THE BITCOIN REFORMATION
INTRODUCTION
At the end of the 16th century, a rag tag group of rebel intellectuals and entrepreneurs founded a country on some of the least desirable land in Europe—so often
flooded that it needed hundreds of miles of moats - while fighting an eighty year
long war against the largest empire in the world.
From this struggle and melting pot of ideas emerged the Dutch and British golden
ages, innovative economic institutions that changed the world, as well as one of
America’s most successful socio-economic experiments: New York City.
This report makes the case that the 21st century emergence of bitcoin,
encryption, the internet, and millennials are more than just trends; they herald a wave of change that exhibits similar dynamics as the 16-17th century
revolution that took place in Europe.
Some of the conclusions our report suggests:
• Bitcoin tolerance versus intolerance to become a major political faultline
• Bitcoin’s primary drivers will be in saving, lending and underwriting
• Collaborative custody to become an industry standard
• Offshore banking may transform into bitcoin banking
• Bitcoin to mature quickly: bonds, annuities, loans, insurance
• Initial exchange offerings (IEOs) expected to stay and grow larger
• Bitcoin savers could accelerate a revolution in the history of thought
THE PAST AS KEY TO THE PRESENT -
A NOTE ON METHOD
As an investor and analyst, I aim to identify socio-economic trends and predict how they will evolve. I read, curate and share. I separate signal from
noise by listening to experts who I think have integrity. And yet, a major
challenge remains in that secular trends often are clearly identifiable only
in hindsight.
The solution, I believe, is identifying parallel historic perspectives. In
order to reduce my chances of remaining a trend-blind contemporary, I
study history in the broad sense. As I read history books and papers, I’m
on the lookout to find parallels and symmetries with present day trends. In
doing so, I stretch my mind to consider dynamics that I hadn’t previously,
and am able to hypothesize about causalities that were previously inconceivable to me. I believe this improves my ability to assign probabilities to
certain outcomes, which in turn allows me to strategize my investments and
entrepreneurial endeavors in a more rational way.
In the past I’ve drawn parallels between bitcoin and the early petroleum
industry, the search engine wars, the domain name markets, the growth of
P2P file sharing, and internet protocols. But I kept feeling that I was failing
to fundamentally grasp the magnitude of the epoch in which bitcoin functions as a catalyst. It wasn’t until I studied the era around the Protestant
Reformation that I felt I’d found a potential blueprint of sufficient scope.
I hope you enjoy reading this report as much as I did researching it.
Sincerely,
Tuur Demeester
FOUR PRECONDITIONS OF A REFORMATION
We believe there were four conditions that enabled the Protestant
Reformation, and we think those same four preconditions are present today:
a painful status quo in the form of a monopoly service provider, technological catalysts for change, a new economic class, and credible defense and exit
strategies for rebels.
1/ RENT-SEEKING MONOPOLISTIC SERVICE PROVIDER
In the 2002 paper “An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation” it
is argued that the Catholic Church was a monopolistic provider of spiritual
services, and that the control that religious authorities had over portions of
the legal system provided them with the market power to exclude rivals.1
For centuries, the Catholic Church exercised a highly regarded gatekeeper
function: it controlled the keys to heaven via forgiveness of sin, typically
provided by priests. The authors of the paper argue that “if the religious
monopoly overcharges, it risks two forms of entry: (a) the common citizenry
may choose other dispensers of religious services, and (b) the civil authorities may seek a different provider of legal services.” And this is indeed what
happened during the Reformation.
In present day, the monopolistic service provider whose rent-seeking is being
questioned is the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS).
2
Since the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, the US dollar has enjoyed the
“exorbitant privilege” of being the world’s reserve currency. Similar to the
Catholic Church in the 16th century, financial authorities’ control over portions of the legal system provides them with the market power to exclude
rivals. In addition, the fiat-settled banking system has a gatekeeper function
where it controls the keys to the wealth and pensions of the world’s citizenry. In the current environment of quantitative easing, negative interest
rates, and currency wars, the banking monopoly is arguably overcharging
for its services (customers are paying the inflation tax), which means it risks
two forms of entry: (a) the common citizenry may choose other dispensers
of financial services, and (b) the civil authorities may seek a different provider of financial services—in other words, given more adoption, we may
see political entities embrace bitcoin as a full-fledged money for all legal
purposes.
2/ TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION: CATALYST FOR CHANGE
In the 16th century, several world-changing inventions gained meaningful adoption: the printing press3 lowered the cost of a book from a year’s
labor to the price of a chicken, double entry bookkeeping4 accelerated
international commerce, compass and hourglass improvements5 allowed
for returning from unmapped territory (which unlocked world exploration),
and the boom in scientific research6 lead to the advancement of yet more
inventions.
In the late 20th and early 21st century, several inventions have brought
about about a digital revolution: telecommunications and email allow for
working remotely, the commoditization of computation and data storage
massively lowers infrastructure overhead which allows for startup costs to
decline, open source software provides entrepreneurs with robust and free
building tools, cryptography opens up a suite of defensive technologies
for permissionless security solutions, and social media allows for rapid and
non-bureaucratic dissemination of information.
3/ NEW ECONOMIC CLASS: PEOPLE WITH SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR
During the 16th and 17th centuries maritime trade throughout Europe
improved and grew significantly.7 Flowing all the way from Switzerland to
the British Channel, the Rhine river was a major artery for trade, and the
cities of the Lowlands were natural beneficiaries from being located at the
mouth of it. Intercontinental shipping took off as well, primarily with the
spice trade between Asia and Europe. The increased volume of trade amplified the impact of technological innovation, and port cities with good rule of
law saw a rise in specialized industries like painting, fabrics, book printing,
weaponry, tapistry, schooling, and medicine. The specialists at the top of
these industries could solicit business from all across Europe. As a result
of increased trade, technological innovation, and intense specialization,
overall wealth increased and the relative contribution of agriculture to the
economy diminished, which weakened the wealth of landlords and churches
in favor of the new merchant class.
Today, class systems in the West are less defined. However, we do believe
that certain parts of the population are much more change-oriented than
others. The millennial generation in particular has a distinct skepticism
towards traditional finance, and enthusiastically embraces digital innovation. A 2016 survey by Facebook found that only 8% of millennials “trust
financial institutions for guidance,” and that 45% are “ready to switch if a
better option comes along.”8 Furthermore, a survey by the Transamerica
Center for Retirement Services suggests that 76% of millennials believe
that “compared to my parent’s generation, our generation will have a much
harder time in achieving social security,” and 79% are also “concerned that
when I am ready to retire, social security won’t be there for me.”9 Aside from
being the most invested in the Bitcoin economy,10 millennials as a cohort are
expected to control the largest share of disposable income by 2029.11
4) CREDIBLE STRATEGIES FOR DEFENSE AND ESCAPE
Even with superior economics on his side, and with significant wealth, a citizen will be a lot less tempted to oppose a domineering status quo if he
doesn’t also have credible strategies for both defense and escape.
It was no coincidence that the Dutch Revolt lasted 80 years—longer than any
other uprising in Modern European History. The “sea beggars” were undisputed masters of water. In 1573, the Dutch successfully defended against
the siege of Alkmaar by flooding the surrounding fields. They also wiped
out a critical Spanish supply line using flooding. A year later the same tactic
saved the town of Leiden, the Dutch nucleus of education, from another
Spanish attack. The western core of the Dutch republic was protected by a
“waterline”: a string of fortified villages, close enough to allow for optic
communication, with surrounding lands that could be flooded in a matter
of hours. And because of easy access to the North Sea and large fleet, there
were the fallback options of emigration to the British Isles or, as the 17th
century came around, venturing to the New World.
In the 21st century, the defensive technological suite available for people
who question the economic status quo is cryptography—which can enable
privacy and protection from asset seizure.12 Today, encryption is very widely
used. For example, the application of HTTPS on the web grew from 13% in
2014 to 77% in 2018.13 However encryption defeats the purpose of privacy
if the service provider can be backdoored. We therefore see an increased
interest in digital self sovereignty, with millennials adopting bitcoin, and
showing interest in projects such as VPN, Blockstack, wifi mesh networks,14
Tor, Signal, Purism, U2F, PGP, and so forth.
DOCTRINES THEN AND NOW
One intuitive parallel between the Protestant Reformation and now are the
doctrines which reflected the very essence of the rebellion—they were the
calls of unity and conviction, and we see similar unifying doctrines today.
In the 16th century, the principal doctrine of the Lutheran Reformation was
summarized with the words Sola Fide which translates to “faith alone.” This
phrase encapsulated the idea that for access to heaven, believers didn’t
need a priest anymore. Their faith and devotion alone would suffice. Another
common call of the Reformation was Sola Scriptura, or “by scripture alone,”
which signified the rejection of any original infallible authority other than
the Bible.
In the bitcoin space today, there are several “battle cries” that tend to be
dismissed as memes. In our view, they reflect a rebellious essence that could
herald a modern-day reformation. A first is Vires in Numeris,
15 which stands
for “strength in numbers.” The spirit of this crede was summarized by Tyler
Winklevoss in an often quoted line: “We have elected to put our money and
faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error.”16
Another motto used by bitcoiners is Don’t Trust, Verify. This phrase has
been around since the 1990s17 and may have started as a twist on Ronald
Reagan’s “trust, but verify.”18 It encourages users to independently verify the
integrity of new open source software, and in the case of bitcoin, to verify
the validity of transactions on the blockchain. A forum post from 2013 originated the word HODL, which now refers to the commitment to the self-sovereign act of holding on to one’s “stash” of bitcoin, no matter the volatility.19
Finally there’s the mantra Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin, which refers to
the lack of trust in third party custodians.