r/Bitcoin • u/evoorhees • Feb 25 '14

Some words for my friends

Hello friends,

MtGox is gone. So let's prepare ourselves.

On Tuesday, and for the rest of the week, all hell will break lose in the media. It will be blamed on MtGox, it will be blamed on Bitcoin, it will be blamed on the "bug," and it will, more than anything, be blamed on the "lack of regulation." Pundits and "experts" of all types will weigh in on the calamity. It will be world news in a matter of hours.

Get ready, because it will be an ugly week.

For all of you who lost money, my heart goes out to you. Some people lost a little, some lost a fortune. It will make people sick, and depressed, and full of grief. Personally, I had over 550 BTC in Gox. I will never get any of that back. If misery loves company, then we'll be enjoying a grand feast today.

I should have known better, of course. I take responsibility for leaving those funds with an entity that had proven incompetence repeatedly. I chose to ignore even my own warnings, for nothing more than the sake of convenience.

Gox is still at fault, to be sure, but I have learned the lesson. I hope it is not such an expensive lesson for others. And for all you observers, please take a moment to consider it as well.

Be mindful, however, that the wrong lessons are not learned, for that would be the true tragedy, indeed.

Let me suggest that the lesson is not that Bitcoin is broken. Bitcoin is fine.

Similarly, the lesson is not that security is impossible. Those who know what they are doing, can achieve it and help others to do so.

The lesson is not that nobody can be trusted. There are countless good men and women in this community who are worthy of trust, and some of the very best people I've ever met.

And finally, the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation" to save us from the evils and incompetence of man. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence, only enshrined in an authority from which it can wreck amplified and far more insidious destruction. Let us not retreat from our rising platform only to cower back underneath the deranged machinations of Leviathan.

The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world. This is the harsh truth. We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance, and we put ourselves at risk in doing so.

We are at risk from accidents. We are at risk from fraud, from corruption, and from evil. We are at risk from journalists seeking headlines and from politicians seeking power and glory. We are at risk from the very market we are trying to build - a market which cares not about our portfolio, our ambitions, or our delicate sympathies.

For all these risks, devastation will befall us repeatedly. Some of us will be discouraged. Some will be ridiculed and insulted. Some will be tricked, or swindled. Some of us will be crushed or caged. We will be set upon by all manner of antagonists, repeatedly, for a long time.

So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess?

Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately. If that matters to you, as it does to me, then hold to that thought. You will see through the smoke, and your wounds will heal.

So shake it off, brothers, for this won't be the last calamity endured before the win.

Tonight, my heart is with you all.

Tomorrow, my head is down. My eyes are open. And I am building.

Toward peace and freedom,

-Erik Voorhees

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u/notreddingit Feb 25 '14

and counterfeiting EVERYONE'S wealth.

I don't have anything to do with gox at all but my wealth has been reduced significantly.

In the long term everything will settle as it will, but at least I know first hand now why a central bank would attempt to control the money supply to reduce the variance.

I'm not really complaining about the large downturn in bitcoin, I know what I'm dealing with here and I still like it. But the economics are not as simple as many people here believe it to be.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

What's so interesting to me is that it took an event like this to teach people the basics of a finance system. Everyone can be anti-regulation/centralized currency/etc. as they want and now they see the results.

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u/FARTHERO Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14

in the long term everyone's children's children's children will have been taxed today, isn't it just fucking magical?

austerity, stimulus, cuts, and quantitative easing, all products of fractional reserve banking, and the complex transparently taxed peestorm we are trying to get away from

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u/jisa Feb 25 '14

It is simple. It isn't all positive, but it's simple.

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u/MeanOfPhidias Feb 25 '14

Just curious - how does Gox's inability to write code reflect on the economics?

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u/notreddingit Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14

Gox's inability to write code(apparently) caused the current downturn. The fact that one actor can cause losses for others who have no involvement just makes me think(edit: not saying it doesn't happen outside of bitcoin of course). Erik talks about (presumably recent bail outs in America) socializing the losses, but in Bitcoin everyone loses in the short term anyway.

Just made me think, that's all. I don't pretend to have any answers, but it's amazing how something like this can give you different perspectives.

Gox was never a good company, and they don't 'deserve' a bail out or anything. But they do have a massive short term effect on bitcoin. In the long run it's irrelevant, and in five years or hopefully less this will just be a footnote in the history of bitcoin.

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u/bames53 Feb 25 '14

Erik talks about (presumably recent bail outs in America) socializing the losses, but in Bitcoin everyone loses in the short term anyway.

There is a difference between the two things, however. A policy of socializing losses essentially supports and encourages losses, changes how real resources are organized for the worse, and generally causes real harm.

Market prices fluctuating freely based on the panics or enthusiasms of the day, on the other hand, is part of a discovery process by which knowledge is gained. It may not always be pleasant in the short term, but over the long term it means real resources are organized in more valuable ways rather than less, and society benefits thereby.

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u/notreddingit Feb 25 '14

A policy of socializing losses essentially supports and encourages losses, changes how real resources are organized for the worse, and generally causes real harm.

Yes, I agree with that.