The other day it dawned on me that I’ve been doing this for five years. For five years I’ve been obsessing, tweeting, thinking, and writing about this project we now call eCash. It’s a long time to be doing anything, but especially something that isn’t my job, that I don’t get paid for, and brings me little recognition or attention.
So why continue? Because this blog is my personal crusade to introduce as many people to eCash as possible. It’s funny if I think about it. I spent my childhood attending church, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. And that whole time I never understood those who attended because they chose to. I never felt the need to try and bring more people to the church, or spread the gospel, because I didn’t believe in any of it. Not that I had a problem with those that did since my personal values pretty much aligned with those of the church. I just didn’t think I needed a savior to tell me how to live my life, nor was I looking for anyone to bring me salvation. As far as I was concerned, that was all up to me.
But here I am, tweeting and writing and giving out XEC to strangers online trying to spread the word about eCash, and for the first time in my life I may finally understand people like my brother, or my brother-in-law, who at one time or another attempted to get me to attend service with them, sent me links to sermons, or other resources with the hope that I might one day become saved. I always thought they did those things because they thought it would be in my best interest, so I could go to heaven instead of hell and all that, but what I didn’t realize was they were also doing it for themselves. Because the more people they brought to God, the better life on earth would be for them, because there would be more people who shared their beliefs.
Well, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do as well. I want more people to discover the eCash project because not only do I believe it has the potential to revolutionize our money, but also revolutionize our culture.
I believe that our society is quickly deteriorating because for far too long, far too many people have become reliant on our institutions to take care of them instead of learning to take care of themselves. I believe part of the reason this has happened is because we’ve been conditioned to think we have no choice but to rely on such institutions. And I can’t help but think that the root of the problem is our money.
When people say money is the root of all evil, what they’re usually referring to is how money can bring out the worst in us. How it can make us greedy, and dishonest, and willing to abandon our principles for the almighty dollar. But what if the problem isn’t so much the idea of money in and of itself, but only the current version we have at our disposal.
Until the creation of Bitcoin, we had to rely on central banks to mint our money. We had to rely on a central government to ensure the market wasn’t flooded with counterfeits, which basically meant we had no choice but to rely on a central authority to be able to live our lives. We accepted this reality because there was no alternative, and by relinquishing our responsibility when it came to our monetary system, it made it so we never blamed ourselves if something went wrong with the economy, we blamed those who were in charge. By extension, we also grew increasingly reliant on banks to store our wealth, thereby giving up even more of our sovereignty. And just as we handed over the responsibility of keeping our money safe, we seem to have also given up the responsibility of keeping our communities safe as well. We’ve come to expect others to make sure everything is okay. We put our trust in so-called experts and stopped thinking for ourselves, or question what we’re told by authority figures. Our money, our safety, our healthcare, our children’s educations have now all become the responsibility of the state to one degree or another. And whenever something goes wrong, all we do is point fingers and blame whatever politicians happen to be in power when what we should be doing is taking a hard look in the mirror and asking ourselves how we got in this mess to begin with.
This is why I support eCash. I believe eCash can teach us to take back control, to take back responsibility, and to hold ourselves accountable instead of always expecting someone else to do everything for us. By teaching us something as simple as holding our own private keys, maybe it can help remind us that we are the ones ultimately responsible for our lives, and no one else.
I believe eCash can achieve all this by making possible what was previously impossible. Never before could we have a global financial system that didn’t rely on central banks, but eCash can make that a reality if we build a network that scales to serve all of humanity. My hope is that once the mission is complete, people will wake up to the realization that we don’t need the state to control every aspect of our lives, because we have just proven otherwise.
The question you most often hear when people bring up the idea of abolishing government is who will build the roads? But the real question should have been who will build our monetary system? There was never a good answer to that before the advent of Bitcoin, but I think we’re getting closer and closer to a time when that question won’t even need to be asked.
Five years may seem like a long time, but I’m still here and more dedicated than ever because for the first time in my life I truly believe in something that is bigger than myself. Over the past five years I’ve watched my kids grow from being mere toddlers to young boys. In that time they’ve watched me stay up late writing these articles, followed along with my various eCash giveaways, and even played some of my daily puzzles. While they don’t really understand eCash yet, my hope is that one day eCash will give them the opportunity to live in a world where people aren’t resigned to having to rely on others to take care of everything for them, but one where people accept the responsibility they have to take care of themselves.
