Being involved in the cryptocurrency sphere, one falsely gets the impression that Bitcoin SV (BSV) faces hostility primarily from other coins. Not only other coins, but also shady exchanges and fake news crypto media outlets seem to be the enemy to defeat. However, the real enemy of BSV is none of these parties—it is way mightier and not so easy to detect.
Josh Petty, co-founder and CEO of Twetch, wrote a remarkable article titled, “Information and Capitalism.” In this piece, he refers to insights from economist George Gilder and lays out a bright future for humanity, unlike the almost apocalyptic future currently being propagated by governments, enterprises and other groups in society.
The article gives a hint at who really is the enemy of Bitcoin SV and it is well worth paying attention.
What is Information Capitalism and how does it relate to Bitcoin?
What we can learn from Josh Petty’s article is the way data and capitalism works nowadays compared to a soon-to-be witnessed Bitcoin driven economy. In today’s data capitalism, only governments and certain Silicon Valley affine companies have access to big data. We, the users and the ones actually delivering data, are not granted access.
This results in a data access asymmetry. In Information Capitalism, everyone not only delivers, but also has access to data, including permitting or restricting third parties to profit from personal information. Petty describes Information Capitalism as follows:
Informational Capitalism measures wealth as knowledge and growth as learning. Creativity is simply experimenting to gain new information to learn from. For maximum creativity, you need a system free of interference (capitalism)… Information Capitalism is what will set us a free from the dark hands of big corporations and corrupt government.
In order to establish Information Capitalism, Bitcoin SV is the tool to be used:
Bitcoin is the foundation of Information Capitalism. With it, we have a simple protocol to build complex systems… In order for Information Capitalism to thrive and elevate us from a world of control, we need a system that is authentic and reliable as a measure of economic activity. This is exactly what Bitcoin provides us.
In the article, Petty explains most governments and Silicon Valley companies neither want capitalism, nor free flow of data. They find Information Capitalism distasteful, as it combines both capitalism and information. What he also points out is an upcoming rivalry between Bitcoin SV’s growth enabling and certain forces in politics and enterprises that carry an anti-growth mentality.
Bitcoin SV enables growth
Bitcoin SV is pro-growth and cannot succeed without growth. There are plenty of reasons why Bitcoin SV and no other coin enables growth. Bitcoin SV is nothing new in technological terms, as blockchain solutions were described already in 1999. The uniqueness of Bitcoin SV is found in its economic approach to economic problems:
- With microtransactions, only reliably doable on Bitcoin SV, online content can be commercialized without intermediaries or inefficient payment models such as subscriptions. It furthermore allows for people to pay tiny amounts for services and goods, which is impossible with the current fiat money system (where the tiniest amount is $0.01).
- The deflationary supply of coins in Bitcoin SV is a growth driver. Unlike in BTC and other cryptocurrencies, where deflationary supply is only seen as an argument for the coin to be “digital gold” or a “store of value,” Bitcoin SV understands deflationary supply of coins as a growth enabler. In inflationary environments like the current fiat money system, people tend to consume more than they actually work, because their money loses purchasing power each second. The opposite goes for truly deflationary environments, where people usually work harder, because it pays off way more in the long term. Deflationary environments enable hard work and safe savings at the same time.
- Bitcoin SV is a permissionless network. Anyone can join and make use of it. There is no need to be placed close to developers or “people in charge.” The open network invites anyone to participate economically and incentivizes participants to further strengthen the network.
- Peer-to-peer transactions using Bitcoin SV’s unique SPV allow for secure, efficient and fast payment—unlike other transactional models such as Lightning Network, where there is no peer-to-peer transacting, but peer-to-miner-to-lightning-to-miner-to-peer transacting only.
- Bitcoin SV scales massively. This is important and a competitive advantage concerning all other cryptocurrencies, as massive scalability is necessary to meet the demand of an informational capitalistic driven society.
Other cryptocurrencies such as BTC are anti-growth. They intentionally cripple Bitcoin’s and other coins’ ability to use micro payments, to perform peer-to-peer transactions, to allow anyone entry into the network and to scale. They do not act like this for entertainment purposes, but from their fear of real growth, as growth undermines the role developers and the role so-called thought leaders currently play in the crypto sphere.
Why would politics and big enterprises be anti-growth though?
Governments and big enterprises usually enjoy a reputation of being pro-growth in general, which actually is false. Both governments and big enterprises can be understood as people in power, and people in power tend to want one thing only: retaining their position of power. Real growth brings new players to the market and to the political game, which confronts people in positions of power by definition. New players are competition, whether in political or economic terms.
Governments, especially in the western hemisphere, are focused on distributing wealth instead of enabling growth, because with distribution of wealth they remain in control. Growth makes the concept of a universal social state and with it huge governmental infrastructures almost obsolete.
Do not get me wrong here. Bitcoin SV is not against governments, and governments are not against Bitcoin SV. However, a certain anti-growth mentality in governments is. Governments in all cases benefit from Bitcoin SV using its efficiency and audit abilities.
Enterprises in strong market positions have nothing to gain from real growth either. With new players entering the market, big companies and their inability to move fast in fresh born market opportunities see growth as a disruption to avoid.
Growth brings change. Change is risk. Anyone already positioned well financially and from a power perspective has no interest in change.
It is therefore safe to say Bitcoin SV’s real enemy is neither other cryptocurrencies nor the crypto ecosystem in its current state with all the exchanges and crypto media groups ranting about Bitcoin SV’s growing success—it’s the existing power structures of political and economic kinds with their anti-growth mentality.
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