Re: Bitcoin Jesus ministry not to preach from American soil

the people involved in the Free State Project seem to think so.

I think they are a comedy troupe now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7YhXuyw5g

What exactly is wrong with the free state project? I'm actually curious, because I don't know you personally but someone I respect highly evidently trusts you so I'd like to hear it.

I had heard of them before and I thought it was good thing at first. The first time I actually heard their show was the coverage of the first big Bitcoin Foundation conference. I told my Dad about it and he was over when the conference was starting. They started running commercials claiming all government workers were "murders." Totally off-the-wall stuff. Since then I have been watching the members of this organization talk about Bitcoin and there was quite a bit of exaggeration and misrepresentation. It is not just one or two instances, it is a pattern. What they are doing is using Bitcoin to promote their agenda and they attach the success of their agenda to the success of Bitcoin, hence the misinformation and exaggeration.

these exaggerations include claims that the Bitcoin economy is huge and increasing exponentially. Another claim is that it is impossible to change the 21 million limit yet they claim it is easy to fix bugs and change the number of decimal digits. Ver says the OpenBazaar is based on "blockchain technology." Then there are the claims that Bitcoin will end war or somehow change the way the entire world works. The vast number of potential Bitcoin users are never going to agree with this stuff.

I agree that there is an erosion of liberties, government is too big, financially irresponsible, and all that but the Free State people are so far out they offer no benefit to Bitcoin. it is true that some of those people blazed the trail for Bitcoin in its early days but now they are a detriment by using Bitcoin to promote an agenda. You may notice that successful Bitcoin businesses are not promoting Bitcoin as a tool to end war, collapse governments, or replace the US dollar.

Thank you for your reply. War isn't going to end anytime soon, no matter what financial tools are at our disposal. I don't see the "replacement of the US dollar" thing. Bitcoin is designed to do just that. The dollar does it's job, and bitcoin does what it is meant to do. Or am I misinterpreting your words?

I think Bitcoin will one of many financial instruments and currencies. I thinks banks will use it for money transfers, people will use it for remittance, unbanked will use it (it will not solve the problem of unbanked but it will be one more tool to help) and things like that. However, there are several use cases where Bitcoin is not the ideal financial instrument and the whole world is not going to switch over to Bitcoin. Decentralization is expensive and slow and many things are better done in a centralized manner and there is a real issue with transaction fees as the block rewards are reduced. I do not believe the Erik Vorhees theory that the world's currencies are all going to collapse and the world is going to flock to Bitcoin like a "lifeboat." If you listen to Gavin and Mike Hearn when they discuss these issues they generally put things in a proper perspective.