Are the Masses ready for Bitcoin?
https://ift.tt/bKHuXmU
This post was originally written for BitcoinNews.com. I thought I would share it here for posterity
It’s a beautiful Monday morning. After waking up, you drive to your favorite local coffee shop and order a delicious iced black coffee and a chocolate croissant. You wait patiently while the masked barista prepares your coffee, checking your Twitter account to pass the time. Upon opening the app, you realize your account has been suspended.
“Oh, crap! Have I violated any rules?” you ask yourself in disbelief. You’ve heard stories of accounts disappearing into thin air, but after all, you’ve never considered yourself anything close to a ‘radical’. You’re a life-long Democrat! What’s the deal?
“Sir! Your coffee is ready!”
The barista knocks you out of your dazed disbelief, and you move to the front of the counter to pay.
“That’ll be eight dollars.”
You reach into your pocket, fish out your wallet, and insert your debit card into the reader.
Declined.
“Hm, that’s strange. I know I have enough money in my account. Let me try again.” People are waiting anxiously in line behind you.
Three exhausting attempts later, you accept defeat. You make a mental note to call your bank and scrounge for that emergency cash you keep crumpled in the back of your wallet.
The barista gives you your change, and you go about your day.
On your drive home, you remember that you retweeted a meme that was ‘edgier’ than you would like to admit. “Was this the reason for the ban? No, Twitter wouldn’t suspend my account just because I retweeted a meme. That would be ridiculous.”
But it wouldn’t be ridiculous. It would be real.
Your life has fallen apart in slow motion. Your bank accounts were all shut down. After hours on hold, customer support explains that you’ve been labeled a ‘terrorist’ and therefore cannot access your funds.
It’s easy to laugh this story off, but unfortunately, this dystopian fiction is slowly becoming a reality for some people. Dissidents and protestors across the globe are starting to realize that their ‘money’ is not their money. The government can censor their finances at will, crippling their lives and shutting down their ability to speak out.
We don’t need privacy until we desperately need privacy. People are often quick to say, “Oh, that’ll never happen to me. They wouldn’t censor me. I’m an excellent citizen.”
They fail to understand that if it can happen to them, it will happen to them. Unless, of course, they decided to opt out of the traditional financial system.
We now live in a world where governments can turn off your bank account because of your political views. But the once-hidden power of the central banking cartel is becoming glaringly obvious. Few considered the vulnerability of their finances until they saw the grotesque display of totalitarian intervention in the fundraising efforts of the Canadian Freedom Convoy.
After witnessing such blatant government overreach, censorship resistance is now at the forefront of global consciousness. We are at a tipping point.
A distributed ledger was not enough. A global cash-final settlement network was not enough. An inflation hedge wasn’t enough, either.
Will uncensorable money be enough? Will the masses only realize the true value of Bitcoin after their bank accounts have been shut down? Or will they see what happened in Canada and opt-out preemptively?
The greatest evils often birth the greatest advancements. Each fundraiser that the government bans is a massive billboard for censorship-resistant money. The tyranny is obvious; the question is, are the masses ready for Bitcoin? Or must we spill blood in exchange for freedom once again?
.
.
.
Did you like this article? Participate in the Value-for-Value revolution by tipping the author directly! [tip](https://ift.tt/ufiMjyv)
Cryptocurrency
