On
May
23,
2014,
a
few
days
after
Credit
Suisse
pled
guilty
in
a
$2.6
billion
settlement,
Edmund
Moy,
Director
of
the
United
States
Mint
between
2006
to
2011,
had
an
epiphany.
Seeing
public
statements
from
the
bank’s
chief
executive,
Brady
W.
Dougan,
hours
after
the
charges
were
announced
—
criminal
charges
for
a
conspiracy
that
helped
their
wealthiest
clients
evade
American
taxes
for
decades
—
which
said
the
fine
“won’t
do
much
damage,”
Moy
wrote
on
X,
“It’s
time
banks
got
competition.”
The
experience
inspired
him
to
write
“The
Currency
Revolution,
Courtesy
of
Bitcoin,”
and
to
articulate
a
philosophy
that
put
Bitcoin
at
the
center
of
a
movement
he
recognized
as
having
the
ultimate
aim
of
disrupting
money,
payments,
and
all
areas
of
finance.
Through
his
own
experience
in
the
financial
establishment,
Moy
started
to
believe
Bitcoin
could
disrupt
“traditional
notions”
of
currencies,
banking,
and
financial
technology
as
a
whole
by
ushering
in
a
permissionless,
decentralized
financial
system.
Bitcoin
was
buzzing
with
invention
in
those
early
years,
and
progress
toward
the
guiding
ethos
of
disrupting
traditional
finance
seemed
to
be
speeding
up
as
a
result.
Tether
launched
on
Bitcoin
during
this
time,
primitive
decentralized
exchanges
like
Bisq
were
launched
for
Bitcoin
traders,
and
tokens
–
fungible
and
non-fungible
–
popped
up
like
weeds,
also
on
Bitcoin.
The
industry’s
mood
was
a
mix
of
exuberance,
anxiety,
and
greed.
Solana,
Ethereum,
and
other
blockchains
have
spent
years
capitalizing
on
Bitcoin’s
near
complete
stagnation
The
vision
Moy
articulated
was
shared
by
nearly
every
Bitcoin
enthusiast,
but
opinions
on
how
to
actualize
these
ideas
of
decentralized
money
and
finance
differed
widely.
From
stablecoins
to
NFTs,
almost
every
category
of
application
commonly
used
in
the
decentralized
finance
industry
today
has
its
roots
in
Bitcoin,
but
a
strong
ideological
undercurrent
started
to
create
a
cultural
shift
toward
discouraging
and
combating
these
projects.
From
Satoshi
Dice
in
2012
to
Ordinals
in
2024,
Bitcoin’s
history
is
littered
with
experimental
projects
that
have
been
lambasted
for
spamming,
polluting,
or
distracting
the
Bitcoin
community
from
its
mission.
As
a
result,
the
developers,
users,
and
capital
that
could
have
flowed
to
an
industry
of
financial
applications
running
on
Bitcoin
were
incrementally
pushed
to
other
public
blockchains.
Imagine
creating
a
new
financial
system
with
a
strong
currency
and
nowhere
to
use
it.
That
would
be
the
inevitable
outcome
for
Bitcoin
if
this
anti-innovation
movement
was
successful.
Thankfully,
they
were
not
as
the
industry
has
witnessed
over
the
past
two
years
with
inscriptions,
runes,
new
layer-two
networks,
and
other
types
of
innovative
projects
being
built
on
and
around
Bitcoin.
Billions
of
dollars
from
professional
investors
and
retail
speculators
alike
have
poured
into
kickstarting
what
many
market
participants
see
as
a
new
era
for
Bitcoin,
but
in
reality,
it
marks
a
cultural
return
to
Bitcoin’s
original
mission
of
disrupting
and
decentralizing
the
world
of
finance.
Bitcoin
is
the
best
public
blockchain
in
this
industry
of
thousands
of
competitors.
Bitcoin
not
only
has
the
largest
and
most
recognizable
brand
inside
and
outside
the
cryptocurrency
industry,
it
also
controls
the
largest
pool
of
capital
in
crypto,
which
sits
just
over
$1
trillion
today.
Bitcoin
is
also
the
most
battle-tested
public
blockchain
in
the
world
with
thousands
of
nodes
running
around
the
world
and
100%
network
uptime
for
11
consecutive
years.
Bitcoin
is
the
biggest,
most
secure,
most
decentralized,
most
reliable
permissionless
financial
network
in
the
world.
Building
on
Bitcoin
means
building
on
the
best.
But
Bitcoin
has
a
lot
of
catching
up
to
do.
Solana,
Ethereum,
and
other
blockchains
have
spent
years
capitalizing
on
Bitcoin’s
near
complete
stagnation
by
incubating
ecosystems
that
are
home
to
hundreds
of
applications,
thousands
of
users,
and
billions
of
dollars.
Even
the
Lightning
Network,
which
has
long
been
the
darling
of
the
“anti-DeFi”
sect
in
Bitcoin,
has
seen
the
number
of
coins
held
on
its
network
stagnant
for
years.
Now
is
the
time
to
recommit
to
making
Bitcoin
the
home
of
innovation
and
experimentation
in
the
cryptocurrency
industry
again.
If
Bitcoin
is
not
the
gateway
to
permissionless
finance
for
new
users,
we
will
have
failed.
If
Bitcoin
becomes
nothing
more
than
an
asset
custodied
by
ETF
providers,
we
will
have
failed.
If
the
world’s
best
form
of
money
is
not
adopted
alongside
the
development
of
a
native
financial
system
powered
by
Bitcoin,
we
will
have
failed.
The
technocultural
norms
and
habits
that
have
arrested
Bitcoin
development
for
years
must
be
stomped
out
completely.
Building
the
future
of
money
and
finance
on
Bitcoin
requires
an
army
of
builders.
In
the
past
two
years,
hundreds
of
new
founders
and
engineers
have
started
building
on
Bitcoin,
but
that
number
needs
to
continue
growing.
At
Botanix
Labs,
we
are
developing
one
piece
of
Bitcoin’s
future
with
a
Layer
2
network
called
the
Spiderchain.
But
everyone
building
anything
with
Bitcoin
should
be
proud
to
be
among
this
multitude
of
people
collaborating
with
each
other
to
bootstrap
a
decentralized
financial
ecosystem.
Bitcoin’s
best
days
are
still
ahead
thanks
to
the
combined
efforts
of
this
group
of
builders.
Bitcoin
is
a
civilization-altering
invention
that
should
empower
ordinary
people
to
escape
control
of
a
financial
system
that
is
so
concentrated
and
censored.
But
Bitcoin
needs
to
cultivate
an
alternative
financial
system
to
replace
its
incumbents.
Experimentation
and
innovation
should
be
core
tenets
in
this
new
financial
era
of
transparency,
decentralization,
and
permissionlessness.
What
Moy
and
thousands
of
others
see
as
Bitcoin’s
future
for
finance
is
up
to
all
of
us
to
actualize.
Considering
all
that
is
at
stake,
we
have
to
at
least
try.
Note:
The
views
expressed
in
this
column
are
those
of
the
author
and
do
not
necessarily
reflect
those
of
CoinDesk,
Inc.
or
its
owners
and
affiliates.
