Looking back at the history of the cryptocurrency world over the past 10 years, how should we evaluate Bitcoin?
From a technical perspective, Bitcoin is neither good nor bad, neither good nor evil, nor beautiful nor ugly; it is simply a program, an algorithm, a string of mysterious code hidden on the internet.
From a cultural perspective, Bitcoin is a combination of individualism, liberalism, and technological determinism; it is the hope of technological geniuses and madmen for achieving an anarchic state and a utopian society.
However, no matter how grand the ideal, it must endure the pull of reality.
For liberals, Bitcoin represents the great ideal of human progress.
And for those who are not interested in technology and only want to make money, Bitcoin is merely a tool for wealth creation.
Bitcoin, due to its lack of regulation, is always filled with volatility, and there is never a shortage of wealth creation myths; due to survivor bias, people only focus on those who make money.
Luo Jinhai, the founder of CoinX, once made a very vivid analogy:
Bitcoin is the supreme magic ring that dominates all rings; it bewitches the mind, and those who wear the magic ring ultimately become the servants of the dark lord Sauron.
In reality, those who wear the Bitcoin ring, unless they possess a very strong inner self, will mostly become slaves to this magic ring.
As a technology created by "crypto-anarchists," Bitcoin itself is neutral, but when technology meets the difficult-to-crack nature of humanity, problems are bound to arise.
Satoshi Nakamoto can collide to find that unique hash value among 440 trillion, yet cannot calculate the madness of humanity.
When the greed in human nature distorts something that was originally neutral, that thing itself becomes unimportant; once there were tulips, now there is Bitcoin; both tulips and Bitcoin are not wrong, only human nature is.
Therefore, when human nature cannot bear the negative feedback of technology, the intervention of regulation is very necessary.
After all, Bitcoin cannot satisfy hunger, cannot be circulated, and has no monetary anchor behind it; apart from consuming massive amounts of energy to create wealth myths, it only brings more disasters.
Do not test human nature with Bitcoin; human nature can never withstand the test.
