated writing an entire post about it, but I thought it fit in with the overall theme of this article so I’m including it here.

In the bitcoin world we always talk about incentives. But another word that could be used to describe the same thing is motivation. I know the words have almost identical meanings, but I think they have slightly different connotations and that small difference can help us better understand what bitcoin offers us.

Bitcoin motivates us to do things we might have never thought to do before. I think what amazes me is the way bitcoin can motivate the individual to action. Just looking at Read.cash, for example, you will find posts about young people in the Philippines, Venezuela, Ghana, and elsewhere, working as individuals to spread Bitcoin Cash adoption in their country. This is because Bitcoin Cash empowers them to do so. They believe in the technology and how it can help their communities and themselves. Once you have a little bitcoin in your possession, it's better than any motivational speaker.

Bitcoin Cash has been referred to as the gas that fuels the network. I see it as the spark that ignites this fire in people to work towards building a better world.

The idea of peer to peer electronic cash is great, but it’s the coins themselves that makes it tangible and real.

Speaking of motivation, it made me think of the phrase “motive power”. In Ayn Rand’s landmark work “Atlas Shrugged”, the hero of the story runs her family’s railroad empire. All throughout the novel you hear talk about locomotives and motive power, and it wasn’t until the other night when I realized it was a metaphor for capitalism. How capitalism is the engine that makes everything go. I felt like an idiot for never having seen it before. I believe that BCH can be the motive power that the world needs, and the BCH community of doers can be our version of Galt’s Gulch.

Now the question is, who will be our John Galt?