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.

Comments are closed.