The Emperor [money, governments, art] has no clothes

One reason crypto makes people so uncomfortable is how surgically it mocks culturally constructed value. “How can Bitcoin be worth anything if it’s not backed by anything?” goes the boomer refrain. This triggers a chorus of jeers from Bitcoiners who point (or post memes) at the US Dollar’s lack of “real” value (at least since Nixon nixed the gold standard in 1973). And while it is true that the dollar is backed by a $1 trillion a year military (almost double the operating expenses of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple combined) Bitcoin is backed by bulletproof cryptography.

One is “backed” by guns, the other code. But the truth is, neither is backed by anything and Bitcoin puts a magnifying glass over this startling fact. Bitcoin distills money down its barest form by answering the question: “what is money, fundamentally?” with a distributed ledger shared by millions but controlled by no one.