Betting on the future.
In my opinion, the distinction between Bitcoin and Crypto is that they both represent two very different bets about the future.
The Bitcoin bet is that humanity has finally stumbled upon a tool that enables us to govern ourselves and manage resources in a way that benefits everyone peacefully. It’s the optimistic wager that we’ve built a digital commons sturdy enough to support a new era of liberty, prosperity, and cooperation. It’s optimistic, perhaps even a little starry-eyed.
The Crypto bet, by contrast, is more like playing a high-stakes game of musical chairs- only the chairs are tokens, the music is hype, and you’re hoping to sit down before the floor disappears. You’re betting that the dream, narrative, or use-case of the “next Bitcoin” will last just long enough for you to find a chair (and a profitable exit) before the music stops. Unless you’re the one who started the game and can front-run everyone else, predicting the collective whims of millions of people on the internet is a fool’s errand. And with over 20,000 “projects” out there, picking a winner seems less like investing and more like selecting a winning lottery ticket based on its font. And yet, here I am, writing this paper.
The Optimist’s Bet: A Digital Foundation for Humanity.
So, why the optimism? I’d argue that Bitcoin is a bet on our species’ ability to use this new digital commons to build something better. I see it as the foundation for a new way to coexist peacefully, providing both liberty and prosperity. Bitcoin’s open nature and the open layers being built around it (Lightning, Liquid, Cashu, Fedimint, and countless others) make it possible for teams worldwide to invent new ways of exchanging value and ideas. Because Bitcoin and its growing ecosystem of layers (like Lightning and others) are open and permissionless, countless builders are creating tools to exchange value and information in novel ways. This isn’t just about money; it’s a breeding ground for new forms of organization.
This creates fertile ground for rethinking governance and resource management. Instead of a society that forces us to trim our humanity to fit some idealized mold of a “good citizen,” we might get a society that embraces the messy, creative, and unpredictable nature of being human—and builds systems that serve people, not the other way around.
No stupid ideas
This brings me to the concept of “No Stupid Ideas.” Here, “stupid” doesn’t mean unintelligent; it means impractical, impossible, or hilariously cost-ineffective. An illustrative example is the concept of human flying. For millennia, humans have known flying was possible. All you would have to do is go outside and see the different species of birds, insects, and mammals that fly. Most of the early concepts were, in hindsight, ridiculous (flapping wings made of wood, anyone?). However, the willingness to pursue those seemingly “stupid” ideas eventually led to the development of airplanes.
Disclaimer: My personal opinion is that a vast majority of the crypto space is, frankly, a festival of the fantastically silly. But that’s precisely its value. Most people should avoid crypto unless they fully understand the risk and are comfortable losing all the “investments” they make.
Since most ideas are destined to be “stupid,” we need a designated sandbox where they can be tried with real money and real consequences. This, in my view, is the unironically brilliant case for the crypto ecosystem. It’s an innovation thunderdome – a low-friction, high-experimentation zone where thousands of ideas are born, most of them will spectacularly fail, and a precious few might actually stick.
Naturally, this attracts charlatans and grifters like a picnic attracts ants. This is not a bug; it’s a feature of any unregulated space with real capital. We should reframe how we see it: Crypto is the world’s most chaotic, expensive, and entertaining filter for good ideas. The ones that survive its gauntlet and prove genuinely useful will naturally migrate and find a more stable home within the broader Bitcoin ecosystem.
So while I personally think crypto is, broadly speaking, stupid – I also think stupidity is underrated. Humanity needs a sandbox where people can burn capital experimenting with bad ideas. Crypto is that sandbox. And the survivors of that wild ecosystem? Those are the ideas worth paying attention to.
So let the experiments run wild! Let people chase the next shiny thing. We’re not just gambling; we’re funding collective R&D for the future, one admittedly stupid idea at a time.
Closing Thought
Bitcoin is a serious bet: that humanity can govern itself more peacefully through a digital commons. Crypto is the silly, chaotic side quest: a giant filter for half-baked ideas, scams, and the occasional gem. Both have a role.
Because in the end, progress often starts with stupid ideas—and sometimes, the stupid ones turn out to be brilliant.