This article is a birthday gift to Satoshi Nakamoto on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Bitcoin Whitepaper.

As far as birthday gifts go, it’s like a subscription to National Geographic — you may not have wanted it, but you know that every issue will teach you something new.

In this case, the gift is a subscription to Crypto Law Review (shameless plug, yeah, whatever). And just for you, Satoshi, here’s an analytical piece that goes so far against the crypto mainstream that we even doubted whether to publish it. We know Faketoshis will hate it. But true Bitlievers know that the critiques here are long overdue.

So, happy birthday, Satoshi! On behalf of thousands of crypto developers who were spurred to write their own visions of crypto’s future on top of the Bitcoin Whitepaper — thank you.

Now, let’s talk politics.

1. The Crypto Soviet State

Over at Crypto Law Review, we’re hard at work mapping CryptoLaw and sketching out different crypto legal theories. We’re basically trying to figure out (1) how crypto fits within existing social orders, (2) how crypto seeks to change current social paradigms, etc. As important, we focus on (3) how existing frameworks seek to change crypto.

It doesn’t matter what perspective you start from; inevitably, one’s analytical gaze turns to the role of the State in a given Cryptopia.

Generally speaking, crypto folks don’t like to talk about the State. If they came to crypto “for the ideology,” chances are they want to get away from the State.

That’s understandable.

Outside of crypto, many people want nothing to do with government organs either.

Many crypto people genuinely want to write their own laws, use their own money, and just live their best homo libertarian lives — free from outside control.

But ideology is a curse as much as a blessing. Whatever the ideology may be, strict adherence to it usually dulls criticism, censors dissent, and locks adherents into unsustainable conceptual boxes. It’s not a problem unique to crypto, but it’s a big problem in crypto nonetheless.

Much of crypto-political analysis today is just oversimplified ideological virtue signaling. It’s less politics and politicking, and more brand-identity and marketing.

Thesis 1: When today’s cryptonaires declare that crypto has “achieved decentralization,” it sounds way too much like the Soviet Union’s fiat declaration that it had “achieved communism.” While there’s some truth to both statements, the reality is far off the mark.