This is an opinion editorial by Peter Conley, a product advocate at Vercel.
BlackRock partnering with Coinbase to offer bitcoin services is not just good for bitcoin, it’s great for bitcoin. Because bitcoin is for everyone — and I mean everyone; it’s not just for the plebs or the technologists or the “tech bros” or the cryptographers or the early adopters.
Bitcoin is for Vladimir Putin.
Bitcoin is for the Dalai Lama.
Bitcoin is for Kim Jong-un.
Bitcoin is for Eckhart Tolle.
It’s for every saint and every sinner. For every Buddha and every bastard. For every poor person and every billionaire. For every mother and every daughter. For every father and every son.
That’s not limited to the present day; it would have applied to the past as well. Bitcoin would have been for Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler. It would have been for Ghengis Khan and Jesus.
Most wars, past and present, are funded through the hidden tax of inflation, not direct taxation. It’s the most common way for unpopular policies (that are typically destructive) to be forced onto the populace.
With bitcoin, WWII would have never lasted as long as it did. With bitcoin, the Iraq war probably wouldn’t have even started. With bitcoin, the military-industrial complex would be 10 times smaller.
With bitcoin, “too big to fail” businesses couldn’t exist. If we had truly hard money, those businesses that can’t survive without cheap debt or which take reckless risks, would be washed out as a natural clearing function.
With bitcoin, the bankers couldn’t have been bailed out during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and BlackRock wouldn’t be nearly the size it is today, nor would J.P. Morgan or any of those other rent-seeking institutions.
In the long run, bitcoin takes away power from the warmongers and those who must inflate the money supply in order to buy and produce endless weapons and conduct endless wars.
It takes power away from people who bask in zero-sum trade-based games and businesses. It’ll take away power from the over-financialized system we currently have, the one where derivative traders are more valuable than top-tier doctors.
Bitcoin gives power to people like Jack Mallers over Jamie Dimon. It gives power to those on Bitcoin Beach instead of the International Monetary Fund. It gives power to the Ukrainian citizens fighting the Russian insurgency.
Jeff Booth was once asked the question, “What’s the worst thing about bitcoin?” His response was, “You have to accept that the people you hate the most will begin using it and it will make the network stronger.”
We’re getting to the stage of bitcoin adoption where it’s too big to ignore. You can’t turn it off and it has become “a vortex of positive incentives,” as Robert Breedlove likes to say.
That means we’ll begin to see all types of countries, leaders, entities and people piling in. Even those that may have benefited and accelerated the current broken system — and that’s okay. It’s part of the process.
The hardest pill to swallow is that those who benefited from the Cantillon Effect, who got us in the position we are today, are the ones that can accelerate bitcoin adoption the quickest.
Back in the early days of Facebook, they had to grow user by user. No one could individually bring a billion users to the network, but you can now bring a billion dollars to the Bitcoin network, or ten billion, or a hundred billion.
Yes, the retail market is what got bitcoin to where it is now, but it won’t get to where it needs to go. In order to get the world onto the Bitcoin Standard, it’ll require those who benefit from and are addicted to the fiat standard.
The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund can move the puck forward with one allocation just as quickly as 3 million plebs. Norway’s Government Pension Fund can effectively double the price of bitcoin if they wanted. A family office can take more coins off the market and into cold storage more quickly than the first 100,000 users. BlackRock’s clientele can move the price up quicker than any army of plebs.
These are good things, not bad things. This is the embodiment of “gradually, then suddenly.”
Yes, it stings knowing that rent seekers and violent actors will probably end up with more sats than you but, in the long run, it doesn’t matter. I’m in this for the better future on the other side, not for the sick gains.
A better future means widespread adoption by as many souls as possible.
With bitcoin, the financial entities like BlackRock and similar hedge funds, who produce nothing and are the benefactors of the Cantillon Effect, will eventually be reduced to their proper size and scope.
So yeah, I’m all for BlackRock providing bitcoin services. Because bitcoin is the ultimate Trojan horse and the old legacy financial system is Troy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m cheering because BlackRock opened the gates.
Now all we have to do is roll on in.
This is a guest post by Peter Conley. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.