Bitcoin becomes the Flag of Technology

Balaji expressed his thoughts about what Bitcoin will represent over the 2020s in this video and the following essay:

Our first article is from @balajis.

"Over the 2020s, Bitcoin will become the flag of technology, because it represents the explicit encoding of the implicit values of the tech community. It's not just software — it is a Schelling point and a symbol."https://t.co/lK5lwLuV36

— Nakamoto (@nakamoto) January 4, 2020

Bitcoin will be a flag in the sense that the technological community can align around it. Because the members of this community all share the values Bitcoin encodes:

Internationalist, capitalist, decentralized, hyperdeflationary, networked, encrypted, digital, volatile, ambitious, and quietly revolutionary.

For example, Jack Dorsey runs Twitter, Reid Hoffman founded LinkedIn, and Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel are on the board of Facebook – but all of them are pro-Bitcoin. Similarly, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Telegram founder Pavel Durov are Chinese-Canadian and Russian expatriates respectively, and are also pro-Bitcoin. Different countries, different backgrounds, but a shared belief in digital currency.

A flag is something to align around. Bitcoin is many people's first choice and many people's second choice, which means it will become the community's first choice.

— balajis.com (@balajis) October 29, 2019

Instead of left versus right, the political axis of the 2020s will be:

Tech will align behind Bitcoin as part of the political realignment of the 2020s. Not traditional right vs left, but rather:

- Land v Cloud
- State v Network
- Centralized v Decentralized
- Nationalists/Socialists v International Capitalists
- Hamilton v Satoshi
- MMT v BTC

— balajis.com (@balajis) October 29, 2019

This thesis seems to be playing out. Fueled by money printing, Big Tech censorship, and limitations imposed on retail investors (which may be due to technological reasons) trying to buy GameStop and other stocks they like, more and more people are looking towards decentralization.

March 2020: The Fed accelerated the adoption of BTC by 5 years.

January 2021: Twitter/Apple/Google accelerated the adoption of Web3 by 5 years.

January 2021 (again): Robinhood accelerated the adoption of DeFi by 5 years.

— Qiao Wang (@QwQiao) January 29, 2021

Also god... Once again... @balajis was right all along

Decentralize everything

— delian (@zebulgar) January 28, 2021

We are now seeing Balaji's ideas manifesting.

It’s happening. #Bitcoin becomes the flag of technology, and all web services gradually get rebuilt on crypto.

We’re going back to our roots: encryption, privacy, peer-to-peer, the rights of the individual, free expression, and decentralization of power. https://t.co/kjvl5GmIpK pic.twitter.com/C0kBpVLF0O

— balajis.com (@balajis) January 29, 2021

Governments and other institutions with websites (also motivated by a claimed copyright infringement of the Bitcoin whitepaper), individuals, and companies are now aligning behind Bitcoin by hosting its whitepaper.

The Bit Signal

- for websites: host bitcoin.pdf
- for individuals: #Bitcoin in bio
- for companies: hold #BTC in treasury

Who is putting up the Bit Signal? https://t.co/0QkxQzjveg pic.twitter.com/62lwdwG10H

— balajis.com (@balajis) January 29, 2021

Sources

Bitcoin 101 via Khosla Ventures in 2015 (28 minutes)

Balaji has some prescient videos on Bitcoin that have stood the test of the time. I love this Bitcoin video from 2015 where he predicts companies will need a BTC strategy (Tesla has since put $1.5B on their books). This is more technical but a great bitcoin basics talk.

Why India Should Buy Bitcoin via 1729 (20 minutes)

While the post is focused on India, this is a comprehensive analysis on the benefits of any country buying Bitcoin and the promise of cryptocurrencies in general. (Bonus: How India Legalizes Crypto and Add Crypto to IndiaStack)