quotingMany years ago, there was a Bitcoin exchange called MPEx, run by the late great Mircea Popescu.
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The design of this exchange was brilliant and radical on a technical level, an expression of the genius of one of the greatest Bitcoiners; a man who is sorely missed by all true Bitcoiners.
This exchange had many users, one of which was infamous altcoiner Erik Voorhees.
Mircea Popescu was approached by the US government's SEC to reveal details of Erik's use of MPEx, and Mircea instantly lept to the defense of his client, refusing in the most scintillating and scathing terms to aid the SEC in any way, shape or form.
https://archive.is/Qcll3
You can read his responses for yourself
https://tinyurl.com/msduxfn2
eye opening, inspiring and highly instructive.
This, my dear readers, is exactly how all CEOs should approach any attack from the State, or its infiltrating Apratchicks who have snuck on to the staff.
If all CEOs behaved like Mircea Popescu, then many of the problems you as users of Bitcoin experience would vanish in a puff of smoke.
All the users complaining and posting screenshots showing Gemini asking weird questions that make absolutely no sense in reference to how they use "their" Bitcoin, that in this or any other universe are considered insane, and all the other "power over" abuses you've seen would not be happening.
And Bitcoin would have spread further into the world than it has today as a result.
The role of the CEO is not to Virtue Signal by patting the needy on their heads and other showy things that whilst good in a normal world are absolutely bizarre in the real world, where users are under attack and their rights are daily abused and the Bitcoin ecosystem itself is under constant pressure from enemies.
If we had more Mircea Popescu types, the Bitcoin ecosystem would be far better off than it is today; more resilient, more widespread and more useful at any scale, since it would not be mediated by cowards and weaklings.
Mircea Popescu cannot be a model for anyone I'm afraid, and there is no factory that can produce more of them.
Why is that?
The reason why, is that what I'm talking about in Mircea Popescu is a man of character. A man who understands what power is, and how to wield it justly.
Mircea bailed out OpenBSD
https://tinyurl.com/2xfn7j7h
and did many other things in secret that have changed the course of history for the better; that is what everyone should expect, not Virtue Signalling, pandering and being a willing cowering prisoner in a gaol of your own making as a way of life.
It should be obvious to everyone now that when the right man is in charge of something, amazing things can happen that can change the world rapidly.
Elon, for all his many faults, has radically shifted the overton window in the matter of free speech, and caused millions of users to breathe easier by having the threat of their speech cut off removed.
Imagine if this happened in Bitcoin services!
Imagine for a moment, that Bitcoin has no restrictions on how it can be used, and that you can use many services in whatever way you want without any fear that anything can go wrong.
Using Bitcoin like using an iPhone to browse the web at will.
This is unimaginable for anyone inured to the cancerous adversarial culture that has metastasized in "The Bitcoin Community", but for those not infected, the very idea of this makes goosebumps break out all over your skin.
In order for this to come to pass, well designed tools and services that can touch the public are an absolute prerequisite. This is what has been missing for many years for different reasons, but now there is no longer any excuse, and it is a matter of character and will.
You've seen how paradigm shifting services have been launched before from different companies run by fearless mavericks. The world is better off when CEOs are fearless mavericks like Mircea Popescu and Steve Jobs; they are the ones that make the great leaps, and they're sorely needed and will always be needed.
And in case you can't understand this, this is not about starting a very successful company after the groundwork has been done by mavericks; this is about being a groundbreaking maverick.
It's easy to pivot to a keyboardless phone design after Apple have broken the hypnotic Emperor's New Clothes spell of "ALL PHONES NEED KEYBOARDS".
Someone had to do it first.
Someone had to show some guts.
Someone had to reject bad advice.
Someone chose not to run away from imaginary problems.
Someone chose to take the commercial risk.
Bitcoin is going to win. It is a question of when and not if.
We know from the death of the AOL era, that all business models that don't conform to reality are destroyed in the end, and that it doesn't matter how big you are now; you will be destroyed by the market and by entrepreneurs with guts and character.
Bitcoin is no different. The people who are willfully and ignorantly choosing to serve people in ways that are sub optimal, because some pig ignorant Ambulance Chaser told them to, are going to lose in the end.
Losing in this scenario doesn't mean not making money; in 1999, AOL’s market capitalization soared to around $222 billion.
But look at them now. Not only is AOL no longer a standalone entity with its own market capitalization; it is now a mere element in a portfolio managed by Apollo Global Management.
It's dead.
This is the fate of all businesses that are not run by mavericks who embrace risk. Apple is what it is today precisely because Jobs was a risk taker.
If you think Apple is big, just wait till the "Final FinTech Unicorn" emerges that will be built on Bitcoin. Nothing like it has been possible in the past, because Bitcoin did not exist.
In the "Final FinTech Unicorn" future, Bitcoin regulation will be a thing of the past, just as regulation of the web today is a fantasy of EU witches with short haircuts. The web is an unstoppable force for good. Most people know it and nothing can stop it.
The same will be true for Bitcoin, only the changes it will unleash will be far greater than many people can begin to imagine.
"Do you want to be remembered as one of the people who helped make it happen, or not?"
That is the question everyone needs to ask themselves.
I asked ChatGPT to, "List ten of the most revered and beloved tech CEOs of the last 40 years".
It returned...
1. Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.)
2. Tim Cook (Apple Inc.)
3. Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, X)
4. Reed Hastings (Netflix)
5. Jack Ma (Alibaba Group)
6. Shantanu Narayen (Adobe)
7. Marc Benioff (Salesforce)
8. Meg Whitman (HP, eBay)
9. Jensen Huang (NVIDIA)
10. Daniel Zhang (Alibaba Group)
Yikes. That's quite the list isn't it?
And you can't buy your way on to that list by Virtue Signalling. You've got to earn your place on it by doing real things that serve other people, without fear or favor.
Quite the task, isn't it?!
bert on Nostr: I was intrigued by the stories of Mircea Popescu years ago. This story is a nice ...
I was intrigued by the stories of Mircea Popescu years ago. This story is a nice read: “You've got to earn your place on it by doing real things that serve other people, without fear or favor.”