January 2022
News
Had to double check in disbelief but we've added nine locations since the last update. Stop by and check us out at one of these new spots:
And coming your way soon, Westbrook. At any of these locations, use the code "MAINE22" and get up to 2% off the purchase price.
Everyone Loves a Good Origin Story
From: Magic Internet Money
2.2 Genesis: A New Hope
“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there >is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof.” Alan Moore , V for Vendetta
Satoshi first ran the Bitcoin software on January 3, 2009, when the network was launched in the public domain. This initial instance of Bitcoin is known as the “Genesis block.”
Within the Genesis block, Satoshi embedded the following message:
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
Here, Satoshi commemorated the network’s launch by highlighting a timely concern about the moral hazards inherent in our global monetary and banking systems, which were, and still are, on the brink of fallibility. This message is relevant to Bitcoin because it was specifically developed as a systematic upgrade – to be a principled monetary alternative for the 21st century and beyond.
In late 2010, almost 2 years after its launch, Satoshi stopped communicating publicly about Bitcoin in chat forums, and also stopped contributing to ongoing software development. Without further input from its sole creator, Bitcoin would have to find its own way in its pursuit of monetary relevance.
In the post-Satoshi era, Bitcoin has continued to be relentlessly productive. With each passing day, it infringes further into the territory of the legacy monetary system, inspiring the study of uncommon knowledge about money, and fanning the flames of its public discourse.
Bitcoin's origin story is extraordinary. Ask most people "which tech genius has had the most significant impact on humanity?" and the majority will name someone everyone's heard of: Musk. Zuckerberg. Gates. Jobs. Bezos. the "Google Guys". Some might name a more obscure executive or tech pioneer. Few might say "Satoshi Nakamoto" in homage to Bitcoin's creator. But how extraordinary for someone to create technology as big and innovative as Bitcoin and, so far, choose to stay anonymous!
Similarly, ask a group of venture capitalists how they'd rate the chances of success of a software product whose founder walks away in its early infancy and just leaves it to the rest of us to take it from there. This probably wouldn't sell in today's stock market, and that certainly is saying something in light of how loose the money is in today's stock market. Again, extraordinary and not what you'd expect.
In retrospect, both of these extraordinary details of Bitcoin's origin story actually appear obvious, perhaps even expected, because both make Bitcoin more likely to succeed, all things considered. Had Satoshi followed the ordinary tech genius path, upon stumbling upon his incredible innovation he would've tried to get rich off it, written a book or two about it, and/or gone on the speaking circuit. But how likely would it be for this kind of ordinary path to succeed if the ultimate goal is to "infringe into the territory of the legacy monetary system" a little more every day?
Succeeding in a task of this magnitude would elude the world's most charismatic marketer, its most cunning entrepreneur, and its smartest programmer all rolled into one. The rediscovery of money in the digital age is too big an undertaking for one person... or one company, or one nation. Money is humanity's project. Every day, more humans choose to participate in this project, the new monetary network that is Bitcoin. And as each new participant opts in, the hive mind expands. The network strengthens. That is the kind of scaling that just might put the banking cartel out of business, whereas any one person or company leading this charge would probably have succumbed to a more powerful adversary by now. Probably better for Satoshi to keep his real name under wraps.
Perhaps Bitcoin's origin story seems so out-of-the-ordinary because there was so much intent to build it outside of a monetary economy so ordinary to us that we can barely conceive of an alternative. The moral hazard inherent in the status quo could not be cleansed from within the same system of incentives that create moral hazard in the first place. It would have to be extricated by something beyond the system that creates it. For this reason, as Bitcoin's future becomes hindsight expect to see more pieces of its past unexpectedly combine to protect and defend its future. It's the result of good incentives being embedded in money.
Another Domino May Be Falling
There appears to be a credible political movement in the nation of Tonga to become the next nation to legally adopt Bitcoin as legal tender after El Salvador did as much last year.
CoinTelegraph: Tonga to Copy El Salvador Bill
Tonga is a Polynesian archipelago nation consisting of 169 islands with a total combined area that is a little smaller than Cape Cod. A short investigation of government affairs in this nowadays rare indigenous monarchy indicates that Tonga, like all nations, does not always achieve good governance.
Whether the legislative effort spearheaded by former parliamentarian and vocal bitcoiner Mataʻiʻulua ʻi Fonuamotu - who also holds the noble rank (and Twitter handle) of Lord Fusituʻa - comes to fruition remains to be seen. Regardless, there are interesting trends to observe among these first-to-Bitcoin sovereign nations.
Neither El Salvador nor Tonga typically makes global headlines. So for aspiring political leaders in such countries, catching some of Bitcoin's global zeitgeist is understandably seductive. But beyond this basic appeal to a politician's natural desire for attention, Bitcoin's monetary superiority makes it useful to both countries which rely as heavily as they do on remittance payments from abroad. According to the World Bank remittance payments accounted for nearly 40% of the country's GDP in 2020. Fees on such payments eat away 5-10% of the value being sent home by workers abroad. Bitcoin and the low-fee transaction protocols being built atop it improve the user experience and reduce the cost of international payments.
Larger, more powerful nations and institutions continue to lag their much humbler peers when it comes to Bitcoin, and like everything else it comes down to incentives.