Courting Bitcoin

Jon Gulson
Published in
2 min readSep 11, 2019

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The real bitcoin is a matter for linguistics even if Satoshi Nakamoto explicitly defined the valid chain as the one with greatest proof-of-work invested, which grows the fastest and outpaces competing chains.

In introducing proof of work, bitcoin uses a system similar to Adam Back’s Hashcash. Satoshi explains this solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making which itself is represented by the longest chain.

Satoshi’s Quasi-Legalese in Bitcoin

The difficulty adjustment in bitcoin is presented as compensating the network, which works on a best effort basis, so that the one-CPU-one-vote means the moving average keeps Bitcoin stable as a self contained equitable system, which can’t be subverted in the way it could [should] the majority be based on one-IP-address-one-vote.

This draws parallels with real time justice and democratic decision making in respect of trust, giving bitcoin a relevance:

Satoshi speaks early in the introductory paper about transaction reversals, mediation, and the inevitability of fraud, that it’s suggested bitcoin could have been designed as a litigation index or standard — and where the first bitcoin enterprises were exchanges, that sovereign fiat translation to bitcoin meant a court could use [bitcoin] as the basis for restitution in upheld actions and dispute resolution, but that moreover, and in such an event, the sparking of a general hedge [at large] would make the law itself optional, in the way difficulty adjustment compensates the bitcoin network.

Bitcoin Can’t be Bitcoin

There is some discussion around the features and attributes of bitcoin as a money:

And there is also some discussion around an “Ideal Money”:

And the ongoing actions:

With the limits of modern logic:

Out of which a new kind of contribution is beginning to emerge, making sense and flow of the mental bottlenecks around the advent of this technology:

Placing itself somewhere in the middle of the multitudes:

The only place bitcoin can be bitcoin is at its computational base settlement, where principals aren’t verbalising a language game. On top of this, normal service resumes in respect of the law and language — a scaling insight alluding the world in respect of the play Satoshi created: the economics might be latent in bitcoin, but they are not causal.

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