Bitcoin Accelerationism.
Bicoin Accelerationism embodies all that Effective Accelerationism (e/acc) represents, yet it posits that Bitcoin is crucial in ushering in this future. Let’s explore:
First, let’s break down what e/acc stands for, and why bitcoin is inevitably intertwined in this technological movement.
Effective Accelerationism posits that the universe inherently aims to optimize itself, constantly expanding and evolving. This expansion is seen as an unstoppable force, with the future always building upon and surpassing the present, and the main driver of this is ‘techno-capital’. Said more simply, ‘techno-capital’ is the force which will change/fix the world.
Now, let’s turn to bitcoin:
Similar to AI, bitcoin mining faces never ending scrutiny regarding its “energy use”. In reality, mining serves as a pivotal tool for energy grid load-balancing and waste energy mitigation. It's one of the only consumers of energy that can power off on a moments notice entirely subject to market demand.
By empowering location agnostic energy monetization while enforcing ever increasing efficiency through the difficulty adjustment, bitcoin mining doesn't waste energy, but rather consumes energy waste. With the brutal reality of continuously rising network hash rate subsequently increasing mining difficulty, inefficient operators are driven out via market forces, while the increased difficulty simultaneously reinforces the asset’s supply inelasticity and programmatically increasing marginal cost of production.
The significance? There is now a global opportunity cost for energy waste that exists anywhere found by satellite signal, thereby directly incentivizing and quantifying the chase of Moore's Law AND the ascent of the Kardashev scale.
Bitcoin adheres to e/acc principles, and metaphorically aligns with the natural order and thermodynamic laws, by adeptly transforming forms of energy into an immutable ledger of subjective value.
Its 21,000,000 capped supply mirrors the finite energy in closed systems, a nod to the conservation law. Bitcoin mining, which channels raw energy into computation, goes to securing and extending property rights to $800b of pseudonymous global wealth. The process of elegantly converting energy in any form into an immutable ledger of absolute monetary scarcity brings about order from entropy.
Do not shy away from energy production nor energy consumption. Bitcoin's Proof of Work is not a weakness, but an absolute source of strength. Lean in.
As a store of value, bitcoin epitomizes a free market for capital, underpinned by the energy securing it, SHA-256 cryptography, and a global consensus of distributed nodes, each user acting in their own self-interest. The key principle is that value is not derived by decree, but rather subjectively by self preserving individuals through economic incentives.
As a unit of account, bitcoin is the ruler against which the vast technological gains of past and future decades will be quantified and measured against most accurately, given its attributes and free market emergence.
In contrast, political currency, issued by increasingly corrupted institutions, will continue to devalue against everything we hold dear; fundamentally incompatible with a future where AI brings about abundance through the reduction in the cost of everyday services.
This contrast between two opposing forces has never been more evident, with tech advances accelerating by day while the issuance of additional political currency aims to offset said deflationary gains to keep an evermore fragile and faltering system of debt and IOUs from collapsing under its own weight.
As censorship-resistant money, bitcoin is pivotal for a future where censorship and surveillance by the state and/or techno-monopolies are more powerful and potentially oppressive than ever.
As a bearer asset, bitcoin stands out as one of the few possessions that can be truly owned in a digital native world riddled with third party custodians and counterparties. Possession can be custodied literally in one's mind, not as the liability of a captured and corrupted institution operating under the long-reach of the state.
Lastly, it is an inevitable reality that all monetary mediums compete in perpetuity, and the Darwinian process of a free market monetary medium monetizing from scratch, not by decree but by free market forces, has only occurred successfully a rare few times in human history, and never with the speed or global scale currently underway.
Bitcoin Accelerationism is an acknowledgment of this all; the growing surveillance apparatus of the state, the attempt to restrict and reduce global energy production/consumption, and the precarious position of the global political currency experiment that threatens to undermine the past and present gains brought about by technological innovation. In e/acc terms, bitcoin is THE capital in ‘techno-capital’.
In a world where the very medium in which we store our time, labor, and value is led by individuals more interested in looting the coffers than in the long-term health or vitality of our society, it’s time to lean in.
Bitcoin Accelerationism is about embracing this reality. No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.
We will not apologize, reconsider, slow down, or reverse course. Instead,
ACCELERATE.
Before MicroStrategy had announced its bitcoin strategy.
Now who’s ready for the FASB crypto accounting rule change. Corporates arriving in 2024.
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Talk of ETF approval misses the forest for the trees. It's not just about immediate reactions or flows
It's about the recognition of $BTC as an institutional asset. Pensions, endowments, insurance investment portfolios, etc., will soon be entering the arena with passive buy-side flows for the long term.
In December 2020, Mass Mutual invested $100m into bitcoin. https://t.co/xdMyT7Dxxi
MASSIVE.... except not really. Mass Mutual manage $235b in assets, with long-dated fiat liabilities. https://tinyurl.com/yz3b4hpn
$100m of $BTC is a ~0.05% allocation...
Large institutional investors don't purchase something to flip it the next month. They are constructing portfolios for multiple decades.
A 0.05% allocation is just the start. There are many more many more Mass Mutuals out there, and all of these allocators are staring at their bond portfolio which is -50% from ATHs, questioning previous assumptions they held.
The endorsement by the likes of Larry Fink isn't a sign that Larry is suddenly a bitcoin bull, it's a sign that clients are knocking on BlackRock's door, asking for a vehicle to gain exposure.
The narrative violations are strong. Passive accumulation starting from the $69k ATH has you +45% right now on your bitcoin position. The same passive allocation into long bonds has you -12%.
"But the volatility!" Again, it's a misunderstanding of time horizon. A ~1% allocation to an asset that they don't plan to liquidate for years/decades, with an extremely strong sharpe ratio, is within their risk profile. If you want proof, just look at the rest of their portfolio...
- No, the orange coin is not going away.
- No, it did not die when FTX collapsed.
- Yes, supply is more tightly held than ever before.
- Yes, perpetual credit expansion of the fiat monetary system is an ongoing reality.
- No, there is no sense of fiscal austerity present ANYWHERE.
- Yes, this illiquidity means marginal flows into the market sends the price higher, which is why all of these institutions will start with a tiny ~0.05% stake, while continuing to passively allocate steadily for the long-term.
Reinforcing this all is the shift in narrative and negative bias around 'energy usage' and mining, evidenced by new academic papers on mining as a tool for balancing the grid and monetizing waste energy:
- Bitcoin could support renewable energy development, Cornell Engineering, https://t.co/EZopJJAM2i
- Leveraging Bitcoin Miners as Flexible Load Resources for Power System Stability and Efficiency, Co-authored by former ERCOT CEO, https://t.co/PEpGE65la1
- From Mining to Mitigation: How Bitcoin Can Support Renewable Energy Development and Climate Action, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, https://www.resistance.money/research/mining_to_mitigation.pdf
The landscape and profile of the asset has shifted. It's not about the ETF, it's about the reason WHY the ETF is coming. Institutional exposure has been given a green light. It won't happen all at once, but understand the shift that is underway.
Bitcoin has been passively accumulated by individuals and retail for sometime now, while institutions mostly watched the madness from the sideline. This is changing.
Welcome.
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Comparing stablecoins volumes to Visa/Mastercard payment volumes? Yeah, I traded Tether for ShitcoinInuCoin on Uniswap, chalk it up as an economic transfer.
Yeah I just swapped USDT to USDC because I can't redeem at Tether, let's count the million ERC20 tokens swapped on each side as $2m in settlement volume...
You'll often see charts or visuals illustrating the depreciation of the $USD over time, normalized to $1.00, of which I occasionally share myself.
However, there's an important caveat: these visuals rarely account for short-term yields. Displayed below is the purchasing power of $1, adjusting for annual CPI inflation (in red) versus the purchasing power of $1 accounting for 1-year Treasury yields less annual CPI inflation (in blue), starting from 1962
Notice anything?
The purchasing power of $1 from 1962 to the present equates to $1.85 when accounting for 1-year Treasury yields and inflation. Meanwhile, adjusting for inflation alone leaves you with just $0.10 of purchasing power.
Quite the massive difference.
However, there's more nuance to consider:
1) Let's separate the data into distinct eras,
From 1962 to start of 2009:
- Average annual inflation: 4.40%
- Average 1y yields: 6.22%
- Average difference: +1.82%
Real gains in purchasing power.
From 2009 to Present:
- Average annual inflation: 2.34%
- Average 1y yields: 1.00%
- Average difference: -1.34%
Real losses in purchasing power.
2) The data doesn't include the 1940s where financial repression massively devalued the USD to erode real debt burdens (the data I quickly threw together only went back to 1962) in the post war period.
3) Why 2009 for the change in eras? What has changed? If the U.S. can just pay a nominally higher yield than the inflation rate in perpetuity, are the fiat doomers really just delusional?
In my view:
- Positive real yields can be sustained with a clean balance sheet. It's feasible for the government to pay creditors a positive real interest rate when real debt burdens are low, demographics are booming, and the global GDP is exploding as the world industrializes.
- With Debt to GDP meaningfully > 100% and other tailwinds reversing, this is no longer the case. Post GFC and the introduction of ZIRP + QE to facilitate "growth", has the positive real yield era behind us, at least until real debt burdens have been eroded - which will take either explosive real growth, or a steady dose of inflation above yields, debasing creditors in the process.
The Bottom Line: The reality is that the average/median American individual or family often doesn't have much disposable income to capture such yields. The ones that do, benefit; and the ones that don't are the ones that pay for it.
When you look at charts showing record wealth disparity, or are wondering why the political landscape is more polarized than ever, keep this chart in mind.
Fiat inflation didn't bother the investor class from for forty years as yields outpaced inflation. Currency devaluation wasn't felt in the slightest by this cohort, they didn't just escape the devaluation, but outpaced it significantly.
Now, with Debt to GDP levels domestically and globally near record levels, expect the post 2009 dynamic to continue into the future on a longer time frame. Don't let the current tightening cycle fool you as to what must occur.
Inflation > Yields, over a sustained period of time, is the only way global governments can mask their insolvency.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. https://m.primal.net/HLGc.png
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