Don't have enough time to sit down and read all the best Bitcoin articles. Well, let us read them for you. This is a crypto Konami quick read. What is up guys? Welcome back to the crypto Kana me with guys Swan. I am your host and we are getting back in Action here. I know I haven't had an episode since a bit block boom. So we have had a little bit of a gap here, but I'm excited. I just got off a call a couple of hours ago with Brandon quidam and add are Gigi, and we had an awesome. Some awesome discussion that went I don't know we hit about two hours I think and it was all about the whole concept of Bitcoin as an organism. And so because I'm in that mindset I have been wanting to start and have started recording breedlove's money Bitcoin and time, but because that one's going to take me like a really long time I'm think is going to be like six episodes probably to get through the whole thing. And because I'm kind of in the zone. Of Bitcoin as an organism. I want to go ahead and hit Proof of Life today, which is there Gigi's most recent piece that he posted on medium and it's a short little piece but it's just gold and it will be the perfect lead-in for our discussion tomorrow. So without further Ado, let's go ahead and just jump right into this piece. Again. This is proof of Life why Bitcoin is a living organism. The definition of life has been a challenge for scientists and philosophers alike. While many definitions have been put forward what precisely differentiates the living from the nonliving remains elusive are viruses alive DNA molecules computer viruses biologically produced minerals. Ralph Merkle inventor of cryptographic hashing and namesake of the Merkle tree made the argument that Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life in this article series. I intend to take this claim seriously explore it further and see what can be gleaned from viewing Bitcoin as a living organism. The first part will establish that Bitcoin is indeed a living organism. The second part will take a closer. Look at Bitcoins various habitats. And how changes in these habitats might affect the organism in the third part. We will dissect the Bitcoin organism trying to understand some of its parts in more detail. And finally, we will perform the thought experiment of trying to kill Bitcoin to illustrate the workable resilience of this strange decentralized organism What is life? The question of whether something is alive or not. Obviously hinges on one's definition of life life is endlessly complex. So it is no surprise that answering the question what is life leads to a multitude of answers New Age speculations aside. It seems that life is a process not a substance. We can try to describe this process by looking at things which are alive and remain Get what they do. They tend to grow reproduce and respond. They inherit traits are made up of smaller units cells and use energy to maintain their internal structure in the face of entropy. a graphic based on Chris Packard's characteristics of life living things experience growth and development reproduce Offspring Have heredity of traits as I have homeostasis or stable inner conditions a metabolism the transformation of energy. They are Cellular in structure and composition and they respond to their environment. From a physics perspective living things are thermodynamic systems. They utilize the energy differences in their surroundings to maintain a specific molecular organization and create copies of themselves. Thermodynamically speaking living systems are able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of quote free energy taken in from the environment in short living things create order out of Chaos. us Bitcoin is doing exactly that it takes energy from the environment and puts things in order. In other words. It decreases its internal entropy. It does so by appending blocks to a well ordered structure some call this structure the blockchain others call it a distributed Ledger. I will refrain from using either name since the name of this particular structure isn't important and doesn't help to convey a deeper truth. This structure is just one part of a large and complex system. Just like the backbone in vertebrates. It is important. No doubt but distributed or not a ledger on its own is as useful and Alive as a bag of bones. To understand why Bitcoin behaves animatedly we will have to look beyond the buzzwords and ask ourselves what Bitcoin actually is what it is made of and what its boundaries are. What is bitcoin? Compared to biological life pick one is quite simple nevertheless finding a succinct answer to what is bitcoin is not depending on your background. It might be a computer network a financial Revolution a way to protect your wealth a payment system a global settlement layer an alternative to Central Banking sound money a parallel economy an exercise in free speech a bubble a pyramid scheme a messaging system. A Communications protocol and inefficient database internet money or all of the above in short Bitcoin is different things to different people whatever Bitcoin might be it undoubtedly is a force to be reckoned with it has a life of its own and thus arguably it is best described as a living thing. many people seem to have come to this conclusion independently Bitcoin is described as an army of leaf cutter ants in Andreas em Antonopoulos is mastering Bitcoin a biological system, which is working in concert without a central coordinator the honey badger an animal which is commonly used to refer to bitcoin since it doesn't care and isn't afraid of anything is on the cover of Jimmy songs programming Bitcoin Dan held compared the Of Bitcoins of planting a tree examining the species the code the season timing soil distribution and gardening community that were essential to its success Brandon quidam postulates that Bitcoin is most similar to mycelium the underground Network which Powers the fungi Kingdom and can thus be best understood as a decentralized organism. The snake of Regulation and Central Banking is biting you while you are eating it alive Honey Badger Don't Care and just like an army of ants doesn't care if half of the workers are washed away by a flood. The Bitcoin network doesn't care if half of the nodes are all flying tomorrow. Quote Honey Badger, Don't Care Honey Badger Don't Give a Fuck end quote Randall. Memes like these especially if they survived and continued to be popular over a long period of time tend to be right conceptually what people seem to be saying when they refer to bitcoin as the honey badger is that in essence Bitcoin behaves like an animal which can't be controlled Can't Be Tamed and doesn't care too much about externalities. Which particular organism Bitcoin resembles most closely will be left as an exercise for the reader the above examples should merely illustrate that multiple authors made the intellectual leap of classifying Bitcoin as a living organism a leap, which I believe to be fascinating useful and ultimately correct Bitcoin is a living organism and we should try to understand it as such if we want to live in harmony with it. the Bitcoin organism as mentioned above Ralph Merkle was the first to point out that Bitcoin can be seen as a living entity. He remarked that Bitcoin has spawned an incredible amount of excitement in the technical community and tried to translate this excitement into something which could be understood by everybody a new form of life quote. Briefly and non technically Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. It lives and breathes on the internet it lives because it can pay people to keep it alive it lives because it performs a useful service that people will pay it to perform it lives because anyone anywhere can run a copy of its code it lives because all the running copies are constantly talking to each other it lives because if anyone copy is created. Opted it is discarded quickly and without any fuss or muss it lives because it is radically transparent anyone can see it's code and see exactly what it does end quote Ralph Merkle. While Bitcoin is indeed radically transparent. It is not perfectly obvious where Bitcoin begins and where it ends like all living things Bitcoin isn't just a uniform blob of matter. It is a dynamic living thing consisting of many different parts all of which communicate with and influence each other as well as other living things in the environment as a whole. The Bitcoin organism is made up of many interlocking Parts which work together to ensure the survival of the whole as with biological organisms. As soon as one crucial part is missing. The whole organism is bound to die Bitcoin. However is a strange Beast. It lives across domains with one foot in the purely informational realm ideas and code and one foot. in the Physical Realm people and nodes The Bitcoin organism manifest itself through the interplay of ideas code people and nodes all four of these conceptual pieces react to and influence each other in a value generating feedback loop, which keeps Bitcoin alive. Whether people are part of the Bitcoin organism or merely living in symbiosis with it depends on your point of view. for now, let's take an all encompassing view of the Bitcoin organism including people as one part of the hull after all just like we can't live without a multitude of bacteria fungi viruses and other creepy crawlies, which make up the human microbiome Bitcoin can't live without us the tiny beings in meatspace which keep it alive in any case nodes and their operators are tangible things which are manifest in the Physical world like the cells in your body all physical components of the Bitcoin organism can and will be replaced over time node operators come and go node in mining Hardware is replaced periodically and even whole mining Farms go offline and are replaced by more cost efficient facilities. Ideas in code or more ethereal they can't be grasped or pointed to in the same fashion. However, Bitcoin has an Essence the soul of the organism. If you like note that this Essence could in theory breathe life into a new host. If the current incarnation of the organism dies, the ghost of Bitcoin is independent of its physical body to borrow a metaphor from sheroes Ghost in the Shell. As long as something is compatible with this Essence. It will be treated as part of the whole if something is incompatible. However, it will be rejected just like biological organisms reject foreign objects inside their bodies. Part of this Essence is made explicit. Buy Bitcoins consensus rules other parts are repeated as mantras. Not your keys. Not your Bitcoin and run. Your own node are gentle reminders of Lessons Learned as well as shortcuts to a deeper understanding of what Bitcoin is and should be With a basic idea of the constituents and the extent of the Bitcoin organism in mind. Let's return to the descriptive definition of Life above and see how Bitcoin maps onto each trait. Growth Bitcoin grows in multiple ways the network grows the value of each Bitcoin grows. The market grows. Its user base grows in the ecosystem as a whole grows as well. reproduction Paradoxically Bitcoin uses replication to create absolute scarcity it reproduces itself in multiple ways and on multiple levels the source code is replicated across repositories. The software is copying itself upon installation. The Ledger reproduces itself on every node blocks propagate across the network by replication and even UT EXO's can be understood as reproductive entities dividing. Emerging during the transaction process mutations exist on every level as well invalid transactions invalid blocks hundreds of forks, and thousands of in perfect copies have been spawned by Bitcoin in the last couple of years. heredity Bitcoin inherits several traits from its predecessors public key cryptography digital signatures peer-to-peer networking digital time stamping and unforgeable costliness just to name a few further Bitcoins open Nature enables both vertical and horizontal Gene transfer some traits developed by gradual mutations of previous versions others find their way into the code Base by incorporating ideas from other projects. homeostasis Above All Else Bitcoins consensus rules are responsible for its stable inner conditions if blocks do not adhere to the current consensus rules. They will be rejected mercilessly and quickly the Bitcoin network will rid itself of these blocks just like we shed the dead cells of our skin. Metabolism mining rigs around the world keep the organism alive erecting virtually impenetrable walls in the process energy is transformed into digital Amber ensuring that the shield around past transactions is growing and Bitcoins heart keeps beating. Cellular multiple parts of Bitcoin our cellular the Bitcoin Network consists of nodes Each of which is a self-sustaining functional entity. The Ledger itself is cellular since blocks and transactions are basically cells in a large append-only spreadsheet. And responsive Bitcoin is a highly responsive organism. It responds to changes in price political changes economic changes environmental changes. For example, if parts of the internet are cut off technological changes, for example, breakthroughs in chip manufacturing and changes in our scientific understanding for example, breakthroughs in computer science mathematics or cryptography it reacts on its own without He person company or nation-state in charge. As mentioned above life is a process not a substance a delicate dance of innumerable Parts all signaling and communicating in an intricate way to self-sustain each organism and the phenomenon which we call Life as a whole. quote life is like fire not water. It is a process not a pure substance the simplest but not the only proof of life is to find something that is alive end quote Christopher McKay. In the words of astrobiologist Chris McKay the simplest proof of life is to find something that is alive. I have found a Bitcoin. And as far as I can tell it is alive for all the reasons outlined above. conclusion Bitcoin checks all the boxes when it comes to the characteristics of living things. It grows reproduces inherits and passes on traits uses energy to maintain a stable inner structure is Cellular in nature and responds to the various environments. It lives in in the next part of this series. We will take a closer look at these environments and how Bitcoin responds to changes in them Bitcoin. Boobs in breeds on the internet as Ralph Merkle beautifully said but arguably the Internet isn't the only environment it is living in for now. I hope to have convinced you that Bitcoin can be seen as a living organism alien as it may be I hope you have enjoyed this excursion into the world of the Bitcoin organism. If you like to accelerate the growth of both Bitcoin and this article series. Feel free to drop me a line some Applause on medium or even some SATs via the Beast which is Bitcoin. Thanks for all the encouragement and thank you for reading. All right, he's got a couple of links for further reading here at the end of this to which is a Bitcoin as a decentralized organism, which we've covered on the show by Brandon quidam. Excellent. Excellent read planting Bitcoin by Dan held which I've not done on the show, but he's actually got that one now as a full book. It was originally a I think is like a four or five part series and then daos democracy and governance by Ralph C. Merkel just fascinating is a little bit on the longer side another one. We have not done on the show. Um, but it is definitely a good one to dig into and then of course Bitcoins Gravity by G, which is another great one and we have covered on the show. I will try to get those links and of course, I will drop the link to the actual medium page so you can put some massive Applause on this article. I love this one. And as a number of other Great Links to dive a little bit deeper and we are going to have decided to go ahead and just release it tomorrow. I was going to wait until next week. That's why I just was like, all right, I'm gonna just jump into proof of like today on because I had an awesome interview this morning with Brandon quidam and der Gigi and we talked all about this. So I'm not going to go too much into the commentary. I do want to hit a couple of different main elements, but we have just it's so it was so much fun and I'm really excited to drop it tomorrow. So but before we go back get back into this, let's go ahead and add our sponsor take a break for just a second. I'm gonna grab Water and we will be right back. For anyone who has a podcast anchor cannot be beaten particularly for trying to get off the ground their entire platform is free. This includes unlimited hosting both in audio that you upload and how much your listeners download. I have uploaded an incredible library of audio now and I've never paid anchor a dime. In fact, they connect me with other sponsors and have run an ad consistently on my show. So they've paid For exposure to my audience that's really hard to beat even if we ignore that I can record directly in the app or my browser. I don't need any other software. If I don't want it I can edit at sound effects clips and they automatically published to all of the top podcasting platforms. I never had to do a thing. So if you were thinking of starting a show or already have a podcast, there's no better platform out there check out anchor by downloading the app or go to Anchor dot f FM today All right. So right off the bat in this article, I was immediately going down. I had to stop after the first paragraph just thinking about how to define life and it kind of sent me on trying to Define it for myself before I got into really exploring the whole argument that he lays out that Gigi lays out in this article. And the first paragraph is the definition of life has been a challenge for scientists and philosophers. Like while many definitions have been put forward what precisely differentiates the living from the nonliving remains elusive are viruses alive DNA molecules computer viruses biologically produced minerals and that immediately XO in my in my attempt to Define it for myself. I realized I start exploring it and realize that life exists on a spectrum there really is not any on and off switch here. There are Degrees to which some process that that a quote I thought was really great that life is a process not a substance. So the degrees to which a process can be characterized by the traits that we that we know that living things share in a similar way decentralization is is a spectrum. It's not as if you know, the network is centralized with just a hundred and ninety nine nodes, but immediately becomes decentralized at 200. It's a totally die. Hammock characteristic or trait of it that it's got meaning in many many different ways. It's not just it's not just no distribution. It's not minor distribution. It's not the competition in the mining Hardware Market or the number of developers or the multiple like base layer clients and the various computer languages that those are written in the various political jurisdictions in which the there are dedicated. Strong communities that are helping this thing forward that it's open and permissionless that anyone can join as long as they have a connection to the internet that the code is visible to everyone. I mean, there's hundreds of ways in which we could assess whether or not the thing is decentralized and it is some degree or combination of all of them at once but there is no clear line anyway anywhere in that exploration. It's all just a bunch of blurry gray, but It's clear that we can look at something at the end of it like like at its conclusion or the result of it and say okay. This is pretty much decentralized and this is pretty much centralized and life just the nature of trying to Define life has those same blurry edges. So I love that the the McKay quote of just the best proof of life is to Simply find something that is alive because as you know, when we get down to it, it's a very intuitive thing for us. I mean, we are living organisms ourselves. So it's not hard for us to identify life around us in a general sense. Like I don't have to break down the characteristics of a dog and watch his behavior closely for years and make sure it reproduces in order to reach some conclusion that it's Anna living organism. Like I know this inherently, so even though it's a bit of a A contradiction in itself. Is that like we have to find something alive to know what is life, but it's true because we are a part of that thing so intuitively we can we can make that assessment and then we just characterize it we start to look at what its behavior is separate from that thing that we think of as nonliving but Bitcoin exist in a lot of different Realms and specifically in one that we are accustomed. Unaccustomed to thinking of As Natural or or real in the in the sense of that. We usually think of his life is like biological life. So this sets a presumption of our view to see Bitcoin as a nonliving thing, but when you start to dig deeper when you when you begin to see and continue to explore Bitcoin merely as a software as soft a piece of software or a network, It really leaves something to be desired. The presumption that it is not living really dismisses by default some of the most fascinating questions that we can ask about Bitcoin. So I'm really glad that they're GG wrote this piece because I personally have been on the fence with accepting in a very concrete sense that Bitcoin is in fact an organism of itself, but I have to admit that I own only seem to be moving closer to that conclusion as I keep exploring it. So I have yet to find a solid argument that is pulling me back in the opposite direction. So I'm getting close and the so I want to hit each of the main characteristics of life that their GG talks about in this article just so that we have a little bit of ground work for the awesome interview that I am going to be releasing to you. As tomorrow because we have got the author of this article there Gigi and Brandon quit. I'm the author of The mycelium Bitcoin is a decentralized organism series to guide us down this Rabbit Hole tomorrow and it is it was so much fun. We went for two hours. So you're not gonna want to miss it. I don't want to go too much into this but we will start go down the line and I'll just kind of give my thoughts on what georgg hit so the first one is growth and really that could not be more straightforward Bitcoin grows all the time. I don't know. I don't know how you would even challenge this this this point. It's in the amount of energy. It consumes the nodes or the number of cells that support it the number of symbiotic organisms and like Network that utilize it the infrastructure around it the different Avenues and mediums by which it infiltrates kind of like Like it squeezes into satellite networks and Radio Networks and all of these other mediums in order to you know, give itself give itself fail-safes means of communication to keep the body healthy to keep the organism alive. We've got the hashing power that keeps it, you know, like a strong heartbeat and on and on and on there's and all of these have feedback loops to is that Like how the how the organism provides like, what do the organism excuse me provides to its environment and users. So any one of these characteristics if it experiences growth like substantial growth, it encourages inputs pressure for all of the other characteristics to grow along with it. Like if the hash power increases it creates an incentive for more nodes to come online for more infrastructure to use it for its price to go up as its seen as more secure it. Better etcetera. It's the whole I'm Trace mayor's if you don't if you don't know this if you're kind of new to bitcoin Trace mayor has a piece on the seven Network effects of Bitcoin and this is right in line with the whole growth Loop that it's it's as if like Bitcoin is truly going to go like full mycelium and just infiltrate every inch of the soil that our financial systems are embedded in and essentially correct all of the imbalances in it. I'm so growth is hard to challenge that one's that one's pretty obvious reproduction was a little bit less straightforward for me and I want to save a lot of this for tomorrow's interview because Gigi and Kim had really really cool things to add on this topic. And but one thing I do want to address is just comparing the process of creating a new node because we didn't actually really talk about this specifically but with the process Creating new cells so I couldn't help but like just think about the analogy of went to a cell splits its using the process of splitting and recombining its genetic code like it goes from DNA to like an RNA process and then back to DNA in order to produce identical identical copies of the internal rules of the system. And it's much like cloning the repository or downloading an entirely new node, but if that process gets corrupted the cell dies and is discarded like it's still the the process has to be fully verified essentially through a chemical and like protein verification process to ensure that the rules remain consistent all the way to the protein level. And that parallel is not far from what like how the Bitcoins Software operates in like a conceptual sense when it's creating a new node. It is a singular process of initializing and verifying the entire data string all of the consensus rules until it reaches the maturity of all of the surrounding nodes when interesting difference is that rather than just like one node splitting off every new note is actually created by connecting to many surrounding cells like the default 8 connections, but obviously can be way. More than that and they jointly feed and reconstruct the entire genetic code of the Bitcoin system into an entirely new Standalone entity. And and what's fascinating about this is every single one of those every new node could spawn a complete replacement of the organism if it ever found itself like alone in cyberspace and that's just another fascinating element that Every single node is a potential new Bitcoin. If anything ever happens to the current bitcoin and then same with the code the ideas out there. There's there's none inventing this thing. And then we got heredity and this goes right in line with the verification process and reproducing the code, but then you've also got forks and multiple compatible repositories that make the overall organism more resilient to failures in any one of its genetic foundations. So it would be as if like you could if there was an alternative to the specific DNA code is that we would want some cells to be written essentially in An alternative to it because then you then you have much less of a tag vector or a failure surface fewer vulnerabilities in the nodes that they're not all subject to the exact same flaws of the exact same attack surface. And and we also have heredity in kind of the the single-celled or less defined organisms. I guess you could say, I don't know how I how well this analogy goes back, but the ones that came Before it like public-key cryptography. It's not a specific network, but it is a cooperation of quote-unquote cells peer-to-peer networks. These are these other base elements that burst the Bitcoin system and these also lead to mutation and adaptation when you know, we find new ways to utilize this technology when these new methods were these new capabilities reveal themselves. And without without challenging the defined rules that sustain this organism we can find new ways to apply those rules in a compatible manner like all soft Forks are great example of that how we we find new ways to utilize the the tools essentially within that consensus. That consensus environment, but we find new ways to apply that or interact with the outside world or external to the organism. Like, how can we attach it to things in the real world? How can we attach it to more sorts of agreements and interactions between more people so there's definitely a degree of heredity and mutation and the the slow combining and changing of of rules homeostasis homeostasis is one of my favorite. We spent a long time talking about this in the interview. So I really just want to leave this one alone. But it's one of the points that I really got stuck thinking about for quite a while in the just the thousands of different ways in which Bitcoin maintains inner stability while existing in an incredibly unstable and chaotic environment. So I'm just going to leave that right there because that was so much fun and we He hit that one tomorrow or in the interview. Right metabolism. Hmm. Just just at a basic level even if you don't go into proof-of-work. He really kind of focuses on proof of work in this article, but Bitcoin consumes electricity just to stay alive. I'm like all of the nodes all of the cells run on just you know, electrical infrastructure. I'm just like all of our cells run on glucose or metabolizing our food every node May. Teens its normal operation by being plugged into the wall. So but when you add in the crazy Dynamic of mining when you start talking about proof of work, it did it in inners introduces an entirely new level where I love the analogy of the heartbeat, or maybe maybe it's respiration. Maybe it's breath that's giving it power and builds these defenses around its internal code and rules. And that is another one. We hit quite a bit in the interview. So I'll just go ahead and cut that one there to hear to we definitely talked about how its Cellular in nature and GG kind of hits that I mean, I've talked nothing about but about cells this whole time here. But it's also kind of neat to see that like there are various roles played in the network and the some of these some of these roles can be split up almost like decentralized organs. So to speak where one doesn't have to take the entire rules or the entire architecture of the Bitcoin system and recreate it. They can they can specialize in one specific rule a great example would be minors that do not validate and It doesn't really make the system than any less secure and like a grand way because the nodes will still reject. The miners will still if they produce an invalid block that block will be rejected from the network. So right back to stop in the crypts invalid blocks need not apply the whole impenetrable Fortress of validation. It's it is the it is the cells that will continue to make sure all all data that is entered into the system is is validated across this entire body that foreign objects are evicted essentially and it's also it's also kind of important that Bitcoin not do too much like like the The Avenues to interact with Bitcoin not do too much outside of the realm of that. Verification process of the the cells themselves because any of those actions become vulnerable to being poisoned or corrupted by outside influences. So when we talk about like SPV wallets or light wallets, which do not actually do the entire verification process. They just asked information of other nodes. They trust other nodes to do it for them or centralized third parties where you're just relying on that institution to do this for you. These are extensions of the Point and they are vulnerable to new attack vectors. This is why you have to run a node. It keeps Bitcoin healthy and ensures that all of this symbiotic activity can operate compatibly and therefore it can't poison the host. It can't be poison the community and ecosystem that is interacting with it. So the more nodes the better in that sense. And then Lastly lastly, it's responsive and Bitcoin without question. I mean, it is run and Maintained by human cells that are incentivized to keep this thing active and healthy and developers respond like an immune system by repairing any DNA that gets exploited. Like when if the code ever finds an exploit a vulnerability from external influence or maybe Ellen corrupted data, the essence of Bitcoin immediately comes back into the Forefront and that DNA is corrected in fact back in 13 I think was the one where they rolled back from .8 back to version .7 it was one of the most intense and exciting like seven or eight hours to watch. This unfold is the entire Community just figured out. Okay, what which client do I need to download? What do I didn't need to do? It was such an fascinating decentralized organization that corrected this mistake in the DNA. And kept Bitcoin as one organism rather than splitting it up rather than having this huge bifurcation in the network to essentially split it into two two incompatible organisms. so and not only that though, like even from the code perspective the community and note operators are working to evict any any external data or invalid data and we've even it's even funny it's extended into the social culture that we've developed a strong culture about calling out anything that even appears to be incompatible in its essence or some sort of a threat to bitcoin or Or our crypto economy is that the the constant claims of everyone being all Bitcoin maximalist being toxic show just how strong that incentive is for Behavior to defend Bitcoin against adversaries and it's not anything that isn't explicitly adhering to the essence of a Bitcoin both at The Ledger the code the data level and even the ecosystem and the infrastructure level. It's immediately dismissed or called out. It does not live a very quick. It does not live a long life in the presence of the Bitcoin organism. So, oh man, there's so much more to explore here, but I should probably just don't want to go on too long and there are so many more awesome ideas and Concepts that we get into with Gigi today's author and then also Brandon quidam with so much to share about the connection between between Bitcoin and like fungi like mycelial networks. So I think we're just going to close. I'm going to close here. I hope I hope you enjoyed this awesome piece. I'm going to drop all the links in the show notes. Do not forget to follow their GG on medium drop some massive Applause on this piece and share it out to everybody, you know because this is such a fascinating idea, but I will catch you all back here tomorrow with the crypto. Our interview with Brandon quidam and rgg another exciting episode of the crypto economy. So the we're at a fork in the road in history and in maybe I guess you could say the digital age and I think we have really seem to have two possible Futures one where we lose all privacy where and it's you know, some of these things are looking gloomy. You know, we've got China social credit system where you know, we have all these centralized networks that put us at the mercy of authorities that Side in cater information to what they want us to think or that what they think even that we would want to think I want to be exposed to new ideas. I don't want to be stuck in an echo chamber and where information is restricted. Where are all economic exchange of it. All goes through a third-party It's all permissioned where surveillance is the default and we lose our autonomy in this in this cyber world. World that where there are so many possibilities where it doesn't have to be that way. And then there's another future there's another one where privacy could actually be returned to us as the default where sovereignty cannot be challenged by the greatest army in the world, but that our Shields are built out of math and our ownership is not that is not determined by some corrupt political process, but an unbiased protocol where Liberty is the default not scrambled for at the edges. Is of the economy and this is where you will find the latter. This is where you will find the discussion all the best writing and all the incredible technology that will put us on that second path. It's I think it's Our obligation to be good stewards of this Bitcoin organism and to learn all the ways in which we can protect it from every possible adversary that would wish to push us back toward the former path. So run a node Stacks at And listen to the crypto economy. Thank you so much for joining me. I am guy Swan and until next time take it easy guys.
"Ralph Merkle... made the argument that Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. In this article series, I intend to take this claim seriously, explore it further, and see what can be gleaned from viewing Bitcoin as a living organism." Today we read and discuss the first part of a promising new series from Bitcoin enthusiast and author @DerGigi, titled "Proof of Life." It will be the perfect precursor to tomorrow's interview with @Dergigi and @bquittem all about the nature of Bitcoin's decentralized organism! You will hate yourself if you miss this one! Drop some serious applause on the article over at Gigi's Medium page, and don't forget to follow him on Twitter as well: https://medium.com/@dergigi/proof-of-life-fa28fdc002fe  For more great content on this same line of thought, Quittem's Mycelium series provides brilliant accompaniment, start with Part 1 below: Original: https://medium.com/@BrandonQuittem/bitcoin-is-a-decentralized-organism-mycelium-part-1-3-6ec58cdcfaa6 Audio: https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_201---Bitcoin-is-a-Decentralized-Organism---Mycelium-Part-1-e2sarg  A shout out to our newest patron, Coley Wommack!! If you would like to join us in the Cryptoconomy Crew Telegram Group, become a patron and help support my work at turning every brilliant piece of literature around Bitcoin and the Cryptoconomy into the audiobook version it deserves!! Love you guys! 