As I draft this article, I am living the life of Viktor Navorski, the fictional character in the movie, “The Terminal,” based in part on the true story of Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who was stuck in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years. Yes, years.
In this version of “The Terminal,” the tractor-trailer version, the terminal in question is the Framingham Service Plaza on I-90 in Massachusetts, close to Worcester. I limped on a failed clutch, forcing me to wait four days for a company truck to pick up my trailer, hopefully allowing me to limp back to Canada, all of this causing my absence at the second annual Mass Adoption Freedom Festival. Neither Viktor Navorski nor Mehran Karimi Nasseri had my laptop or an internet connection, making me the lucky one.
Today, the last of the four days, I spent here on various projects and I took the opportunity to co-host the infamous Toxic Happy Hour Twitter space with @Publord and @Anders. During a conversation about the philosophy of Bitcoin, I mentioned something I think many Bitcoiners and non-coiners miss, what I call “the underlying, philosophical framing that Bitcoin brings.”
While purchasing something at a point-of-sale (POS), using one of my fiat cards, some time ago, something occurred to me that was mildly aggravating. When the transaction was processed, a message appeared on the screen that read ‘transaction approved.’ This message jumped out at me. Approved? Why was it approved? It is my money; I don’t need approval to use it. Now, I understand for many that this might be rather pedantic and based on semantics – perhaps it dates back to programming and IT security, I get it. However, we as humans have emotional ties to specific words, the contexts in which they are used, and the emotions and experiences we anchor to them. ‘Approved,’ for me, implies permission and in this case, permission to use my own money. This is where the stark difference lies with Bitcoin that many still unaware of Bitcoin accept as normal and perhaps another indicator of how Bitcoin changes you.
Whenever I have used Bitcoin, the transaction messages have one of two status messages: pending and verified. That is the key, the word Verify vs. Approved has significant implications. This is the fundamental difference in the psychological framing of what makes Bitcoin different – the expectation that your money, your Bitcoin, is yours, and you do not require permission to use what is yours. All that is required is verification from the network ledger. This is more than mere semantics.
It may seem like a minor detail, however, it represents one of the most fundamental differences in personal philosophy, as it relates to the current cultural conflicts in modern society and the encroachment of increasingly authoritarian government, as we saw during the COVID years.
In contrast to the Bitcoin protocol’s default state, where your transactions are verifications of your inputs, this is a stark contrast in philosophy to the multi-sig fiat system. We all have been programmed to accept that in the fiat banking system, government currency is held in trust by the bank but how many people have considered this permission and approval process to use their own money? Who are the people who need to approve the use of your money? In the case of the multi-signatory, fiat, banking system, at least three entities, sometimes more, must approve a transaction.
Money held in a bank can only be moved when you, the account owner, the bank, and the government approve the transaction, confirming that you have the legal right to spend your own money. At the point of sale, it’s even worse. Your account may require the approval of all three of these entities, plus one or sometimes multiple merchant processors, particularly if you are out of your home region. If you are wealthy enough to require moving large sums of money, you might require a team of lawyers, as Microstrategy CEO, Michael Saylor, explained was his experience when he tried to move large sums of U.S. dollars into Bitcoin.
For the Non-Bitcoiners reading this, I’m going to answer the question you are asking. Why am I bothering with this seemingly trivial issue of approval vs. verification?
In February 2022, myself and many other Canadians had our bank accounts, credit cards, all our financial assets, and our tools frozen by the state – one of the three entities that must agree to allow or approve you to use your money. They decided, without charges laid or any potential prosecution, that our money should not be approved for use because we were, ironically, protesting increased authoritarianism by Trudeau and various provincial governments, both liberal and conservative.
In this case, when one of the three entities controlling our fiat, multi-signatory wallet, aka a bank account, the government, decided we could not access our money, the bank, the second party in the transaction, fell in-line and enforced the government’s authoritarianism and, as Justice Mosley ruled, it was an illegal act. The government broke the law, decided to tell banks to freeze the assets of their clients, and the banks issued no pushback, did not file any court challenge, or show any resistance at all.
One of the banks in question that froze our money, restricting access to our funds, is now under federal investigation by the US government for laundering $653 million in illegal fentanyl profits for drug cartels. If people in government wonder why there is such vitriol and open hatred towards the government and the financial system, this intentional deception and interpretation, versus enforcement of the law, is a primary cause and transcends political philosophy. As they say in politics behind the scenes, everyone cares about their money, everyone.
Over the past couple of years, I have done my best to communicate and alert anyone willing to listen about the massive flaw in our fiat, multi-signatory banking system and digital payment infrastructure, which is biased towards approval. There is a peer-to-peer alternative, meaning direct, person-to-person transactions, which is why I often describe it as an insurance policy. It’s always better to be verified than to seek approval, especially in an age when governments and central planners are seeking more control over our individual lives. The fact that Bitcoin is deflationary and protects your purchasing power over time is an added bonus.
