Why the Bitcoin Community is Growing So Fast and Getting So Large
Let’s Use Our Imaginations
Imagine a company that had great engineers and developers all volunteering to work for free out of their passion for its product. Imagine also that they each had purchased an ownership stake in it.
Suppose the volunteers also included mathematicians, philosophers, teachers, entrepreneurs, risk-taking adventurers and even all the users of the company’s product. And nobody took any salary.
No Bosses, No Job Descriptions, No Discrimination
Why stop there? Let’s also imagine that there was no structure to this company. Nobody hired or fired anybody. Volunteers would simply show up, contribute what they could, whenever they could. Full time or part time. Permanently or temporarily.
There would be no strategic plan, no job descriptions, no CEO and no Human Resources department.
Literally anyone, anywhere in the world could join. No systemic discrimination of any kind.
A Very Simple, Unchanging Product
One last thing about this imaginary company: it has only one product and nobody can change it. Not unless pretty much everybody agrees to the change. There are no votes where the majority would rule. Any change requires a consensus of these stakeholding volunteers.
Now, are you ready to hear what this company’s unchangeable product is that everyone’s so excited about? Here it is: the company’s product is keeping a record of who holds what stake in the company! Yep. It’s just keeping a record about its owners. If you’re not excited by this yet, read on just a bit more.
Global Competition That Everyone in the World Uses Already
First, however, I’ll need to say a few words about this company’s main competitors and their products. The competitors are agencies from all over the world who employ appointed bureacrats to ‘manage’ the world’s economies.
And their product is money. Literally, it’s money! Yes, the money you have to work for.
Did you ever think there’s someone who produces this money? It’s these guys. But, this money is not good money: It’s money that does not earn any real interest; money that loses its purchasing power to inflation; money that’s prone to getting confiscated through taxation or outright seizure.
Worse, while you have to work hard for this money, others don’t. This money is given out to some people and companies without them working for it at all! Lots of it.
It’s a thoroughly lousy system when it really comes down to it. Plenty of people in the world really want an alternative to it once they realize that may be possible.
Getting Excited Yet?
When you’ve got such awful competition and you and everyone else needs to use the product, the opportunity and motivation to create a better choice is extremely high. That’s why everybody’s so excited about this company’s product. Because its product is sound money — money that can’t be created or seized by bureaucrats, and can’t be handed out to elites and insiders who sit in privileged positions.
Wanna Join?
So,with all that behind us now, let me ask you this: Would you invest in this imaginary company? Would you participate in it? At first glance, this whole thing seems crazy. But hey, it’s a crazy world we live in.
Maybe this is so crazy that it just might work. After all, every volunteer wants to make the company worth as much as possible. Every person in the world can volunteer. So this might get everybody in the world involved.
And nobody can mess up the product. That’s pretty good.
And the talent is deep and diverse making the technology behind it incredible.
Maybe it could just work.
No Such Company Exists
Now, of course there’s no such company in the world as the one I described. A company that tried to make sound money would get shut down in a heartbeat.
However, there is Bitcoin. Bitcoin can’t be shut down because it’s not a company, it has no CEO or employees, and no location. It just runs on volunteer’s efforts and on their computers. Yet, every one of the things in our imaginary company above is true about Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Attracts a Multitude of Great People
Getting to play a role in creating a desperately needed sound money for the whole world inspires, motivates and rewards multitudes of diverse, smart and principled people.
Bitcoin has come a long way in a short time in its mission to provide sound money to the world. People are noticing. They’re joining the community by taking a stake in Bitcoin and devoting time to it. Since anybody can join, eventually maybe everyone will. Meanwhile, it is no surprise that Bitcoin’s bright, dedicated, passionate and principled community grows by legions every single day.
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Want more? This entire series (plus a 26th bonus article) is available as a pdf or kindle ebook at https://swanbitcoin.com/whybitcoin.
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This is article 24 in the Why Bitcoin series.
Number 25 is here:
