When we think about freedom, a lot of things come to mind – freedom of belief, of speech, expression and freedom to do what we want, with whom we want as long as we are not hurting someone else in the process. This is mostly experienced as a sense of being your own master- having a great degree of autonomy over your life and decisions.
Over time, human society has evolved into what you see today. In most cases, the people who envisioned these societies all those years ago would be terribly disappointed if they were alive to see what has become of them today. The truth is that their radical ideas would probably land them in a prison cell! So, we all need to ask ourselves, what went wrong and how do we fix it?
We all live within societies and have an obligation towards the people living around us. It makes sense for the members of a society to treat each other with respect. This builds trust between people and lays down the stability on which any great society is built. If we were all constantly at war with one another then we would have no time to innovate and build interesting things. We would not be able to raise our children well because we would be constantly running from external threats.
It was with this stability in mind that we elected governments to help keep the system running along smoothly – make sure new cities are planned well, that everyone has access to clean drinking water, make sure everyone gets a good education, ensure that people have access to a doctor in case they need one etc. We have also codified various offences and created a system to penalize those who break the social contract. This is how jails, police and court houses came to be.
In a highly functioning society, each person is a specialist within their own domain – some people are experts at building solar farms, others are expert farmers, carpenters, game designers etc. We have applied this same reasoning to governments and entrusted them with looking after the public good. Over time, this system has changed – the mechanisms that were put in place to protect people are now the ones that are killing them.
Education systems that were intended to uplift and upskill people are now the same creations that are keeping people in the dark. A media that was intended to inform people about the important events going on all over the world now seeks to manipulate them and maintain the status quo. I’m sure we have all experienced this crumbling of society in our own way and have tried to make sense of it. These are the systems that keep us in poverty – living paycheck to paycheck in a constant cycle that keeps us working for the profits of others. We have also learnt about how inflation works as a tax on our savings – eroding the value of the long hours of work we had put in. The insane speed at which central banks all around the world have been printing notes have stunned most of us, yet the people in charge tell us not to worry about rising prices while the rich head out to buy all the available housing and farmland with this freshly minted money.
When you wake up to see the system for what it is, you will realize that it is a massive scam hidden behind a thin veil of numbers. A system in which a few people control most of the world’s resources and power. Now getting to the point – we need a tool that can help democratize power and help people regain the freedoms that they have lost. I’m not saying that we fix this system overnight. But, I am saying that we can stop making the same mistakes that were made in the past.
I would recommend that you listen to this talk by Ross Ulbricht if you want to understand a few more things about freedom and how governments deal with people that they do not like
5 ways in which Bitcoin cash promotes freedom –
1. It’s decentralized – Bitcoin cash is peer to peer electronic cash. This means that people can trade BCH with each other without having to involve a third party like a bank or payment processor. You hold funds in your private wallet vs the conventional system of holding currency in a bank. This means that you have access to your funds wherever you are. Nobody can block your account or seize your assets.
2. It’s permissionless – You do not need anyone’s authorization or permission to hold or send BCH. You are the master of your funds, and you can do whatever you like with the money you possess. This means that BCH is open to everyone, everywhere in the world.
3. It protects your privacy – Currently banks and payment processors share a lot of our personal and financial data with governments and other organizations. This is what helps them to provide us their services for free. But what we don’t understand is that we are actually the commodity that is up for sale. We have no control over how the data we generate is being used and this makes us easy targets for manipulation.
4. It has limited supply - The Bitcoin Cash protocol ensures there will never be more than 21 million coins in existence. Governments constantly print money out of thin air, endlessly inflating the supply and devaluing everyone’s savings. This is what is leading to high inflation rates in many parts of the world. Hyperinflation starts off slow but spins out of control really fast – you’ll need to look very closely to see the cracks forming. Bitcoin Cash has a fixed supply and therefore represents sound money.
5. It has low transaction fees – Bitcoin Cash has one of the lowest transaction fees among all the cryptocurrencies out there. You can send money to anyone, anywhere in the world for just a few satoshis. It works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with no delays. This transaction fee goes to ensure that people are paid for verifying transactions and keeping the network secure. This means that everyone is incentivized to keep the Bitcoin cash system running smoothly.
As adoption of Bitcoin Cash increases, more merchants will be willing to accept BCH and more people will have BCH to spend. We will be able to give the world a money that is much more stable and robust that the fiat currencies that we use today. There are countless possibilities, and we are just at the beginning of a new wave of technological innovations within the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
This technology has allowed us to experiment with the ideals of democracy in a new way. In the future, we can hope to create a more just society where all people are treated with dignity and where people who hold seats of power can be held accountable for their actions. Let’s work to make this change possible one step at a time. The first step is switching away from the currencies of oppression. Encourage local businesses and the people around you to make the switch to BCH. In time, the old systems will crumble and a new one will be ready to take its place.
