Free markets enable us to freely pursue and produce the things we value. The beauty of this is that such pursuits ultimately result in greater value being created in the world. I don’t believe that to be the case in a system that is centrally planned by a small group of people who think they know what you need or want better than you do.
I remember a couple years back I was at the market one night trying to buy some milk for my kids. I stood before the milk section and saw dozens and dozens of brands and varieties. There was whole milk, 2%, non-fat, oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, sweetened, unsweetened, half gallon bottles, full gallon cartons, and everything in between. In that moment I was struck by the sheer number of choices before me. But it wasn’t just the milk. You go to the bread section, the cereal section, the alcohol section, the ice cream section, and it’s all the same. Choices upon choices upon choices. Maybe there are people in the world who think less choices are better, but I’m certainly not one of them.
There are billions of people on this planet, and we are all different, with different tastes, different backgrounds, and different desires. But the odds are that if one person desires something, that person isn’t alone. On the flip side, not any one person will share all the desires of every person on the planet, so to believe that a single entity can plan the economy and optimize for everyone’s wants and needs is either willful ignorance, or hubris.
This is why free markets are so essential. They allow anyone to introduce new ideas, services, and products to the rest of the world to determine if such innovations have value or not. This is also why our money is so important. It is the tool that allows markets to work efficiently, and the more efficient our money is, the more efficient our markets can be.
Every moment on this planet billions of people make countless choices as they go about their day. These choices combine to act as information that shapes the direction of humanity. Now imagine if those choices were already made for us. What if there was a single authority that told us what we can or can’t watch, or read, or do, or who we can or can’t hang out with, or what we can or can’t talk about? Some argue such rules exist for everyone’s best interest, but I believe that limiting our choices only limits our progress.
This goes well beyond just being able to drink the exact kind of milk you like. Imagine a central planning committee trying to come up with not only the different types of milk to satisfy everyone’s wants, but all the other products, services, and technologies that exists today. It’s laughable at best, and the only reason we are blessed with such variety and advanced technologies is through our collective imagination and ingenuity, and only insomuch as we are free to use both.
But back to the importance of money and its role in all of this. Money is not only what we use to pay for goods and services, it’s also what we use to measure what we value. Much like words allow us to communicate and share ideas, money acts like a kind of language of its own. It’s our way of communicating to the world at large what we want more, or less of, depending on how our money is being utilized.
But the system can’t work properly if our money doesn’t work properly. Imagine if a drug company ran a clinical trial, but instead of getting accurate data their results were skewed by the government printing trillions of false positives that made it appear as if the drug was behaving as intended. Similarly, by having to use money that can be manipulated in this way, it becomes more difficult to know what we really value and what we don’t. In such a system the truth is ultimately distorted and can give unfair advantages to the undeserving rather than allow the free market to reward those who contribute the most value.
This is what excites me about crypto. I believe that crypto is effectively a free market for money itself. Each project is in competition with one another to see what the market values most. Just as the free market has given us the best products, it can give us the best money that offers the most utility and reliability while simultaneously rewarding those with the vision and the conviction to invest in the best projects. But I hope it doesn’t end there. I want to see those who gain the most wealth to make use of their newfound capital to build a better society that aligns with the very values that put them in that position to begin with.
Of all the projects out there, I personally believe that the eCash (XEC) project offers such an opportunity. Because it is trying to solve the right problems, with a solid roadmap, while being by one of the most talented and experienced technical teams in all of crypto.
I want to witness eCash become electronic cash that allows us to transact without being limited by national borders, or high transaction fees, all while giving us the ability to securely send any amount of money across the internet in fractions of a second without the need for banks or any other central authorities.
This is why I’m so passionate about the eCash project, because I believe it can unlock the kind of future I want to see, filled with the things I value most in this world, a money that leads not to hyper-inflation but to hyper-innovation.