I just finished reading Resistance Money, by Andrew M Bailey, Barry Rettler, and Craig Warmke. I recommend it to anyone interested in bitcoin.
The authors discuss various attacks on bitcoin in Chapter 11, including the idea of a semantic takeover.
The word semantic is defined by Merriam Webster's Dictionary as "of or relating to meaning in language." To be clear, I am not referring here to what's sometimes known as a semantic attack in terms of a social engineering hack. Instead, I am referring to a takeover as defined by the authors of Resistance Money:
A semantic attack on bitcoin would usurp the bitcoin label and apply it to another asset, namely, one without the features that make bitcoin resistance Money.
They use the blocksize war as an example. To the victors go the spoils, the network, and the name. If things had turned out differently, Roger Ver might be the big bitcoin OG while we watch our beloved BTLB (bitcoin little block) network shrink in size and relevance.
Here's another example:
One kind of semantic attack would involve custodians. When someone else holds their bitcoin for you, you don't possess it. An app calls the thing you have "bitcoin", but you really have a bitcoin IOU. Since you don't have the private keys, you can't actually spend it without the permission of your custodian. For you, it is not resistance money. You have compliance money parading with the name resistance money."
We all know this, and many of us don't fear what we consider a remote possibility.
The authors then ask:
What if most users traded their resistance money for compliance money? A state might try to pass laws banning self custody. Or users might simply opt in over time for the convenience that custodians offer.
That last example is what gives me the most concern.
Toll Booth Lines
I doubt there are many readers who have sat on a toll booth line. I'm old enough to remember. It was a particularly infuriating traffic jam, caused only by the slow human making change while accepting each driver's fee to cross a bridge or use a highway.
Waiting in your car, often on a hot day without air conditioning, was sheer agony. The fact that your taxes were supposed to have paid for that bridge or road until cost overruns became too high didn't help your mood.
Then came the day when the EZ Pass was introduced in the U.S. It was hyped as a convenience. Everyone rushed to get one. The time stamped photo surveillance of every vehicle and payment tracking wasn't talked about much. I vowed to resist, choosing instead to wait on the long toll booth lines to hand my cash to the human in his little cage. I valued my privacy. Hours of my life went by watching cars wiz through the EZ Pass lanes. People thought I was crazy. My explanation that I didn't want to be tracked produced blank stares or open laughter.
It took a while, but I caved in. I enjoyed the convenience too. I no longer noticed the toll increases, since payments were taken automatically out of my credit card. Eventually criminal prosecutions used toll booth evidence to track defendant's cars. Now we have red light cameras, speed cameras, and video surveillance on every city block. My short lived protest today seems naive even to me.
I fear the same for my cold wallet and jotted down seed phrases. Saylor already mocks the crazy crypto anarchists. The flood of mainstream investors will soon be buying their recommended allocation of bitcoin products.
Soon, the average person will just move in and out of a BlackRock ETF in a brokerage account with a few clicks, or buy a few shares of MSTR.
Whether self custody is outlawed or not, bitcoin may some day by definition include custody by a trusted third party, be it BlackRock or Microstrategy. People like us will be less and less relevant, seen by most as oddballs like my grandfather, who kept actual stock certificates in his safe rather than trust Charles Schwab to hold them.
Soon Lambo! Yeah!
I know I'm a pessimist. I know many stackers believe this is all part of eventual adoption. I also know that many of us feel a lot better as the fiat price of our bitcoin climbs astronomically.
The headlines talk about the old wallet that woke up after a few years, or the volume of long term holders deciding to sell some of their stack as the price climbs. And guess who is there to scoop up all those bitcoin? BlackRock and Saylor.
I'm just saying that greed and convenience are two powerful forces we have to battle.
