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Too few commencement speeches are about death and loss. Here's my attempt to rectify that situation, on the occasion of Yale-NUS College's last graduation ceremony.
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Andrew M. Bailey
28.5K posts
Andrew M. Bailey
@resistancemoney
Philosophy, money, technology. Fellow at btcpolicy.org
- We often forget just how many hackers and security researchers over the years tried to break bitcoin, and were humbled. They are among its most ardent enthusiasts now; there's a lesson there!
- Targeting uses of energy rather than production is incoherent. This is a mess of an argument.
- CBDCs do not compete with bitcoin. They create demand for bitcoin.
- Satoshi wasn't a seller of bitcoin. He was a buyer. Because he had to purchase his coins from nature — with electricity and processor cycles — just like anyone else. There's something so attractive about this: the creator of a new money following the same rules as everyone else.
- People who think bitcoin is for right-wing libertarians have forgotten about the 'punk' in 'cypherpunk'
- When powerful lawmakers rage against non-custodial wallets, they are not striking a blow against "big crypto". Rather, they oppose little crypto — normal people keeping money themselves instead of in the pockets of a corporation.
- "a one way trading pattern where you deposit funds, convert it to digital currency, and then withdraw" 😳 aw shucks, thanks for noticing, guys 😊
- If someone say that bitcoin was borne from right wing or libertarian conspiracy theories, you know they've not done their homework. Bitcoin is cypherpunk software, and the golden thread uniting the cypherpunk movement is anti-authoritarianism, not opposition to the state. 🧵
- Block will be working on Nostr-compatible products. Nice. Also: "Dorsey announced it would form the model for his new personal media policy: 'No more closed interviews for me. Over NOSTR or live pods only.'"
- While we're bearposting: imagine a Tether blowup. No redemptions. Broken peg. USDC steps up minting and swells to accommodate demand. Coins die. There is only USDC. DeFi is USDC. Crypto is USDC. The Fed announces a new CBDC. It is USDC. We are all eating bugs. And we are happy.
