What Bitcoin Did
From Wall Street to Bitcoin & The Separation of Money & State | Vijay Selvam
- Bitcoin represents the first viable separation of money and state through digital scarcity, echoing Enlightenment values of decentralization and individual sovereignty rather than relying on trusted intermediaries.
- Digital scarcity solves the portability, divisibility, and verifiability problems that made fiat currency necessary, rendering the original justifications for fiat redundant.
- Bitcoin serves as a powerful tool for populations under authoritarian regimes and the unbanked, offering permissionless, censorship-resistant wealth storage beyond state control.
- The volatility narrative misses that disruption is inherently volatile; measured over multi-year horizons, Bitcoin exhibits smooth, consistent growth that rewards patient investors.
- Bitcoin must be understood holistically across technology, economics, politics, and philosophy; examining it through a single lens (the "blind men and elephant" parable) misses its full significance.
- The greatest threat to Bitcoin comes from within through potential consensus breaks, not from external government action or co-option, as the 21 million supply cap remains incorruptible.