Live Free or Mine: How Libertarians Fell in Love With Bitcoin
“I knew that online digital cash was a great thing for libertarianism from the moment I heard of it… So, as soon as bitcoin came along I thought, ‘Oh my god here it is, it’s finally happening!’”
In a Skype call from Tokyo, investor Roger Ver is explaining what first drew him to bitcoin, and his well-documented passion for the digital currency network is evident and infectious.
“I think it’s [a chance] for the individual to be in complete control of his or her funds,” he adds.
Having been a prominent early investor in bitcoin startups, Ver is now putting most of his time intoBitcoin.com, a new forum and information platform which he set up due to a perceived lack of openness in the debate on existing forums.
This drive towards openness and resistance to any top-down control, along with a reverence for freedom of choice as the ultimate right, is emblematic of Ver’s own mentality and that of libertarians as a whole. But beyond his enthusiasm in bitcoin, this interest has spread to the broader Libertarian community.
But, what was it about the philosophical groundings of libertarianism that made it such a perfect ideological fit for bitcoin in the first place?
The full story goes far beyond the world of cryptocurrency.
This post was published at Coin Desk on October 8, 2016.