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@ Frank Corva
2024-12-30 00:32:47
(Cover image photo credit: [The Crypto Times](https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/10/25/michael-saylor-pitches-bitcoin-offer-to-microsoft-ceo/))
*“Our world of widows needs to be saved / it’s now or never — victim or victory, rebel or regret / who you are and who you claim to be / no more heroes.”* -Converge, “[No Heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sq8ZlyvH6E)”
Usually, bad takes from big figures in the Bitcoin space roll off my back. I often don’t feel a need to counter them because 1.) Everyone is entitled to their opinion and 2.) I don’t enjoy spending my time arguing with people on the Internet.
But when a take is really bad — downright evil — I feel compelled to respond.
And respond I did to a bad take this week (link in just a second, first some context).
Lately in the media, MicroStrategy Chair Michael Saylor has been laying out his vision for a digital asset framework.
This framework includes conceptualizing Bitcoin as a commodity — nothing more than capital — and stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) as “digital currencies” (his words).
As if someone who considers themselves a “[triple bitcoin maxi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOSirw2sZ_s)” (maybe one of the lamest terms ever) denying that bitcoin is a currency weren’t nauseating enough, his “evil genius plan” (his words) to get the world hooked on USD stablecoins as money while the US hoards bitcoin should have you upchuck everything in your guts if you truly believe in Bitcoin’s value proposition.
Below (a few lines down) is the piece I wrote countering Saylor’s perspective.
If there are two things I hope you take away from it, the first is to KILL YOUR IDOLS (not literally, of course) and the second is that [WE ARE BITCOIN](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/frank-we-are-bitcoin), and if we believe in the technology — all dimensions of it — we have to defend it.
Enjoy.
[Michael Saylor Doesn't Understand Bitcoin](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/michael-saylor-doesnt-understand-bitcoin)
## Support The Open Dialogue Foundation
Speaking of defending Bitcoin, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the work that the [Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF)](https://en.odfoundation.eu/) is doing to defend our legal right to use non-custodial bitcoin wallets.
Please read the following piece I wrote this week to learn more.
[Protect Your Non-Custodial Bitcoin Wallet — Support The Open Dialogue Foundation](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/protect-your-non-custodial-bitcoin-wallet-support-the-open-dialogue-foundation)
And please make a tax-deductible contribution (before the year’s end) to the organization [here](https://en.odfoundation.eu/how-can-you-help/).
## Bitcoin’s Second Book-Length Academic Text — *The Satoshi Papers* — Coming Soon
This week, I published my interview with Natalie Smolenski, a PhD-holding theoretical anthropologist who often makes very valuable thought contributions to the Bitcoin space.
[The Satoshi Papers Explores The Role Of The State In A Post-Bitcoin World: An Interview With Natalie Smolenski](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-magazine-books/the-satoshi-papers-explores-the-role-of-the-state-in-a-post-bitcoin-world-an-interview-with-natalie-smolenski)
What I loved most about this interview (and I loved a lot about it) is Smolenski’s lack of reverence.
Two of my favorite quotes from the interview:
> *“There was kind of a triumph of a certain very statist approach to socialism and even communism in the American academy, in the Anglophone academy, that has persisted to this day, where there's, like I was saying earlier, a suspicion of anything smacking of individualism as bourgeois conceit or reinscribing social hierarchies, racial hierarchies, gender hierarchies, blah, blah, blah.”*
The “blah, blah, blah” hit hard. It reminded me of how I used to tune out when speaking with a good portion of my co-workers during the years I taught at the college level.
The other one:
> “What do you hope people will take away from The Satoshi Papers?
\*> *If there's only one idea that people take away from it, it's that your emancipation does not require the state. You do not need to wait for the government.*
\*> *My God, take control of your life. You can, it is within your power to do so, and here are some examples of ways that people throughout human history have chosen to do so."*
The “My God” was so properly placed. Chef’s kiss.
Check out to entire piece to absorb more of Smolenski’s wisdom.
Thank you all for reading, and here’s to a great week ahead!
Best,
Frank
