"If you can control the information, you can control people"
-Tom Clancy
This is the answer to everyone claiming that Bitcoin was allowed to advance with no intervention by governments and infiltration by banks.
Until 2013, Bitcoin was expanding rapidly and adoption was expected to reach exponential levels. It could only take 5-6 years before Bitcoin dominating e-commerce.
BUT, as with any other financially disruptive technology, there was a plan introduced to halt the rise of Bitcoin.
First, there had to be some new people around. Satoshi Nakamoto was already a ghost, but he had left a legacy and writings that were going to bring a financial revolution, one that would put Bitcoin as a fierce competitor next to top payment facilitators: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Paypal.
Control of Information
Source (modified)
There are many strategies applied. Each situation is different and for a disruptive force, modern and decentralized, expanding so rapidly that in just a couple of years could become a threat to the traditional finance and the dollar, where you can’t just ban or arrest the devs to stop it from running, then a very delicate approach was required.
Can anyone think the banks were going to just allow Bitcoin to take over part of e-commerce and become a threat to the dollar?
Since 2010, when WikiLeaks adopted Bitcoin as a method of donations on its website, Bitcoin became a target for governments and banks. I give 0% odds banks were not planning to destroy Bitcoin and once they found it wasn’t possible; they infiltrated and taken control. You can’t completely take control of a decentralized network, though. This was understood soon enough, so the next move was to delay the rapid expansion.
Bitcoin had this one weakness. Satoshi, with an update in 2010, applied blocksize in the code, something that other developers found out later.
In June 2013, one certain person appeared out of nowhere in the bitcoin world (source). He was immediately pointing arguments about the Bitcoin code, his previous work, how important his work had been for the creation of the blockchain, and wrote lengthy articles that would instantly constitute him as an authority within the bitcointalk community.
He was British, and a famous cypherpunk. He was using double-space, and had an academic approach with his writing, exactly as Satoshi Nakamoto. This is Adam Back.
Adam Back took this step to write about Bitcoin, because there was a plan. Blockstream was formed a few months later, and the plan unfolded with small steps.
Back was talking about a payment system too, although the actual intention was private company side-chains that would create the impression of decentralization over another decentralized blockchain but will eventually create controllable and censorable networks, running on top of a problematic layer-1.
Control by Confusion
An exceptional Read.Cash member and content creator (VoluntaryJapan) wrote a series of articles a few weeks ago, with the title Control by Confusion (4 parts).
This is a known strategy used a lot often by the Bitcoin community. Most of the BTC maximalists are already confused themselves, therefore instruments of those controlling the narrative.
Because of the lack of clarity, people need to continue to look to that person to try to gauge if they’re going in the right direction.
They become dependent and off-balance, continuing to need to come back to that leader to interpret reality for them.
Continuing to confuse people can be a subtle but effective means of control.
Source: Logan Leadership
It was one of the strategies used by those supporting small blocks during the blocksize debate. They created confusion and Adam Back even until the final moments were seemingly supporting the blocksize increase until of course, he didn't.
I’ve written extensively (link) about the tactics employed by Adam Back and how he used quotes and articles written by devs under Blockstream’s payroll as support to the 1MB block argument. This was also part of the control by confusion method.
Currently, they will confuse everyone with the swift change of position about what Bitcoin actually represents and mostly target those with limited knowledge of finance. The responses and the arguments made today by BTC maxis almost make no sense.
Some of them are traders like Tone Vays, that as every other trader offer zero scientific arguments or any math at all to back their drawings.
Censorship
And this is just one of the tactics in place. Censorship is commonly practiced within the BTC community.
Controlling the information is about controlling the narrative. But most importantly, the development.
Software without radical development is not going to last, and the BTC community understands that, but those that constitute it today, are tightly supporting Blockstream that also has under its payroll the developers that hold the most important spots, and has total support from the individuals that control bitcointalk, r/bitcoin, and other major news websites.
A free press would have been detrimental for Blockstream’s plans, thus control of the press was the first step. The two most used sources of information about Bitcoin at the time were the Reddit r/bitcoin community and bitcointalk. Both are still controlled by Theymos.
And both those publications initiated an information war, by censoring and shorting Reddit comments in dubious ways, having those with the most downvotes appear first while burring at the bottom the top articles supporting change of blocksize.
At bitcointalk, a crusade began and accounts supporting Bitcoin Cash are marked as not trusted.
First, there was a need to obliterate any opposition, censor any debates, and create a sense of religious devotion and military discipline to the BTC maximalists.
This has reached levels of personally attacking anyone asking questions in the core media run by BTC maximalists, censorship of articles,
You only need to see the result to understand the reasons they surrendered Bitcoin to the banks.
We only need to look into who is using BTC today and what plans are there for the future.
El Salvador? By enforcing its citizens to use a custodial and KYC compliant LN wallet? How is this Bitcoin or even BTC, they should rename this to LN-Coin as @Telesfor suggested previously.
Conclusion
Meme generated using: Imgflip
When was it that Satoshi suggested Bitcoin would require third parties to control the transactions?
Strike can freeze any amount inside these wallets and exclude any individual from the financial system. How is this supposed to be providing censorship resistance and a response to the failures of the banks?
Similar to Strike is almost all services built on LN today. This is not Bitcoin and not even BTC, users of these services will have access to. They won’t be able to extract keys and will require full KYC to use their money.
No different at all from using a mobile bank application. Financial hubs are already controlling the Lightning Network. It doesn’t have to be banks. The banks were not interested in taking over Bitcoin to use it for their benefit. They were interested in crippling Bitcoin and allowing private control over transactions and wallets.
Why do you think Saylor was so fond of calling for regulations, KYC/AML compliance, and custodial wallets? And thousands of BTC maximalists are still cheering at the comments section on Twitter.
This is BTC (or LN-Coin as it evolved), a banking and government tool today. A testnet that helps authoritarian regimes control the financial life of their citizens even further and enhance their totalitarian ambitions.
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Read More:
Dr. Strangelove - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BTC
How the Banks Hijacked Bitcoin, Using Blockstream as a Trojan Horse - Why Bitcoin Cash
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I think readcash is for talented, smart, good with words people only. I recently followed the author and quite amaze by her/him. I created my readcash but i guess its useless coz' i cant even write. Hope someone make an article or write something useful tips on how to start writing artcles and stuff, how to begin etc.