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There is a famous quote from Satoshi where he says

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

There's a lot in that last little phrase "seem to be holding their own."

Satoshi believed it was possible to build something that could "hold its own" against the power of the state. This is no small claim and, as you can see, even Satoshi wasn't fully sure of it: P2P networks only "seem" to be holding their own. It's not like we can prove it.

The truth is, we can never really know if it will be true tomorrow. Bitcoin is based on this hope that we can resist the state, but there's no reason this has to be true. We just have the somewhat shaky evidence that governments don't seem to be able to squash networks with certain qualities.

It's possible that they just haven't wanted to.

There is no promised land

It doesn't get said very often, but Bitcoin comes with no guarantees. You may have noticed that when you fired up your node, there wasn't a EULA nor did you have to check a little box saying that you agreed to the terms and conditions (if you did, consider using different node software).

Neither is there a buyer of last resort when it comes to Bitcoin. If most people demand some stupid shitcoin instead of bitcoin, or if they all just want to buy stonks and hold fiat, there is no insurance that will prevent you from losing the value you are trying to keep in bitcoin.

Likewise, if you lose your keys, there is no number to call that will get them back. And if you screwed something up when you created your wallet or sent your transaction, it's on you.

And if the state turns its malevolent eye towards Bitcoin, maybe it will be able to squash it. Maybe they'll print money to buy miners and get a majority of hashrate or maybe they'll just put their finger on the centralizing pressures of mining that already exist so they can have a nice easy target for when they want to attack Bitcoin. Perhaps the state will impose such draconian punishments on the self-sovereign use of Bitcoin that most people abandon it.

Bitcoin is a good money for those in the wilderness

We hold on to our dreams of a world where bankers don't get bailouts and politicians can't sneak our savings by printing money for their friends, and the crowd of confident Bitcoin boosters who write books have documented 1,000 reasons why Bitcoin is economically and politically certain to end the fiat game. As they say: nothing stops this train.

But that's just something we take on faith.

Resisting the state does not necessarily mean defeating it. It's possible that Bitcoin remains a niche subversive tool, like TOR, something that is only used by punks who dislike the state -- and that could be fabulous outcome, even if it doesn't make us all rich.

I've been reading Cryptoeconomics again, and this is an attempt to work through some of the ideas in the chapter called "Axiom of Resistance" which I am copying below.

Axiom of Resistance

In modern logic an axiom is a premise, it cannot be proven. It is a starting assumption against which other things may be proven. For example, in Euclidean geometry one cannot prove that parallel lines never meet. It simply defines the particular geometry.

Proving statements about Bitcoin requires reliance on axiomatic systems, specifically mathematics, probability and catallactics, and therefore the assumptions upon which they rely. However Bitcoin also relies on an axiom not found in these systems. Satoshi alludes to this in an early statement:

You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

Satoshi Thu Nov 6 15:15:40 EST 2008

In other words there is an assumption that it is possible for a system to resist state control. This is not accepted as a fact but deemed to be a reasonable assumption, due to the behavior of similar systems, on which to base the system.

One who does not accept the axiom of resistance is contemplating an entirely different system than Bitcoin. If one assumes it is not possible for a system to resist state controls, conclusions do not make sense in the context of Bitcoin - just as conclusions in spherical geometry contradict Euclidean. How can Bitcoin be permissionless or censorship-resistant without the axiom? The contradiction leads one to make obvious errors in an attempt to rationalize the conflict.

It is common for people to refer cynically to a Bitcoin-like system that omits the resistance axiom as just another "PayPal", a designation not without merit. Confinity originally attempted to create a system with a similar value proposition to Bitcoin. Having failed to do so it discarded the axiom, building the PayPal we know today.

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1367 sats \ 15 replies \ @elvismercury 12h

Maybe they'll print money to buy miners and get a majority of hashrate or maybe they'll just put their finger on the centralizing pressures of mining that already exist so they can have a nice easy target for when they want to attack Bitcoin. Perhaps the state will impose such draconian punishments on the self-sovereign use of Bitcoin that most people abandon it.

This is the biggest thing missing from almost every discussion of btc, in my opinion -- what it means for it to succeed or fail, the various moves the state could make, what might happen as a result, and how we could tell, empirically, if it were happening.

My take is that most bitcoiners are operating under cartoonish assumptions about this, mainly from having never really thought critically about any of it and having instead incorporated the btc talking points as a matter of religion. The tell of this way of being are the grandstanding critiques of the existing systems, including prophecies about its ultimate fate, without actually understanding anything about it aside from what you've half-assedly absorbed from bitcoin podcasts.

A fun exercise is to tune in to media from the Hated Other and listen to how they make sense of the world. Feel the outrage rise up in you, all the but actuallys you swallow, or maybe don't swallow. And then realize that you're doing the same thing as they are. If you doubt that you're doing the same thing, ask some friends (or former friends) about what they think about your hot takes about their ideologies. Whether you're representing them fairly, in a way they'd endorse. Oops.

This behavior isn't unqique to bitcoiners, of course, although I used to expect better of them.

203 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 11h

There’s also an excluded middle issue. Even when your critics are stupid and misinformed, there still might be undiscovered problems with your own position.

I know I often take it as confirmation of my own correctness when I realize someone who’s disagreeing with me can’t actually back up their position, but strictly speaking that isn’t the implication.

171 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 10h

I know I often take it as confirmation of my own correctness when I realize someone who’s disagreeing with me can’t actually back up their position, but strictly speaking that isn’t the implication.

Ugh, this is one I have to fight against really hard, in all aspects of life: demolish somebody's stupid critique, demolish their rebuttal of my demolition, feel more sure than I did before. How sure should you feel about your skills when you can beat a child? And yet there's this giant desire for it.

190 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 11h

Not govs will kill Bitcoin, but dumb and scared people. Blind compliance and statism is what will kill Bitcoin.

Remember the key word: COMPLIANCE

Many of today's people calling themselves bitcoiners, will drop BTC in a blink of an eye, when a gov will say that will not receive anymore money if they do not use some bullshit token or CBDC.

Today's people are so fucking cowards and totally brainwashed. Very few will stand their ground and say a firm NO, no matter what. Many will come with all kind of excuses but none will want to make any sacrifice.

We are writing a shit ton of articles, guides, documentation, podcasts, debates etc... all for nothing. People still go and use fiat and obey the gov orders.

So no... Bitcoin will not thrive, will not even get used mainstream until people will stop believing in gov authority.

Until then, Bitcoin will be just an underground economy, only for the brave.

135 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 11h

One of my big “aha moments” was thinking about how few weirdos like yourself, scattered all around the world, are actually needed to keep bitcoin going.

It can survive much more than its enemies can because it’s almost impossible to hunt all of you down.

171 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 10h

I am already using bitcoin at daily basis, but underground, in economies that are only p2p, where people don't give a fuck about any gov. But yes, I made a lot of sacrifices and I will make even more, just to keep this life. And we just live a simple normal life. And that will not be taken by anybody from me. I will be the last man on earth using bitcoin.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 10h

It’s as unstoppable as anything involving mortal beings, as far as I can tell.

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 7h

This is a great observation! Bitcoin does attempt to even the playing field between a very well resourced state and a disparate group of individuals. All the things that most excite me in life are like this.

102 sats \ 1 reply \ @SpaceHodler 7h

My take is that most bitcoiners are operating under cartoonish assumptions about this, mainly from having never really thought critically about any of it and having instead incorporated the btc talking points as a matter of religion.

This is partly due to how many disciplines Bitcoin touches, and no one can be an expert in all of those.

Some bitcoiners will read Saif's books, which focus on the monetary side and talk about Austrian economics, and they'll conclude Bitcoin is the perfect form of money, with all the benefits of gold and none of its drawbacks, while skimming through the technical aspects and ignoring issues like the security budget, miner centralization, the risk of contentious forks, quantum threat etc.

Most of Saif's readers won't read Micah Warren for example, and most math heads are probably not that interested in reading Mises, and even less so in anything to do with politics or sociology.

Bitcoin is too complex for most bitcoiners to understand, and there is reflexivity in it, e.g. the differences in people's understanding can affect its future.

Also, Bitcoin adoption relies on proselytizers and orange-pillers, who understandably tend to idealize, simplify, reduce nuance to catchy phrases etc. to reach and inspire the masses.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 6h

This is an interesting point. To go deep on Bitcoin almost necessarily means missing out on some other part of it.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 5h

A fun exercise is to tune in to media from the Hated Other and listen to how they make sense of the world. Feel the outrage rise up in you, all the but actuallys you swallow, or maybe don't swallow. And then realize that you're doing the same thing as they are. If you doubt that you're doing the same thing, ask some friends (or former friends) about what they think about your hot takes about their ideologies. Whether you're representing them fairly, in a way they'd endorse. Oops. This behavior isn't unqique to bitcoiners, of course, although I used to expect better of them.

this is sort whataboutism/flakey appeal to symmetry doesn't count for much. It's perfectly possible that one party's indignation is based on more sound, rigorous reasoning than another. Just because they also are emotionally upset about something, doesn't mean their arguments are just as valid/correct/accurate as someone else's. Reality matters, truth is fixed -- not arbitrary and relative

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 5h

It could mean that one party is more rigorous, sound, whatever, but it probably doesn't; not statistically. Although I'm sure it's comfortable to believe so.

One can appeal to symmetry on bullshit grounds, and this is often done; or one can do so because wrt human concerns, the kind of crystalline truth people pretend to is basically absent.

This, I would suggest, is the reality that matters most.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 7h

I'd be curious as to what you think the most widely held cartoonish assumptions are among bitcoiners.

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 5h

Jesus, where to start.

Probably my favorite is the utopia some people expect to unfold once fiat is defeated. My second favorite is that fiat will be defeated at all, and replaced by btc, vs btc incorporated into the system of the world along with everything else.

101 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 4h

Yeah, I agree. Though I wonder how many people just say it as a virtue signal within the bitcoin subculture, vs truly believing it. You learn more about a person's beliefs by their actions as opposed to their words.

67 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 4h

No argument, except maybe that words, in this case, are worth a lot. I feel like people blathering obvious nonsense to fit in w the zeitgeist tells me a lot abt who they are and how much attention I should loan to their opinions.

223 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 10h

This is probably my favorite chapter of Cryptoeconomics.

Bitcoin is based on this hope that we can resist the state, but there's no reason this has to be true.

Hope, or effort. The nice thing about consensus is that if there is consensus to resist, then there shall be resistance. This is why it's dangerous if Coinbase doesn't rug, and if Saylor doesn't eventually get rekt, and we all end up depending on these central actors that will sing like a bird and comply, and ultimately why we decentralize and why the best central entity is a dead one.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 7h

it's dangerous if Coinbase doesn't rug, and if Saylor doesn't eventually get rekt

Bitcoin's worst enemy is the enemy that doesn't hurt us. I'm going to do something with that.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 7h

Nice!

123 sats \ 11 replies \ @Undisciplined 13h

I think this axiom is too broad and vague.

Physical reality is a system that the state does not control, for instance.

The state is merely a collection of men. Its power is bounded by the capabilities of finite beings, however grand those may be.

69 sats \ 10 replies \ @Scoresby OP 11h

I understood Voskuil's point here to be that we have to assume that we can resist, there's no real evidence that a p2p network like bitcoin will be durable in the face of an consistent effort by strong state. It's something we just kinda have to guess at, or take on faith.

102 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 11h

That’s what I don’t agree with. I don’t see why we can’t assess what the state can and can’t do.

It’s complicated for sure but ultimately it should rest on the same axiom set as our other economic theories.

169 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 7h

I look at the world and I believe the state is capable of shutting down internet access. I believe the state is capable of closing all centralized on and off ramps from bitcoin to fiat. I believe the state is capable of identifying people who have used bitcoin and using violence to put them in prison. I believe the state is capable of seizing mining equipment or removing miner access to power. I believe the state is capable of pushing all bitcoin usage to paper bitcoin and putting such onerous kyc requirements on bitcoin usage that few people use it.

I believe a lot more about the state, but what I don't know is whether we have reached a point where the state can't do these things anymore (because bitcoin usage has become so widespread) or whether the state simply has no appetite for it. It's also possible that these are the same thing...until a regime change.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 7h

Some states can do those things to some people.

Can any one state do those things to all people (aside from destroying the entire world)?

I don’t believe there is any nation (and it would obviously have to be America) that can pull this off.

169 sats \ 3 replies \ @standardcrypto 10h

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Other-Means-Principle

we can definitely assess

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 8h

And conclude: https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Threat-Level-Paradox

169 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 7h

If the axiom of resistance is your favorite, the threat-level paradox is mine.

#861152

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 7h

Its conclusion is my favorite thing to work on mitigating. To do this, one travels outside their comfort zone of advanced economies. I've spend over a third of my life in hostile places. Hostile to me, hostile to freedom, hostile to the common people. Learned a lot. Made some change (but not enough.)

As I shared yesterday I may spend a couple of years participating in advanced economies to fund the next and probably final round. It's not what I love, but ultimately, it may help me do what I love. Which is undermining the overseer.

171 sats \ 1 reply \ @Artilektt 11h

I mean...there is kind of some real evidence right, as Satoshi pointed out. They've basically given up on doing anything about torrenting and despite many attacks the Pirate Bay remains active to this day. Every once in awhile some big outfit gets busted but it doesn't affect anything.

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 7h

TOR and Pirate Bay have a track record of not being shut down, but it is also possible that states have never really perceived them as worth shutting down. I realize that I can make this argument about anything, so it's kinda a cheap shot, but our evidence that a p2p network can resist state control has never really been tested, as far as I can tell.

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @unboiled 5h

there's no real evidence that a p2p network like bitcoin will be durable in the face of an consistent effort by strong state.

Suppression by a a nation state can only ever be local.

123 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 8h

Eric is a former Top Gun pilot with first hand experience in their planning and coordination abilities. He has talked about how much Bitcoiners underestimate the state, and I agree that people believing the government is incompetent is the greatest psyop they ever pulled.

He does not believe however, as far as I recall, that that they (a small faction within the IC) created it. There is dissonance in this view.

buyer of last resort

This is a key indicator, Bitcoiners generally view its architecture as unstoppable, and it probably is... but if the state was truly hostile to Bitcoin they could wipe out 99% of Bitcoiners purchasing power overnight.

where bankers don't get bailouts and politicians can't sneak our savings by printing money for their friends

Few understand this is a feature for the national security state, not a bug. Self-dealing in the civilian government is a risk to national security.

Putting national security over corruption, or at least harnessing that corruption through a redirection of incentives, by the civilian government is exactly the kind of thing that makes factions within the government an ally and Bitcoin it's protectorate.

I highlighted the word sneak, Bitcoin is pretty private in personal amounts, but far less private than the legacy system for tracking the flows of nation-state or industrial scale sums that foster corruption and unrestricted warfare tactics that concern the natsec apparatus.

Resisting the state does not necessarily mean defeating it.

The state is just a citadel at scale, or at least its supposed to be, Bitcoin just gets it closer to that goal.

202 sats \ 0 replies \ @standardcrypto 12h

read "other means principle" I think also from cryptoeconomics. erik voskuil.

explains how resistance would actually play out, step by step

128 sats \ 8 replies \ @SwapMarket 13h

To trust means to accept something you can't verify by logic. Game theory tells me that miners are better off making bitcoin network stronger rather than joining forces in a 51% attack to kill it. No government can change that incentive.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Scoresby OP 7h

I think that BItcoin mining does have some strong centralizing pressures: latency in new block announcements and variance both favor larger miners. So a single miner gaining 51% or more of the hashrate is a real concern in my mind.

Game theory tells me that miners are better off making bitcoin network stronger rather than joining forces in a 51% attack to kill it.

I'm curious to hear an elaboration of this. I'm not well-versed in game theory.

123 sats \ 6 replies \ @SwapMarket 6h

In a nutshell: A successful 51% attack will let the miners reverse payments and steal coins, but kill the trust in the network and crush bitcoin price. So the attackers gain nothing but a pile of worthless coins and useless hardware they cannot sell. And if they short shit ton of bitcoin before the attack they must be absolutely sure it works. This cannot be done stealthily, so others will see and have double motivation to thwart the attack, squeezing the shorts while saving the network and the value of their ASICs.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taj 5h

Brilliant explanation, reminds me of Satoshi outlining why it's more profitable to follow the rules than to attack them

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 5h

thanks! that's how I remember that explanation

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 6h

I have often felt that the real risk of a 51% attack is control of the network. For instance, a miner with greater than 51% of the hash rate can attempt to reorg out blocks that include transactions it doesn't like.

We might say that this would wreck the value of the coin, but imagine it was to reorg out transactions that were from widely disfavored groups: a ransomware gang or a militant islamic group that had released a bioweapon. Less dramatically, do we believe the ETFs and exchanges and treasury companies will give a care if a single miner gains 51% of the hashrate and reorgs out blocks that include OFAC sanctioned transactions?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @SwapMarket 5h

It is either uncensorable and decentralized, or not Bitcoin. We have thousands of centrally controlled shitcoin blockchains that are worthless and useless.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 5h

what keeps bitcoin from following my above description?

my only answer is the fee market.

But that only works if people are willing to pay the fees. If people do not want to pay extra fees for transactions a censor wishes to exclude from blocks, bitcoin very likely ends up with miner centralization.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 5h

I see the opposite: any shady transaction can get inside a block if the sender pays enough fee directly to the willing miner. Regulatory capture of the miners to follow OFAC rules, then sanctions against certain countries, then individuals based on social rating? That is certainly against the ethos of Bitcoin. I will stop using it immediately if that happens. And dump all my coins.

102 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 10h

Governments can’t take down Bitcoin, but I do think that if they really wanted to, they could cut its usage way down. They’ve got plenty of ways to do that.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 8h

I don't agree that they can't take it down. I think I'm pretty darn hopeful that they can't, so much so that I'm willing to put most of my money in bitcoin, but still, I'm trying to push back a little against the inevitability that many Bitcoiners often express.

The part of Bitcoin you have to trust

There is no promised land

Bitcoin is a good money for those in the wilderness

Axiom of Resistance