Crypto Current Affairs—Andreas Antonopoulos Says ‘Bitcoin Isn’t a Democracy!’
Popular Bitcoin speaker and Mastering Bitcoin author Andreas Antonopoulos is popular for his speeches on the internet currency Bitcoin. Considering how Bitcoin is said to be a game changing, decentralized internet currency and a new form of money that feels more-democratic, and controlled by the general public.
The question, 'Is Bitcoin a Democracy?' seems to miss the fact that Bitcoin is first and foremost a peer-to-peer digital cash and decentralized system, and everything else later. During his latest speech at Sydney, Australia he was asked this question and in his response Autonopoulos spoke about how Bitcoin does not fall under this category.
As someone from Greece, where democracy was first introduced, he noted that he personally doesn't believe in raw democracy.
Antonopoulos said and I quote:
Democracy was invented under very specific circumstances: 3,000 land owning, slave owning white males got to decide for themselves and the 150,000 slaves, women, and children who they owned as property.
Democracy without restraints, without human rights, without civil rights, without constitutional protections is a brutal system of oppression where once you get that sliver of majority, you can eradicate everybody else. Without the proper restraints, you could give 51% of the population the ability to decide to kill the other 49% for any reason they choose.
Bitcoin Not a Democracy?
Antonopoulos is very clear about his opinion on Bitcoin not being a democracy.
He further added that:
Bitcoin is a system of super-majority consensus where it takes a very large percentage of the deciding groups (the five constituencies of consensus) in order to make change, which makes change very difficult. Bitcoin isn’t a democracy, not even in the mining.
This technology born out of the internet and expressing some of the radically egalitarian, open philosophies of free flowing information, freedom of speech, freedom of association on a transnational basis that transcends not just borders but every aspect of identity without identity.
According to Antonopoulos’s view on the subject of democracy and Bitcoin he said that traditional systems have a hard time scaling due to their cumbersome hierarchical nature and Bitcoin is the "radical" new political system.
His sentiments were shared earlier by the Bitcoin panel at the MIT Bitcoin Expo in 2016 here they dismissed Bitcoin as anything democratic.
You can learn more about the upcoming SegWit2x Proposal here. The upcoming deployment of SegWit2x and Bitcoin's hardfork has raised many doubts about it's future. There's a lot of noise about this but Antonopoulos thinks it won't alter Bitcoin's consensus rules. I really hope that the network decides the right course of action for itself as we get closer to August 1 and things get better from there.
You must also read this article that explains Segwit2x Hard Fork and Bitmain’s UAHF.
This raises a few questions:
- What do you think about Antonopoulos’s opinion on Bitcoin.
- Do you think this hardfork is essential to Bitcoin's scaling and what about Bitcoin core team?
- Are you worried about a massive crash in it's price or a major rally?
- Can Bitcoin truly adapt to it's highly dynamic environment?
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Good post thanks for this info
Thanks! :)
U are welcome
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I am very curious about August 1 but I will be watching from the outside, as I only hold a minor amount of Satoshis at the moment.
Andreas is a very smart man, I like listening to him.
Same here! I enjoy his talks! Makes perfect sense to me! Thanks for stopping by to leave a comment! :)
Thank you for the post @firepower! People use these words "democracy"and "democratic" as buzzwords that conjure up certain emotions. Few, including me, are referencing the dictionary meaning of those words. This caught my eye in your post: "Democracy without restraints, without human rights, without civil rights, without constitutional protections is a brutal system of oppression where once you get that sliver of majority, you can eradicate everybody else." It made me what to look up the dictionary meaning of the word "democracy". (1) a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state wow! so not all humans in the state are necessarily members of it. Everyone, or every eligible one, is part of the system of governance? Interesting. And then there was (2) "control of an organization or group by the majority of its members."That's where the majority rule comes in but it is not necessarily part of all systems that can be defined as democracies. Peace and love. upvoted and followed.
Very good comment! :)
This writup is just awesome. I enjoy reading this post. Bitcoin is the mother of Decentralization.
Thanks! I'm glad that you found it useful!
Bitcoin emerged out of the cypherpunk movement and its libertarian ethos.
Meh, the U.S. isn't a democracy, it's a republic. For better or worse.
You never know!
Excellent, thought provoking, post. I love learning about Bitcoin from Antonopoulos as he's got significantly deep knowledge and understanding of it and has been involved in the space for a long-time. I also agree with his perspective on this although I haven't heard a lot of other people speaking about Bitcoin in that way.
I think the hard fork needs to happen as Bitcoin really needs a solution to the issues it's been facing for a while. Litecoin successfully implemented SegWit and hopefully bitcoin will implement that (or some version of that) too.
Thank you so much for sharing your views and dropping by! :)
Greece may be where democracy was first introduced but it is arguable that it is no longer practiced as the technocrats from the ECB etc now rule and dictate terms to the Greek people!
Probably yeah!
He proves its not a democracy and explained why that was actually a good thing. Love me some Andreas.
Yep! same here!
I think crypto world is very competitive and bitcoin has no option but to change or die.
August 1 would be one of the most defining days in Bitcoin history. Nice article @firepower
Waiting for it!
True! Only time can tell!
Decentralised as they say is not so democratic though!!
However if scaling issue resolves a lot of enthusiasts like me anticipate a major rally.
Maybe so!