Long Bitcoin, Short “the System.” Bitcoin Tech Talk Issue #202

Back in 2014, I spoke at my first conference. It was a small libertarian conference in Austin and I was asked to talk about Bitcoin on a panel. Wanting to get an idea of where the audience was, I asked the audience, “how many of you have heard of Bitcoin?” About 80% of the hands went up. I then asked the audience, “how many of you own Bitcoin?” Surprisingly, 50% of the hands stayed raised. What was crazy to me was that the vast majority of people I talked to in everyday life hadn’t even heard of Bitcoin back then. To be talking to an audience where 50% owned Bitcoin, at a conference that wasn’t Bitcoin-focused was astonishing. What was it about libertarians that caused them to not just learn about Bitcoin but to buy it?

Bitcoin and libertarianism have run together for a long time. Starting in 2010 when Wikileaks started taking Bitcoin donations to 2012 and 2016 where libertarian presidential candidates started taking donations, Bitcoin has been a popular topic in libertarian circles in a way that it hasn’t in the mainstream.