EP 012: Why do you have to call it a 'Citadel'?
Or, RW remembers that most of his family has no idea what Bitcoin is or does.
You’re most surprised when you don’t expect it.
I recall the above lesson from a recent conversation with a family member.
I was talking about building a ‘Bitcoin Citadel’ and there was an odd suspicion in their demeanor that confused me.
You see, in their mind I wasn’t talking about a Bitcoin Citadel as experiment in self, family, and community sovereignty, tempered by the values of Bitcoin, but instead was laying some kind of nefarious groundwork for outright governmental attack, political posturing, and of course, many hours of tactical LARPing in a wood near you.
To be honest, I was surprised and saddened that the disconnect was so large.
Much like the surprise Bruce Willis felt at the end of The Sixth Sense, finding out he was dead the whole time, I was surprised I had missed such a critical piece of information, especially from family, the people you want to feel most on the same page with!
The term ‘Bitcoin Citadel’
In this person’s mind, it was just another data point in the obviously seedy and criminal underworld that was Bitcoin.
You know, Bitcoin, the supporter of terrorism? Launderer of money? Boiler of oceans?
I (and you) have heard these critiques in time and have taken time to assess their validity. (SPOILER: Chainalysis research predicts sub 1% illicit transaction usage. Turns out it’s better to commit crimes with money that doesn’t live on a public and auditable ledger with an immutable chain of custody.)
These critiques fail under the slightest understanding of Bitcoin as a protocol and the incentives it generates, but I am reminded that not everyone has the time or interest to research these things, so misinformation reigns.
After extended conversation and debunking, one point seemed to be stuck in this persons mind.
Why do you have to call it a Citadel?
To be honest, I hadn’t thought much of the term.
In their mind, a Citadel is a military establishment, meant for conducting war.
In my mind, it was strictly metaphorical and meant as a cultural bastion.
I treated the term Citadel, like many phrases in the bitcoin ecosystem (i.e. HODL, stack, the Bart Pattern, BGD, NgU) as a term of art, something recognizable you could tweet to talk about what is happening today in Bitcoin-land and be understood.
The term implies some future physical location or state of being that operates as the instantiation of hard money policies in everyday life. A response to modernity and her fiat failures.
Soft money policies? Not in the Citadel.
Heavily processed foods and seed oils? Not in the Citadel.
Deception and use of state sanctioned violence? Not in the Citadel.
Soft bodies and soft minds? Not in the Citadel.
In this sense a Bitcoin Citadel holds at least three distinct interpretations.
There is the physical place, whether homestead, ranch, or simply your primary residence.
There is the community space, where Bitcoiners come together to socialize. This could be your local Bitcoin meetup or a few bitcoiners out on a camping trip together.
There is the hard money ideal, where Bitcoiners address the woes of fiat culture and invoke the Citadel as a hard money response.
In all cases, the concept of the Citadel hearkens to the values of Bitcoin, and applies them to the existing political, social, and economic spheres. This concept is in no way completely articulated, and I believe the burden is on us, the Bitcoiners who talk about building a Bitcoin Citadel, to fully clarify our meaning.
As we watch our politicians print inconceivable amounts of money out of thin air, as we watch our shipping rates creep up due to supply chain instability, and as we watch our grocery bills rise ever higher, the concept of the Bitcoin Citadel becomes more and more relevant to families and communities who seek stability and self sovereignty.
It’s our task to share it with them.
I hope you enjoyed this update!
I hope you’re excited to build your own Citadel (or are actively in the process of learning and building). It would mean a lot for you to subscribe to this newsletter and share it with those who you believe can benefit.
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