Before the birth of Bitcoin, we never thought that private individuals could issue currency, nor did we think that digital currency could truly be used as a payment medium, let alone the rationality of the existence of legal currency. But when Bitcoin was born, everything changed.
We began to doubt the monetary exploitation of us by government agencies. We began to think about the irrationality of various centralized financial institutions. We started fighting for our currency independence. We began to use Bitcoin to protect our wealth from inflation. We began to think about all kinds of injustices in society.
In this process, I think our biggest change is that our minds have been liberated. We began to pursue freedom of thought. We are no longer imprisoned by the opinions propagated by various media. There are countless possibilities in our brains.
I find it a bit odd that you have connected cryptocurrency with the power of free thought. People have always had the ability to think freely and it is perhaps the only thing that cannot be taken away by a repressive government. Money is just a store of value and it doesn't really matter what format it takes. People who wisely accumulate money and are able to live well above the amount that they are spending will have a lot more independence in life but that has nothing to do with thought. The richest have independence because they do not need to rely on others to provide a job and could live off their investments paid out in any monetary form that is widely accepted for goods.
Yes, each of us has the ability to think freely. This is a power that an autocratic government cannot take away. However, the vast majority of people just accept it passively instead of actively thinking. They believe in the authority of the government. But when Bitcoin was born, it gave ordinary people a completely different choice. Ordinary people can freely choose Bitcoin to store their wealth. In my opinion, what is great is not just Bitcoin itself, but more importantly the ideas behind Bitcoin. Decentralization, equality, freedom, transparency, openness, and fairness. It is under the guidance of these ideas that we continue to expand the Bitcoin consensus. Only by truly approving the idea of Bitcoin can it be possible to hold Bitcoin for a long time. People who simply want to make money from Bitcoin will lose money instead.