Last night I had the distinct pleasure of having an in-depth conversation with Jeff Booth, who I often call the Eckhart Tolle of Bitcoin.
Booth, speaking softly yet directly, hammered home one point in particular in the conversation that, while I didn’t understand it at first, ultimately resonated deeply with me.
He said “We are Bitcoin” several times in his attempts to convey that Bitcoin will continue to work if we continue to make it work.
At first, this statement seemed contradictory to Bitcoin. Technically, of course, we are not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open source protocol that allows people to transfer value securely and without permission. Furthermore, Bitcoin is designed to actually require less human involvement than traditional monetary and financial systems because the inflation rate cannot be changed by humans and there are no intermediaries involved in Bitcoin transactions.
Yet we are Bitcoin, just as Booth said.
We are the ones who have to set up nodes to keep the network decentralized.
We are the ones who connect the miners to power and secure the network.
And we are the ones who educate others about Bitcoin and champion it in the social arena.
We are human nodes in the network, doing our part to keep Bitcoin technically running and spreading information about Bitcoin to the world.
Without taking our responsibility as human nodes, Bitcoin becomes less decentralized, less secure, and less understood.
So if you’re reading this, know that you are Bitcoin, part of the most incredible system for human freedom and prosperity ever created, and both enjoy it and trade on it.