Do we need Bitcoin?

The cashless society is just around the corner. Banknotes and coins are becoming increasingly rare in many places of the world. This is the dream of governments and other manifestations of Bigbrotherism. They want everyone to have a bank (or other) account and then in various ways make transfers between those accounts. Everything can be monitored. They will know exactly what you earn, exactly what you spend, and exactly on what you spend and where you spend it. Moreover, they can freeze your money or take it, as they see fit.

This is the opposite of cash, which can move from hand to hand without anyone knowing anything about it, apart from the two involved parties.

Why does Big Brother want to monitor everything?

There are several common excuses for the implementation of cashless finance. The most dramatic ones are to combat corruption, drug trading, and the financing of terrorism. This is just rubbish. People in those businesses will always find ways to make their transactions as discreetly as they want or need. The cashless society aims at the common people; to erase the black market and the informal sector, to control everyone and to ensure that everyone pays taxes on everything. But also to ensure the power of negative interest, which is a new creative way to steal from people. It affects money in the bank, not stashed cash. If all money must be in the bank, the negative interest cannot be avoided.

The cashless society can hardly be avoided. Period. But does it have to become a tool of the Big Brothers of this world? Does it have to become a tool for slavery?

With government-issued money: yes. In reality, all such money is owned by the government. People may hold it and use it, as long as they do it in the way the government wants. But don't fall for the deception that you would own your money. If you don't play according to the rules of the government, the money will be frozen or simply taken away from you. (Because this is not a trustless system. You don't only have to trust others, you are forced to be at their mercy.)

For money not issued by a government: not necessarily so, as long as the money is not based on a physical commodity whose possession falls within the jurisdiction of a state. And that's where cryptocurrencies come in. The development of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, came as a response to the gradual loss of financial freedom and privacy we have seen during several decades. It shows an alternative to the Bigbrotheristic version of cashlessness. A cryptocurrency cannot be considered as cash, but it is a digital solution offering important cash-like characteristics. It cannot be controlled or manipulated by any government, and although transactions can be monitored through the public blockchain, it is technically possible for those who so desire, to keep ownership invisible.

Currently, cryptocurrencies are the major defence against total financial slavery.

Not everything called a cryptocurrency is a genuine cryptocurrency though. The word “cryptocurrency” currently have positive vibes, so it is also used to mislead people. Governments are good at this sort of games when they try to make their populations embrace new freedom-limiting laws or projects. Today governments, or their central banks, are increasingly interested in making their version of a cryptocurrency. But central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are not genuine cryptocurrencies, they are just digital versions of the same old FIAT - they are tools of deepening slavery, since they admit governments more power, not less. I am idealistic enough to embrace as a goal of cryptocurrency: the removal of political control of money.

"Now the reason given by our rulers for suppressing cash is to keep society safe from terrorists, tax evaders, money launderers, drug cartels, and other villains real or imagined. The actual aim of the flood of laws restricting or even prohibiting the use of cash is to force the public to make payments through the financial system. This enables governments to expand their ability to spy on and keep track of their citizens’ most private financial dealings, in order to milk their citizens of every last dollar of tax payments that they claim are due."

(Joseph T. Salerno, in his article "Why Government Hates Cash")

Your principle has placed these words above the entrance of the legislative chamber: “whosoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of legal plunder.” And what has been the result? All classes have flung themselves upon the doors of the chamber crying: “A share of the plunder for me, for me!”

(Frederic Bastiat, Plunder and Law, 1850)

"The government says to the citizen: Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide."

(Frank Chodorov, The Income Tax: Root of All Evil, Chapter 3)

I have added to my INDEX as a separate label/topic: Cryptocurrency & Digital Money.

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