Allen Farrington - Bitcoin Is Venice: Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism

Bitcoin Is Venice

Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism

Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers

BTC Media, LLC

Nashville, TN

Bitcoin Is Venice

Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers chart a crash course through the errors of modern economic theory and the world's broken fiat currency system with a hopeful destination: Bitcoin Is Venice.

What if a global, digital, sound, open-source, programmable currency was monetizing from absolute zero? What might economies look like under a Bitcoin standard that pushes beyond Hernando de Sotos abstraction of capital as "economic potential energy?" What might this new form of capital do to our current governing bodies? Can Bitcoin bring about a new global Renaissance? With Farrington and Meyers, the discussion is as revolutionary as the answers.

Praise for Bitcoin Is Venice

Entertaining and erudite, this is a manifesto for a more ethical monetary and financial system, for capitalism in its purest form and for number go up technology. This book bridges the gap between the concept of an open-source sound money and the practical reality of an ethical and workable financial system.

Harris Irfan, author of Heavens Bankers

A great deep dive into how Bitcoin provides a transmission mechanism to a world of truth, freedom, and abundance.

Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow

Perhaps you found it surprising that a human rights advocate be asked to write the foreword to a book about finance and economics. But read the book, and youll understand why Ive been tasked with preparing you for this journey.

This isnt simply about how money and finance work though youll learn a lot about that along the way its a book about how we can, and how we must, harness the power of Bitcoin to secure liberty in the electronic age.

Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer, Human Rights Foundation

Bitcoin Is Venice by Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers

The authors and publisher give their permission to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book, and this book only, in parts or as an unaltered whole for non-commercial uses. Please maintain author and publisher information, including this page and metadata, with any reproduction, distribution, or transmission, in whole or in part, whenever feasible.

All proceeds after costs from the sale of this book will be donated to the Human Rights Foundations Bitcoin Development Fund.

ISBN 979-8-9857289-0- (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-9857289-1- (eBook)

Published by BTC Media, LLC

438 Houston St. #257 Nashville, TN 3720

Address all inquiries to contact@btcmedia.org

Printed by Amazon

Cover painting by George Bodine

Formatting by RMK Publications, LLC

The views and conclusions expressed in this manuscript are entirely the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Media Inc. or its team.

The chevron logo on the spine of this book is a registered trademark of BTC Media, LLC, all rights reserved, and may not be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

Hydra, sem a qual eu poderia ter escrito este livro mais rpido, mas sem a qual eu no teria querido. Voc faz meu mundo girar. Sacha

, , , . , , . Allen

And from us both to our parents.

Thanks and Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation for the contributions to the manuscript of: Alex Adamou, Saifedean Ammous, Robert Breedlove, Ben Carman, Nic Carter, Tuur Demeester, Russell Farrington, Ryan Gentry, Alex Gladstein, Michael Goldstein, Joe Kelly, Obaid Khan, Jamie King, Kelly Lannan, Hass McCook, Yorick de Mombynes, Robert Natzler, Pierre Rochard, Sven Schnieders, Clay Space, Alfonze Stier der Zeitkette-Meerkeell, and Giacomo Zucco.

Thanks also to the BTC Media team for their tireless work bringing the manuscript to print. Thanks to George Bodine for the original painting used for the cover.

Thanks to Alex Gladstein at the Human Rights Foundation (HRF): Obviously for the important and inspiring work he and they do, but in our case, for arranging for the profit from sales of this book to go towards the HRFs Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF). In case the reader is unaware, the authors are not receiving compensation of any kind, either upfront or variably, based on sales. After the costs of the production and sale of this book, all proceeds will be donated.

In addition, the rights to the book are fully open-sourced. Not only do we allow piracy, we encourage it especially if in the form of providing translations. If anybody would like to translate the book into a language other than English, as just mentioned we cannot stop you, but we may be able to help you and possibly to pay you . If this is of interest, please contact the authors for more information.

In the likely event that the reader did not personally pay for a physical copy of this book, in whatever form this text has taken as they find themselves reading it, and, in doing so, make a small donation already, we would encourage them to consider donating to the HRF, either the BDF or the general fund, as feels most appropriate.

Over and above those who helped with the process of writing, editing, publishing, and more, we would like to extend special thanks to Robert Natzler, Saifedean Ammous, Elizabeth Stark, and, of course, the global ecosystem of volunteers promoting this civilizational project.

Rob has been thanked above for contributions to this manuscript but has also been kindly and diligently editing all our writing for many years longer than we have been publishing, blogging, or attempting to be public figures of any kind. In a perfect world, he would have been a third co-author, but as we know well, the world is far from perfect. We can only hope that, post-hyperbitcoinization, his time preference will have lowered to the point he can be bothered putting pen to paper himself. Until such a glorious moment, it would be unfair not to acknowledge that an enormous amount of the intellectual content in this book originated in conversation with Rob. The few ideas that are original are probably originally his. Thank you, Rob.

Saifedean has also been thanked above as having generously lent his time to the writing and editing process, but he is owed an additional thanks far, far more important than this alone. Dr. Ammous taught us not just by his thinking but as the best teachers do by his example, to stop worrying about how others will receive our ideas, put them out there, and see what happens. Or, as Mrs. Ammous previously encouraged him , Stop Talebing and do it! (So, we suppose, thank you, Mrs. Ammous as well!) We acted on this inspiration long before committing to write this book, to be clear. But this book is the intellectually indebted, years-later output of the precedent set by his. Thank you, Saif.

Elizabeth is of a different stripe to Rob and Saif, and to us. She is likely of a different stripe to anybody else in the world, as a matter of fact. She is a force of nature. Her profession and skillset are entirely different to our own and her impact on the manuscript has been minimal. But her impact on our thinking and sincerely and without exaggeration our attitude to our work and to life has been profound. Her seemingly unbounded energy and enthusiasm helped us to keep going through dark times for us, for Bitcoin, and as it sometimes seemed, for the world.

Her unwavering commitment to just doing good forces a continual reckoning with respect to our own motivations, and we wouldnt have it any other way. We believe in turn that she has coined the most important meme in Bitcoin history, or at least the most ethical, the most encouraging, and the most emblematic of the good we are all trying to do: number of people go up . And what better and more concise way to describe what we hope for from this book? It is very much helpful that our profession and skillsets are different because it means that, while her work will change the lives of billions, perhaps ours can reach the marginal thousand or so. Thank you, Elizabeth.