Why the Counter Economy Is Necessary to Bitcoin’s Survival as a Disruptive Currency
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Why the Counter Economy Is Necessary to Bitcoin’s Survival as a Disruptive Currency

THELOGICALINDIAN - As Bitcoin is adopted by added and added acceptable cyberbanking institutions and becomes adapted by governments common the catechism of its adaptation as a absolutely confusing another to bequest cyberbanking systems is aloft After all if governments like Qatars can ban it and all-embracing cyberbanking laws like AMLD5 can advance bitcoinfriendly companies out of business how is Satoshis advocate P2P banknote to survive after a adverse abridgement of accommodating users who transact advisedly and autonomously

Also Read: Regs Roundup: SEC Actions, Crypto Tax-Free in Korea, New Chinese Laws

Counter-Economics and SEK III

Short for “counter-establishment economics,” counter-economics is any and all non-violent bread-and-butter action which takes abode alfresco the ambit of, or artlessly disregarding, the state.

The abstraction was affected in autonomous circles abundantly by agorist Samuel Edward Konkin III, or “SEK III,” and comprises any non-violent act of the chargeless bazaar which runs adverse to statist laws and norms. For example, article as baby as affairs allowance and ends at a flea bazaar is counter-economics. Not advertisement assets to a war-fueling and privacy-invasive tax agency, or active a aphotic web exchange like the Silk Road. Painting a fence for a acquaintance and actuality paid beneath the table. Setting up a roadside fruits angle or carpooling account after a license. These are all examples of counter-economic activity.

Konkin himself authentic counter-economics as follows:

“The Counter-Economy is the sum of all non-aggressive Human Activity which is banned by the State. Counter-economics is the abstraction of the Counter-Economy and its practices. The Counter-Economy includes the chargeless market, the Black Market, the ‘underground economy,’ all acts of civilian and amusing disobedience, all acts of banned affiliation (sexual, racial, cross-religious), and annihilation abroad the State, at any abode or time, chooses to prohibit, control, regulate, tax, or tariff. The Counter-Economy excludes all State-approved activity (the ‘White Market’) and the Red Bazaar (violence and annexation not accustomed by the State).”

Qatar Bans Bitcoin, Who’s Next?

As news.Bitcoin.com has afresh reported, Qatar Financial Center (QFC) Regulatory Authority has placed a blanket ban on QFC businesses transacting in cryptocurrencies. The EU’s AMLD5 regulations are analogously banishment crypto companies out of business. Top crypto exchanges are giving up acute user advice to tax agencies like the IRS, and nations common are in development of central coffer agenda currencies (CBDCs) to potentially alter cardboard and bread authorization money. In this context, it’s important to ask what sets bitcoin apart. After all, in one sense, it’s aloof addition cyberbanking bill on a blockchain, surveillance-ready added so than alike cardboard cash, and awful traceable.

Should bitcoin be acclimated alone in accordance with this or that accompaniment authorization or law, it stands to ask why anybody shouldn’t artlessly about-face to accompaniment or corporate-backed agenda assets. Proponents of bitcoin will acceptable acknowledge “Bitcoin is decentralized and the accompaniment ultimately cannot ascendancy it. Corporations and governments are centralized.”

The chase up to this acknowledgment should be to assert whether or not the being thinks the adeptness of bitcoin to cede laws extraneous is a strength. If it’s not perceived as such, and counter-economics is to be avoided, it’s adamantine to see the currency’s different amount proposition. All that needs to appear is for a accompaniment to “ban” bitcoin, and aftereffect the abatement of applicable channels for exchange, and these individuals who carefully accept by accustomed laws will be larboard with annihilation but a now neutered, and about centralized asset.

The Roots of Bitcoin

Whether or not one angle Satoshi as a affectionate of cypherpunk himself, the actuality that the roots of bitcoin appear abundantly from cypherpunk and anarchist/libertarian circles is undeniable. A quick assay of aboriginal discussions apropos cyberbanking banking affairs after third parties on the cypherpunk commitment list bears this out. As do examinations of concepts for agenda currencies which were absolute antecedents to bitcoin, and which were alike referenced by Nakamoto himself in the whitepaper.

What collection bitcoin to the success and appraisal it adventures today has aggregate to do with the capabilities it provided for permissionless transaction, and actual little — if annihilation — to do with artful absolute systems of currency.

As with best air-conditioned concepts, one being thinks of article absorbing and a few bodies get into it at first, alone for the movement to abound and eventually become inundated with posers adulatory alone to acquire accessible amusing (and in this case financial) allowances of adoption, after acknowledging what absolutely gave the abstraction amount in the aboriginal place. This sets any movement up for an approaching implosion.

No Free Trade, No Meaning

Suffice it to say that after its cardinal one account exercised, bitcoin is little added than a carapace of its above perception. On the added hand, should individuals abide application bitcoin as they please, insofar as they please, with or after permission (risks accepted and anxiously considered), there’s a acceptable adventitious actual absolute disruption for the account of animal bread-and-butter abandon can be had. In fact, it’s already happening.

Privacy acceptable protocols such as Cashshuffle and the accessible Cash Fusion, additional non-KYC, P2P trading platforms like local.Bitcoin.com are authoritative the following of bread-and-butter abandon via crypto added applicable than ever. Privacy bill such as monero — admitting generally delisted by large, centralized exchanges — are additionally a allotment of this fight. The capital element, however, is the individual. The alone who trades advisedly in non-violence is the key actor; after this individual, Bitcoin is abundantly meaningless.

What are your thoughts on counter-economics? Let us apperceive in the comments area below.

Op-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions bidding in this commodity are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com is not amenable for or accountable for any content, accurateness or affection aural the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due activity afore demography any accomplishments accompanying to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, anon or indirectly, for any accident or accident acquired or declared to be acquired by or in affiliation with the use of or assurance on any advice in this Op-ed article.

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